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Apex Legends developers spark outrage after calling gamers “dicks”, “ass-hats”and “freeloaders”
- Thread starter lush
- Start date
I think I missed something— what did the fans do that was vile?
as far as I know, they didnt accept respawns apology because respawn knew exactly what they were doing.
It's not weird, it's working for them. Constantly pointing at the bad apples to never adress the point that is actually being made by everyone else. Get's you easy points with the "gamers are scum" crowd.
That's correct. According to their "research" the percentage of people buying your cosmetics doesn't go up even if they drop the price, because freeloaders gonna freeload. Remember the skins might be $18, but you can't buy it for $18 outright. You have to buy the $20 pack first, so their actual price is $20.
I'll post what I've said in the OT:
[POST #1]
It's a bold move that in conjunction with your "you will be able to buy them for £15.99 now!!!" apology that you log on to the internet and then call people asshats, freeloaders, and dicks. I mean Reddit can be roiling shit, but if your job is Community Manager and you're stoking the flames with "reading comprehension" snark instead of just riding out the tough week, you've officially lost all ability to do your job going forward. That's not going back in the box, thats there now when you interact with your freeloaders.
The thing with the metrics on the store is that The Store Is Completely Shit, so any data gleaned from having one random skin with like 20% off its GIANT £15.99 PRICE TAG is not exactly gonna be the best. Especially when theres no fanfare on whats on sale, you're just expected to check the underwhelming store of 5 items every day and hope that One Of The Good Skins is up and you feel like finger blasting £12 on it. Things like Finishers have never been available on the store. They're unbuyable, Jerry! UNBUYABLE.
That they're still sticking with whatever their MTX designer is telling them is crazy after almost their entire base was enraged by their shenanigans last week. They just can't accept that the numbers have all been out of whack from the very start, and its the children that are wrong. Oh and perhaps not a good look for the health of the game to admit paying numbers are really low and that whale exploitation was gonna be the plan. Who are the "dicks" and "asshats" in that situation?
Beyond the people making the actual shootbang mechanics, they're not very good over at Respawn are they? They seem to make the most amateur level mistakes and decisions constantly that its baffling. EA must be consistently facepalming, which is saying something when they themselves fuck up consistently.
[POST #2]
(in response to it all being based on microenomic model data)
Its taking some microeconomics mathmatical model and applying it to a store where one single grody ass character skin is up for a week at £12.99, not £15.99, flanked by 4 shit gun skins, and trying to pretend the purity of the numbers alone should defend their wise choices.
What they've not done yet (but feels on the tip of their tongue) is point to Siege or Fortnite and say "we're just doing that, why aren't you buying!", ignoring the fact those games have more desirable skins and enamoured users. Instead they've pissed their base off in each Battle Pass and are now actively warring with them! If the numbers have been shit this entire time, they stubbornly decided to double down and assume people would find those skins worth it 'eventually'? Thats the kind of maniac you don't want calling the shots on your free-to-play game. You have to roll with the punches and change shit within the week, not three quarters of a year later.
Apex has a content production speed problem, progression problems, large network problems, and now a huge community communication problem. Might as well add a political opinions mode at this point.
[POST #1]
It's a bold move that in conjunction with your "you will be able to buy them for £15.99 now!!!" apology that you log on to the internet and then call people asshats, freeloaders, and dicks. I mean Reddit can be roiling shit, but if your job is Community Manager and you're stoking the flames with "reading comprehension" snark instead of just riding out the tough week, you've officially lost all ability to do your job going forward. That's not going back in the box, thats there now when you interact with your freeloaders.
The thing with the metrics on the store is that The Store Is Completely Shit, so any data gleaned from having one random skin with like 20% off its GIANT £15.99 PRICE TAG is not exactly gonna be the best. Especially when theres no fanfare on whats on sale, you're just expected to check the underwhelming store of 5 items every day and hope that One Of The Good Skins is up and you feel like finger blasting £12 on it. Things like Finishers have never been available on the store. They're unbuyable, Jerry! UNBUYABLE.
That they're still sticking with whatever their MTX designer is telling them is crazy after almost their entire base was enraged by their shenanigans last week. They just can't accept that the numbers have all been out of whack from the very start, and its the children that are wrong. Oh and perhaps not a good look for the health of the game to admit paying numbers are really low and that whale exploitation was gonna be the plan. Who are the "dicks" and "asshats" in that situation?
Beyond the people making the actual shootbang mechanics, they're not very good over at Respawn are they? They seem to make the most amateur level mistakes and decisions constantly that its baffling. EA must be consistently facepalming, which is saying something when they themselves fuck up consistently.
[POST #2]
(in response to it all being based on microenomic model data)
Its taking some microeconomics mathmatical model and applying it to a store where one single grody ass character skin is up for a week at £12.99, not £15.99, flanked by 4 shit gun skins, and trying to pretend the purity of the numbers alone should defend their wise choices.
What they've not done yet (but feels on the tip of their tongue) is point to Siege or Fortnite and say "we're just doing that, why aren't you buying!", ignoring the fact those games have more desirable skins and enamoured users. Instead they've pissed their base off in each Battle Pass and are now actively warring with them! If the numbers have been shit this entire time, they stubbornly decided to double down and assume people would find those skins worth it 'eventually'? Thats the kind of maniac you don't want calling the shots on your free-to-play game. You have to roll with the punches and change shit within the week, not three quarters of a year later.
Apex has a content production speed problem, progression problems, large network problems, and now a huge community communication problem. Might as well add a political opinions mode at this point.
Yeah, that freeloader comment is rich coming from devs that design aggressive monetization to hook players into addictive behavior and overspending. I'm not excusing people for attacking devs, but the devs got to know by now that they will get reactions like this when they put egregious forms of monetization in their games. The moderators of that subreddit got to moderate better, and developers got to do better at communicating, because I'm highly skeptical at some of the claims the devs were making.
Okay, since you responded in good faith, I can at least do the same.
My original point was really that feel like there are a group of people who intentionally needle developers to get them to slip up and say something bad or mean, and then use that as additional ammunition on their crusade. I don't mean to downplay the concerns here, or to imply that the people with legitimate complaints are wrong.
I think the problem is that it's hard to ignore toxic idiots when you're the developer. Especially now, in the age of social media and Reddit and at a time when people are rightfully calling for greater transparency and communication in video games, it's harder to just ignore all the people who are assholes. For one, there are a lot of them. They form brigades easily. They can and will target games they don't even necessarily care that much about just to advance an ideological agenda (see: Ooblets and EGS). Then contrast that with people who, by the nature of their jobs, HAVE to keep lines of communication open to talk to their audience and keep them up to date. Especially if you're frontlines PR, you can't just close your DMs and your inbox. And even if you managed to do THAT, you'd still have to read Reddit and forums and Twitter to make sure you're taking in all the legitimate conversation surrounding your game.
That means that it's pretty likely that people working on games are going to have to read a certain amount of bullshit; it's unavoidable. And a couple of comments a week telling you what a shithead you are is probably easy to ignore. But roll out stuff like what Apex Legends did, and suddenly that's not a couple of comments, it's a flood.
We need a better way of handling this sort of thing. Is the current Apex Legends event over the line when it comes to abusive monetization? Yeah, probably. Is their most recent attempt to fix it sufficient? Jury's out. But there has to be a way to communicate this that doesn't immediately result in a portion of the audience going scorched earth. And it happens every time. Developers are just people too.
I know if I were in their place, I'd probably handle it even worse than that developer on Reddit. And I suppose that's fair if you want to say that would make me unfit for the job, but we're asking developers to not only be good at their programming or art or whatever jobs, we're also asking them to essentially take on the protective armor you'd normally associate with low-level celebrity. Not everyone needs or wants that kind of baggage, and increasingly it's a requirement of the job.
