It seems that the loot boxes have seriously damaged the reputation of Apex Legends and Respawn personally. The studio was criticized for the fact that cosmetics in the new event fell out only from boxes with loot.
Together with the Iron Crown event (“Iron Crown”), the following system came into play:
- 24 out of 30 new skins were hidden in loot boxes: cosmetics for characters and weapons, musical themes, banners;
- each loot box is guaranteed to contain the skin of the event, duplicates do not fall out;
- one loot box costs 700 Apex coins*;
- you can get only two loot boxes for free by completing two special game achievements;
- it was impossible to purchase skins in any other way;
- also, a unique event axe appeared in the game. You can get it by collecting all 24 items and additionally paying 3,500 Apex coins.
* Apex Coins — in-game currency purchased for real. 1000 coins cost 750 rubles.
By introducing this system, Respawn violated their own rule. Previously, they proudly stated that no item in Apex Legends would be exclusive to the loot box, VentureBeat reported.
The Iron Crown event started on August 13. Since that day, the studio has received hundreds of negative reviews about the new type of monetization.
Against the background of frequent scandals over loot boxes, it was easiest to blame the publisher of the game, that is, Electronic Arts, for what happened. But there is a nuance. Respawn constantly states that EA is practically not involved in the work on Apex Legends and does not influence the decisions of the team. It turns out that the new monetization system is an initiative of Respawn itself.
In the end, the studio gave in. She announced that from August 20 to 27, several skins from Iron Crown will be available every two days in the Apex store.
We heard you and spent a lot of time this week discussing your feedback, future innovations and changes in Iron Crown. In the first days after the release of Apex Legends, we promised users an honest and open monetization system in which the choice will always be yours. By launching Iron Crown, we unwittingly broke our word.
However, Respawn’s problems did not end there. After the announcement above, a discussion started on Reddit between the developers and some — still unhappy — fans. In this conversation, lead developer Drew McCoy spoke unflatteringly about the community, including this: “I’ve been in the industry for quite a long time and found times when players weren’t complete assholes in relation to igrodel.” This comment by McCoy was hushed up by 3,000 users. The next one (also offensive) is already 5000.
To date, the developer has not apologized and stands firm on his own.
Also on the topic: