Having spent over 1,600 hours in Apex, I have watched meta after meta change, legends and weapons oppressing every corner of play, and a “vibrant” community that, while having its faults, is very passionate about the game they love. So, know that when I say this, I truly mean it: players should not be playing the game in its current state.
Throughout the gaming industry, consumers are becoming more complacent with micro transactions in their games to a disturbing amount. These can range from game-changing advantages(pay-to-win) to fun cosmetics to spend your money on. Apex has no pay-to-win micro transactions (unless you count crosshair differences, such as the Outlands Avalanche skin for the r-99, but this is too minor to increase performance.) but, the constant release of skins, new currencies, and events that can cost you hundreds of dollars has bled into the game so much that these once purely cosmetic items have caused a significant dip in the quality of the game.
The outrage around Respawn’s recent practices began at the recolor of the peacekeeper(PK) reactive skin, the “Jadeite Retribution”. This skin cost a staggering $160, and the community was rightfully upset, as no skin for a weapon, much less one that already existed, should cost that much money. Respawn listened, saying that in the future no weapon skin will be the primary focus of an event. They released a recolor of Wraith’s heirloom shortly after, and it was priced the same as the PK skin. Then the Final Fantasy event was released, costing $290 to complete. In comparison, you could buy ff14’s (the series MMORPG) online complete edition for $60 and have enough for a 1 year and 4 months subscription to the MMO for the same price.
All the items mentioned above are intended for the whales who are willing to spend their money on high-end goods, but what about the rest of the shop? What is the cheapest item? If you are to go right now and look, it would be the “Starter Store”, where if you own the legend, which only takes around 20 levels to get for free, the price comes out to 500 apex coins, or $5 for an epic skin and a weapon skin. Without the legend, however, it’d be 2000 apex coins, or $20. How about the cheapest legendary skin? As most of us are not shelling out our money for anything less than yellow-colored letters. For one skin, just one, the price comes out to $18.
The significance of this price is much more important than the previous ones. Companies adapt their charges based on community standards, ensuring maximum profit. The PK skin showed that people were not willing to shell out that much money for a reskin of just a weapon, the Wraith heirloom recolor however showed they would, with 4 heirloom recolors having been released since, meaning that it is more profitable to slap a new coat of paint on an heirloom than make new ones, as the last 5 out of 8 heirlooms have just been reskins. Going back to the minimum, the fact that it is $18 means that we are, on average, more than willing to buy skins regularly at that price point, but why?
I say we because until season 21; I was a part of the problem. Skins weren’t even the reason I quit. It was the complete lack of transparency and notice that is expected from Respawn. Near the end of season 20, I got my first heirloom pack, and I was so excited, but because I didn’t play one legend exclusively, I didn’t know who to get it for; I wished that the Universal heirlooms like the Final Fantasy sword were available to get value out of my shards on every champion. This wasn’t the case, and I decided to go with Loba. Season 21 comes around, and they release universal heirlooms.
No roadmap, nothing to say “Save your heirloom shards because we are releasing an heirloom that you can use on every champion.”, nothing. I was pretty upset with this, as I would have saved them for that season, but the cherry on top was the new type of currency added, the exotic shards. Seeing all this, and finally realizing that this level of greed was just too much, I quit on the first day of the season and didn’t look back, only re-downloading the game to research for this post. Then, when they decided they were splitting the battle pass into two parts, making each 60 levels, and would be the same price as a full 110-tier pass while having to pay actual cash? That is when I fully lost faith in the company, their greed always taking two steps forward, and when the community says no, they take a step back, say that they’ll change, and then sneakily, or sometimes proudly, take two more steps forward.
So the real question is, how many steps will it take for us all to realize that we deserve better than this? The apex community is becoming a frog in a pot of boiling water, the game we used to love is becoming over saturated with micro transactions while actual enjoyable content is few, and we are just accepting it when we really should jump out as soon as we can. A game whose cheapest legendary skin is a few dollars more than Stardew Valley is unfathomable, and I think more people need to realize just how far the greed of triple AAA companies has gone. If we don’t change how we consume video games, we will continue to be exploited until they become nothing more than making shareholders happy.