That reflects badly on you and how you view your customers. It doesn't matter if your original intent was to only target that type of player.
Honestly I think it's just a mixture of things. The tone a lot of the loudest people take taint the conversation. You go on Reddit and see that a lot of dev posts are downvoted into the hundreds of negatives and lots of responses that aren't all that reasonable and the reasonable people are drowned out. Mix that in with some of the more unreasonable responses to things like Fl4K's nonbinary identity, BFV's tantrum over women and minorities (and BF1 to a lesser extent) and people start feeling disconnected with the community. That's where you start to see things like "GamersTM" coming from. Some users see the gaming community as always operating in hyperbole and it's tiring. I think that's a lot of what people are responding to here.
Did you read the same reddit thread I did? Cherry picking? Really?
Because gamers as a whole do fucking suck. People here aren't siding with Respawn's pricing model. People are siding with their take that the way people treat them when they don't like something is appalling and it fucking is.
it seems like you are, at best, choosing not to read or understand what i'm saying. so, have a good one!
I mean you have to be some hyper capitalist to work for EA so that would only fit.
I probably wouldn't have said something like that but it's the truth. The way I see people talk to and about developers even here about stuff that's ultimately just videogames is disgusting.
We're taught to take it on the chin where I work though.
We're taught to take it on the chin where I work though.
Genuinely feel the same way so it's likely just misunderstanding, you too.
Sorry but the title is misleading, the dick word for example was addressed to a specific person, not gamers as a whole. I avoid EA and imo they are in the wrong, the monetization in their games is absurd and they deserve the bad publish.
But let's not get carried away and spread lies.
But let's not get carried away and spread lies.
Though call but reading that I'd say respawn is in the right.
Throwing a tantrum because you believe a skin is too expensive in a F2P game is childish. I don't have an issue with a game dev responding in an informal way to such claims.
Throwing a tantrum because you believe a skin is too expensive in a F2P game is childish. I don't have an issue with a game dev responding in an informal way to such claims.
Oh, I didn't been weird for devs to point out the bad apples. I mean weird that people seem content to take a small number of (and let me reiterate - still completely unacceptable) posts and view that as the entire "gamer side" of the argument/issue being pointed out by the community or something.
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Telling a forum full of unsatisfied consumers that they're freeloading dicks is just pathetic, unprofessional, and sad. Those posts have thousands of downvotes and is trending on Reddit now. So anyone not even involved will see him being a dickhead and view Respawn unfavorably.
Respawn don't deserve to be defended here. Just because some of the gaming community is toxic does not mean Respawn is in the right. It doesn't work that way.
if you're someone whose closest relationship to this game is "I've played it sometimes," and you're arguing that their data (which you haven't seen) is bad, their MTX strategy (which you do not know) is not working, and their numbers (which you have no idea of) could be improved, I would really love to know why you think you have absolutely any clue what you're talking about
It totally is. No point trying to argue with people saying otherwise.
How are people defending the developers?! I dont care what provoked it, those are some very unprofessional replies. A lot of people have valid complaints towards their game right now, and they pretty much referred to all of them as "dicks", "ass-hats" and "freeloaders"
Me too. With F2P games I would pay a maximum of 3 euros for one cosmetic item. But they don't exist so I will continue to freeload thank you very much.
Where does he call them freeloading dicks? I remember him calling them freeloaders because they don't spend money on the game and one commenter a dick.
The only generalized insult was gamers not being asshats to devs and that's very much true.
It's just the mentality of gamers = toxic. In some cases, sure, that's on point but not here in my opinion. I mean we're talking about a game that's trying to charge upwards of $200 to complete a single in game event. They deserve to be checked here.
