Update: After the developers originally apologized for the controversial Iron Crown event as such, Respawn’s CEO Vince Zampella now admits another mistake and apologizes for the behavior of the development team on Reddit.

He states that he stands behind the team and will also support them in speaking out against toxic comments like death threats and insults. He goes on to explain that people should not contribute to this behavior themselves, however.

However, this did happen in the past few days. Finally, he states that an open and healthy relationship with the Apex Legends community is important to Respawn Entertainment.

Original message: Respawn Entertainment has apologized in a Reddit post for the heavily criticized Iron Crown event of Apex Legends. However, this did not go down particularly well with fans and so the discussion came to a head until the developers even Insults like “assholes used.

What is the debate about? The trigger for the whole thing was the Iron Crown event of Apex Legends. This brought a number of exclusive skins, but they could only be obtained through lootboxes. If you wanted the full set, you had to pay $200.

This caused a lot of criticism on the part of the fans, whereupon Respawn now publicly apologized and announced an adjustment of the event. But even this apology left the community dissatisfied. They gave vent to their displeasure and disappointment on Reddit.

Players are “assholes” and “freeloaders”

Instead of defusing the situation and resolving tensions peacefully, Respawn itself responded with pointed comments and insults. Executive Producer Drew McCoy wrote in a comment, for example:

“I’ve been in the industry long enough now to remember when gamers weren’t complete assholes to developers yet [im Original ‘ass-hats’] and that was pretty awesome.”

Elsewhere, he also writes that many gamers today wouldn’t pay money for games anyway:

“The number of people who spend is very small, most of you are freeloaders [im Original ‘freeloaders’] (and we love it!).”

Apex Legends – View Iron Challenge Skins

Reddit users were not at all pleased about these comments and in turn reacted with incomprehension and anger. The comment with the most votes (over 15,400 upvotes) in the Apex Legends subforum is directed at the PR team and the developers:

“You have committed the mortal sin: You became personal. You, a team of professionals, got personal. You got personal and decided to attack your players and call us ‘assholes’ and ‘freeloaders.’ Not a wise move.

We will not forget this. You have struck a new tone that will now determine the communication between us. And it is a rough tone. A tone that allows no illusions about the reality of the situation. Former ideas of a ‘family’ have died. We are nothing more than consumers for you, and that is obvious.

You have chosen to usher in a new era of hostility and bitterness. Well done. Super PR move.”

After the sharp criticism from the community, community manager Jay Frechette tried to defend McCoy’s statements: He said it was not okay for the community to hurl personal insults at the developers after they apologized and announced the changes. “But then we’re ‘immature’ when we put people in their place. Point taken.”

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Trailer shows Apex Legends’ solo mode and the Iron Crown Challenge