During the launch of Respawn Games’ Apex Legends, claims were made by the developers that monetization would be fair and loot boxes would not hamper gameplay experience while offering the same content for everyone, this promise did not hold for long and fans raised their voice after the recent Iron Crown event.
In this event some loot boxes were being sold for over $200 dollars such as Bloodhound’s heirloom set, this clearly went against the promises made by the developers.
Respawn were quick to issue a statement on this issue while also offering an apology saying,
“At launch we made a promise to players that we intend to do monetization in a way that felt fair and provided choice to players on how they spent their money and time. A core decision during development of Apex Legends was that we wanted to make a world class battle royale game – in quality, depth, progression, and important for today’s conversation – how we sell stuff. With the Iron Crown event we missed the mark when we broke our promise by making Apex Packs the only way to get what many consider to be the coolest skins we’ve released”.
As a fix, Respawn has added the legendary skins in the in-game store which can be bought for the cost of 1800 Apex Coins and the ability to purchase Iron Crown Apex Packs for 700 Apex Coins. This will be available from the 20th of August for everyone.
Lootboxes have been in discussions for quite some time with controversies attached to it, it is still not clear how to operate loot boxes perfectly while the developers look to make a profit from such free-to-play game, they also have to make sure that the players aren’t forced into buying things they do not need.
