The real insult to injury is that the game has been a technical catastrophe since the last major patch.
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Respawn Responds to Criticism of Apex Legends’ Iron Crown event
- Thread starter Woolley
- Start date
Do you min-max the value proposition for every purchase you make?
Who are you to mock someone's decision to spend money in a free game they play for hundreds of hours?
To be fair, I think $18 is not a completely reasonable price, but I wouldn't question another's intelligence for opting in.
I actually wonder who's actually buying relic packs at this point outside of the syndicate rep. They're far too easy to get and because of that, they're kind of over priced at 50p for one. Thats probably why they got rid of the random mod packs not too long ago, also far too easy to get those mods and most players who've been around for a while will just give you one if you ask for it. Depending on your team comp, you can get 4 - 5 relics in like 10 minutes playing on a good defense node.
Agreed.
I expect sales to be very slow at these prices. Ideally I think things priced in the "impulse purchase" range makes more sense. Making people hesitate or even recoil at sticker shock isn't a great way to drive sales. I guess we'll see...if they share some analytics with us, anyway.
After all these videos and discutions, it's still my answer. Just cosmetic, in a free game. They don't owe you nothing. Of it's in a paid game tho, that's unacceptable for me.
In general, Apex seems to be a low priority for Respawn.
Whereas Epic restructured nearly everything around Fortnite, Respawn has 3-4 active AAA projects in development.
Respawn adds content to the game like twice a quarter, whereas Fortnite updates are ??weekly??
I complain because I love the game, and wish it got more love from Respawn
Yeah blame fortnite. Heck some skins are even more expensive.
Btw great Dr Strange(?) avatar.
And I'd play that expansion for an hour or two before getting bored and quitting...
Or I could buy a skin that I could wear for 100s of hours while I play a game that I enjoy.
Nah the skin is definitely a better deal.
And that's your right but acting like cosmetics don't impact the game and peoples experience with it just because it's free is silly in my opinion. There's also this weird strawman I've been seeing that anyone that is complaining about excessive monetisation in free to play games just want everything for free (not saying you're doing this specifically but I've seen it quite a bit in similar threads and discussions). Cosmetics are a big part of multiplayer games for me personally and I'm more than willing to pay for them as long as they're not ridiculously monetised.
Yeah, as you say that's not what I mean here. And I know some people play for cosmetics and it's part of the experience for them, no problem with that. But I can excuse 18$ skins as it funds a free game and does not impact the balance of gameplay. I'm just salty this is already in the dna of paid solo games too now.
Problem remains. The cosmetic skins are not unimportant to the gullible people who drop hundreds on them.
The entire marketplace from the lootboxes to the 18 dollar skins are ways to exploit people who can't help themselves. So while most people say "it doesn't affect me" they're right. But it is targeted at different people than YOU.
You should care because it's is a system that was put in place to go after these gullible people. They're targets.
Please retire "It's just cosmetic." from your vocab.
I honestly can't believe the extremely high number of people on this site that play the "it doesn't hurt me" card
The entire marketplace from the lootboxes to the 18 dollar skins are ways to exploit people who can't help themselves. So while most people say "it doesn't affect me" they're right. But it is targeted at different people than YOU.
You should care because it's is a system that was put in place to go after these gullible people. They're targets.
Please retire "It's just cosmetic." from your vocab.
I honestly can't believe the extremely high number of people on this site that play the "it doesn't hurt me" card
Yup Fortnite established that is "acceptable", so it's on them.
And yes, it is Doctor Strange :)
I'm not going to defend the 18-20$ prices of (Legendary, so the most expensive kind) skins in Apex and Fort, but in Fort it's not that black and white. When you buy the Battle Pass (950 vBucks, which is close to $10 and nets you a lot of cosmetics), you get 1500 vBucks in return if you get to tier ~95 (out of 100), which is easily doable every season. So if you play a season, that's a 5 bucks discount on your next purchase. Besides that, if you own Save the World, you get 150 or 300 vBucks a week just from logging in every day. So yeah, 2000 vBucks = 20$ when you buy it with your mother's creditcard, sure, but there are in-game ways to get get vBucks for less money or even free.
I don't think Apex has this model though. I believe the currency you buy with real money is a different currency than the one you get in the Battle Pass/in Loot Boxes/in-game, but I could be wrong here. It's been a while since I last played the game.
Iirc games like DOTA 2 and LoL have been selling skins for prices like these for way longer than Fortnite/Apex though. I remember a friend of mine back in the day being ecstatic because he was able to trade a very expensive DOTA 2 skin for some of his other loot.
