Nobody had heard of "Apex Legends" before February. While most games build up hype months or years before release, Respawn kept development of this title under wraps. With "Apex Legends," the first news of its development leaked just days before release. Rather than go with a traditional marketing campaign, Respawn brought a small number of Twitch influencers in on the secret and led a short, fast social campaign. The tactic worked. Kids, who follow Twitch streamers like they're rock stars, helped lead "Apex Legends" to an explosive opening week.

 

But one element of the game that may affect its long-term popularity is its business model, with many players worried that Apex's in-game prices are too expensive. As a free-to-play title, Apex Legends has to generate revenue somehow, and the best way to do that in an online multiplayer game is to borrow concepts from popular titles like Fortnite and Overwatch. If you are you looking for more about Apex Legends Apex Coins check out our website. That means letting players spend real money for character costumes, weapon skins, and various other collectibles that don't affect gameplay, but make you look cool or unique while you play.
 

 

At this point, there are so many players it's going to be hard for EA not to make money, even though the game is free. You can buy loot boxes, and more prominently, you can buy featured items in a store that will look somewhat familiar to Fortnite converts. But the two are dissimilar in that the Apex Legends store is absolutely terrible. In a post on the Apex Legends subreddit, Respawn's community manager said the developer had already banned over 16,000 cheaters from the game. The free-to-download battle royale hasn't even been out a fortnight.

 

Apex Legends is a free-to-play game, although it does make money off of selling a premium currency called Apex Coin, that players can use to buy cosmetic skins for their characters, weapons, or player banners that are displayed at the beginning of a match. The game's update for Valentine's Day introduced two new romantic cosmetics a skin for the Longbow sniper rifle and a banner for Pathfinder. So far, so good. Except that each item was priced at 1100 coins, which comes to about $11. Split into European and North American regions, the Twitch Rivals: Apex Legends Challenge debuted Feb. 12 with consistently high viewership on the Amazon-owned streaming platform.

 

Wall Street loves these types of games because they're free for anyone to play, which attracts huge numbers of players, but can earn publishers millions of dollars through "micro transactions" where players spend a couple of bucks here and there on virtual items. Apex Legends is part of a genre called Battle Royale a mode that's been around for years but was popularized by Fortnite. Battle Royale games pit a large number of players against each other in an increasingly shrinking map. Think the Hunger Games.

 

Apex Legends, however, has a particularly aggressive pricing model and an overly complex economy. Now, players are starting to voice concern about how that model could eventually harm its longevity, as more revenue from microtransactions likely translates to a more robust development team, faster updates, and more support from EA. During the entire first week of launch there was literally a single legendary hero skin for sale with three legendary weapon skins.