I mean if you want to be precise here they said "I remember when gamers werent ass hats", someone responds, "oh, here is one of those dicks I was talking about". So obviously "ass hats" and "dicks" are interchangeable in the broader context here. They are calling everyone dicks, so lets not split hairs over "they only called everyone ass hats"
Ya know, I do remember a time when people weren't assholes to each other. It was when we couldn't communicate that easily through online that things went so well. Any Joe Schmoe can go online and a jerk now.
Now we have devs and gamers cursing each other out. What a time to be alive. Back in the days, we'd be happy receiving a written/typed letter back from a developer if we were lucky enough.
The internet was a mistake.
Now we have devs and gamers cursing each other out. What a time to be alive. Back in the days, we'd be happy receiving a written/typed letter back from a developer if we were lucky enough.
The internet was a mistake.
User Banned (3 days): Hostility, history of similar infractions
Nothing idiotic about that. Let's call a spade a spade here. If you work for EA, you are part of the problem.
The inherent problem with dev hate is that unless we are talking like someone in a position of authority in development, most devs don't make the decisions gamers don't like. Monetization is not usually something devs love. It's a reality forced onto them by management or a publisher.
Do you think most devs wanted to make paid skins, or grindy content, or incredibly predatory monetization schemes? Most want to make a game. Not only that, but most love games with a passion. Otherwise, why would they stay in an industry that underpays and undervalues its labor so much?
Do you think most devs wanted to make paid skins, or grindy content, or incredibly predatory monetization schemes? Most want to make a game. Not only that, but most love games with a passion. Otherwise, why would they stay in an industry that underpays and undervalues its labor so much?
Yes? I've been on that subreddit several times this week. Most posts are completely reasonable and just pointing out displeasure. Some, like in the OP, are trash and should be pointed out as trash. But the overall sentiment of the people complaining is not in any way unreasonable and it's in-fact a good thing that people are willing to point out when they are unhappy with something that a dev is doing (imo).
Even if you don't agree that it's anti-consumer, people pointing out that they think something is anti-consumer as a group is a good thing if done respectfully.
"Gamers as a whole fucking suck" just seems like such a disingenuous comment to me. Over 50% of all people who play video games suck? That just makes no sense at all. Allocating these (awful) posts to the entire community for a game (or the majority at least) just seems so disingenuous to me.
Predatory mtx that is designed to exploit addictive personalities is as toxic as it gets imo. That is what makes situations like this very difficult. Lives are actually ruined by bad mtx and I think what is most infuriating is that Respawn did this AFTER the BF2 debacle. It's like no lessons were learned at all. These companies have very few morals when in comes to exploiting their players with systems that are literally designed for addiction.
It sucks that there are losers out there that can't form an arguement and just call people names and harass devs because the people at the top of these exploitative companies use these harassing posts to shield themselves and alter the discussion all the while making bank on addicts.
I think the freeloader remark is totally unwarranted. They decided to make it free to play and finance it by ripping off whales. It is their business model to give the game for free to people to get vulnerable people hooked instead of selling the game for a fixed price. To then have the galls to complain about "freeloaders", i.e. people who followed their scheme but did not get hooked as whales is not unprofessional, it is unreflective of their own business model. The whole system is designed to profit off people who use the game for free, as well, by improving the player mass and therefore the amount of vulnerable people entering the business place. If all the free players were gone, their whales would be gone with them.
I see where you are coming from. Nevertheless I still think that it's not a good idea to bring such negative connotated terminology into a heated discussion.
I understand and see that a part of any community will always consist of toxic assholes. I just think that professionals should always stand above them and attack their ideas (where appropriate) but never the person or alternatively ignore them completely.
I thought that there was no adult in that room over there but i see that the cycle is being encouraged to continue
![[Sigma]](/data/avatar/31551380172/27345-m.jpg){kind=avatar}
Oh no, western devs acting like kamya has been acting from 2 decades now, and even if we all love his games, how dare them!!
So respawn made a game free-to-play, and when people played their game for free, they're "freeloaders"? I don't fucking get it anymore. Why not put a price tag on your game then?