I don't think Apex has this model though. I believe the currency you buy with real money is a different currency than the one you get in the Battle Pass/in Loot Boxes/in-game, but I could be wrong here. It's been a while since I last played the game.
Iirc games like DOTA 2 and LoL have been selling skins for prices like these for way longer than Fortnite/Apex though. I remember a friend of mine back in the day being ecstatic because he was able to trade a very expensive DOTA 2 skin for some of his other loot.
Some interesting quotes from the devs.
I personally don't mind spending $20 on a skin here and there. I mean the game was free and I dumped over 100+ hours into it already. But that's just me.
I personally don't mind spending $20 on a skin here and there. I mean the game was free and I dumped over 100+ hours into it already. But that's just me.
But the market allows it, what's Respawn supposed to do leave money on the table?
wish games went back to this. part of the reason i hate f2p is they focus alot on releasing cosmetics and junk but new maps and characters come out so slowly. would rather have had a paid BR that releases with more maps, characters and cosmetics that you can earn for doing cool in game stuff so it means something. but the game industry knows people care way too much about how they look so just cater to that.
But what makes you more apt to set a companies pricing structure for them? At what point are you more qualified to deem the value of someone else's creation?
It's weird to place this superficial idea of what you think something SHOULD be priced at. I'm all for calling out dirty business practices, but trying to imply what price is most reasonable in a f2p game is always a bit presumptuous.
I am not buying anything until they cost $2.99 or less each and I'm guaranteed to get what I buy, no loot box.
You earn enough currency by getting to level 100 each season to buy the battle pass each season. It's the same coin you buy in the store. I think you earn 1000 per season.
Cause it's smart business? Gotta have the character first for a player to be interested in skins for it.
So you make the entry point cheaper so they might pay more later.
An individual can obviously only speak for the individual. It's their right to set their pricing structure and it's my right to express my personal agreement or disagreement, I'm obviously not trying to set their prices or pricing structure, I have neither the data, the power or the right to do so.
Also notice that I haven't stated anywhere what I consider "ridiculously monetised". In this case I refuse to play or purchase anything with loot boxes or analogous systems due to my own issues with gambling addiction, so I would consider that to be ridiculously monetised for me personally but I never stated or implied that I find $18 to be the right or wrong price, again, in my OPINION for a skin. It's obviously the market standard, just look at Fortnite and how much it's raking in with similarly priced cosmetics. I'm curious how you feel it's presumptuous though? As an example, Is saying that I want to buy a skin in Apex but I can't afford $18 and wish it was lower "presumptuous"?. What a "reasonable" price constitutes changes from person to person from day to day.
the price you pay b/c people left the game, if a fuk ton of people stayed with the game the skin would be $13
I would.
It's $18, for a fucking skin.
This is why we are knee deep in this microtransaction garbage and these companies are getting more and more brazen with what they are pulling.
Screw these companies for doing this and screw anyone who supports these practices.
Fortnite has 250 million players. That's a lot of people to screw.
I think the objections to the high prices go away if they simultaneously offered decent skins at a LOWER price point.
You know, like most games do.
League of Legends became a billion-dollar franchise on the back of skin sales. Their skins range from $3-$30. There are like 4 skins out of several hundred that approach $30 and maybe 20 that are $20. The average skin price is around $5-$7. And guess what? Engagement in the League of Legends MTX store is high as hell.
Fortnite is a game I continue to see mentioned because they also have $20 skins. These mentions seem hella disingenuous to me becasue Fortnite also has skins that regularly appear in their storefront rotation that are priced around $8.
Other games like Dota 2 operate the same way. There's cheap stuff...then there's the $30 shit that changes sounds, voiceovers, visual effects, and so on. It's flashy, epic, and allows for maximum peacocking by their wearers.
Shit man, we can go all the way back to at least Team Fortress 2, where there has always been a market for hats where some hats are worth pennies and others are worth thousands, depending on how rare and/or stylish an item is.
Meanwhile, Apex skins are pretty much always $19 unless there is a discount of some kind and with rare exception always look uninspired, dry, bland and tasteless. There really isn't a tier of skins that go on sale for less than full price (or full price with a discount). Not that I've ever noticed. It's an all-or-nothing proposition designed very clearly to push people towards loot boxes. After all, dropping $19 for a mediocre looking skin isn't exciting anyone. I almost never check the store because...I mean what for? There is unlikely to be anything in there that I would even consider spending $19 for and I'm made of money.
Apex just needs skin tiers. A lot of their legendary skins are barely Epic-quality in creativity or uniqueness. Those should all be like $8-10 and skins like we're seeing in this new event would then make sense as a higher tier option.
Tiers make this go away. But they don't seem to be willing or able to dedicate enough team members to making cool skins to have the selection required to have a quality rotation of skins that look good enough to justify the price, where games like League, Dota 2 and Fortnite make sure their most expensive shit is a clear cut above. It's easier to sell things at double the price when a customer can see that double or triple the work went into making it.
You know, like most games do.
League of Legends became a billion-dollar franchise on the back of skin sales. Their skins range from $3-$30. There are like 4 skins out of several hundred that approach $30 and maybe 20 that are $20. The average skin price is around $5-$7. And guess what? Engagement in the League of Legends MTX store is high as hell.
Fortnite is a game I continue to see mentioned because they also have $20 skins. These mentions seem hella disingenuous to me becasue Fortnite also has skins that regularly appear in their storefront rotation that are priced around $8.
Other games like Dota 2 operate the same way. There's cheap stuff...then there's the $30 shit that changes sounds, voiceovers, visual effects, and so on. It's flashy, epic, and allows for maximum peacocking by their wearers.
Shit man, we can go all the way back to at least Team Fortress 2, where there has always been a market for hats where some hats are worth pennies and others are worth thousands, depending on how rare and/or stylish an item is.
Meanwhile, Apex skins are pretty much always $19 unless there is a discount of some kind and with rare exception always look uninspired, dry, bland and tasteless. There really isn't a tier of skins that go on sale for less than full price (or full price with a discount). Not that I've ever noticed. It's an all-or-nothing proposition designed very clearly to push people towards loot boxes. After all, dropping $19 for a mediocre looking skin isn't exciting anyone. I almost never check the store because...I mean what for? There is unlikely to be anything in there that I would even consider spending $19 for and I'm made of money.
Apex just needs skin tiers. A lot of their legendary skins are barely Epic-quality in creativity or uniqueness. Those should all be like $8-10 and skins like we're seeing in this new event would then make sense as a higher tier option.
Tiers make this go away. But they don't seem to be willing or able to dedicate enough team members to making cool skins to have the selection required to have a quality rotation of skins that look good enough to justify the price, where games like League, Dota 2 and Fortnite make sure their most expensive shit is a clear cut above. It's easier to sell things at double the price when a customer can see that double or triple the work went into making it.
that's what the Battle Pass is for. people can't just expect a F2P game to have most of their MTX be earn able.
Fortnite can do no wrong.
Fortnite is god.
Fortnite allows Epic to challenge Evil Nazi Valve.
Or, something. But yeah it's bloody hilarious how up in arms people are about this...And ignoring stuff like what you pointed out.
Epic tier skins are cheaper. It's just that they've never sold them outside of events.
Fortnite skins are far better than Apex skins, but both games let you grind currency if Im not mistaken
Regardless, $18 is definitely over the top
that's what I mean. Epic skins are almost never available and even when they are, who cares because they're almost always ugly as sin.
Make regularly available mid-tier skins that actually don't look like shit, then offer high-tier skins that are a clear cut above in design, uniqueness and effort is how successful MTX stores do skins.
and I suppose ignoring the thoughtful replies and attacking straw men with maximum hyperbole is how you do things.
And to think that people were outraged over a $2.50 horse armor 10 years ago. Kids these days are willing to pay $18 for a fucking skin. What's next, $30 for shoe string colors?
Ain't that the truth. Solos has been pretty fun getting a lot of wins, but overall there is nothing to work for in this game. It's just a money pit for whales now. BP is not terrible, but you would think they would at least give people a few more crates to open for playing their game.
There should be more to do in this game IMHO. Yeah, the BP is okay, but you would think they might have a few more crates able to be earned in some way.
All these points we have go to nothing but color swaps, and most things don't even have those anyway.
The BP gives worse gear than both the past events. Which is you're right, just salt in the wound.
So it's basically gonna go back to the way it was during Season 1.....
Until they can come up with another way to monetize the game without only relying on Apex Packs.
+1 on this and, by the way, they need to add more " value" to the Legend Coins, they are pretty useless. And when hitting level 100 you are basically getting them exclusively ( I have like 52000 legend coins and I dont know what to do with them)
Don't tempt the fates.
<3
I don't owe them anything either. They're interested in me buying stuff in the game, I'm interested in buying stuff in the game. This isn't a one-way street of demands, it's a back and forth between a company and it's consumers. Consumers should be interested in getting a fair deal, companies should be interested in consumer retention (meaning those paying, as well as those playing) and making profit.
Having a discussion when the line is drawn too far to one side is fine, and it's not about being owed anything. If they felt their prices were to low to justify, they wouldn't hesitate to let players know. Likewise when people feel their pricing is too high to justify, they're fine in letting the developer know (so they can reflect and make changes where they might agree or sense a general sentiment growing among players).