Company losing profits: -"Sir, we are losing sales!" -"Double the price and halve the content!" -"But, what if we offer something that they want to buy then the profits would come to us instead of squeezing customers until they leave" -"... you are fired"
Coming up with something they want to buy costs money fool. We're trying to take a candybar, cut it in two, and sell both as full priced candybars. We're not making a jumbo bar.
@@Kenpachi-q3q it's moreso Apex is in a spot where new players dont get attached to it anymore. People playing have played apex, they played last year and the year before. There are 20+ characters and 4 or 5 maps and a higher skill ceiling than most games. If you hop in as a newbie today, you won't have fun and you won't keep playing Point being, it's a game set to gradually die as they predicted when they released it (an eta of 5 years) at some point there are negative effects to releasing too much content in relation to bringing in new revenue. EA margins are not as big as people think.. when those start to slip the question is how can we get the most out of it now, plan an exit, move these players to newer titles in the near future where there is margin value in moving resources? Each character is less relevant, each skin holds less value, each map added doesn't "add" value to players (they either play this map they like or want the olds ones back) each BP is worth less, each added heirloom is less meaningful. Now the retention of new players is tanking so it will die.. but how long do we take damaging margins to keep it up?
I‘m not so sure of that anymore since the Ubisoft shareholder asked them some questions which they stuttered around refusing to answer. I wonder how many shareholders are actually barely looking into things unless their numbers are going noticeably down.
We noticed you could be making more and your not making our expectations while at disney we keep losing billions of dollars and we will give you more money
He skipped the part where apex tweeted "if you need help just ask" and then started hiding and deleting people's comments such as "i need help fighting cheaters" or "i need help paying for the new battle pass"
Source? You can't delete or hide replies on Twitter, as far as I know. Update: you can hide them from yourself so you won't see replies/tweets, but it doesn't hide tweets/replies from anyone else.
They did use player metrics and community feedback to come to this decision. They saw that their players still had money for food at the end of the month. EA can’t stand for that
I felt like I should add this: I lost my account due to a Cross Progression bug and EA couldn’t care less about me as a player and it showed. Around mid October of 2023 Cross Progression was triggered and it gathered all the champs and cosmetics in the main account of each player. By end of January 2024 I reinstalled the game and it re-triggered the Cross Progression process again in my account, only to gather nothing at all on an account that was level 15 with nothing but the 5 default champions they give every new account to play with. I know it might sound bad, but I couldn’t sleep that night. All the hours and money I invested in that game, as well as collectible cosmetics from events, everything was gone. And this was THE game I was playing with my best friend. I emailed them begging for help and by the time I was able to talk to “someone”, they sent me 3 different emails with 3 different people, presenting themselves as X person from EA support, and giving me 3 completely different (and impossible) reasons to why my account was deleted. They don’t give a f*ck.
It's the worst feeling in the world. Feeling like you got ripped off and lost something you can never get back. Nothing feels like it can make up for it, especially if it's something that happened recently. You have my sympathies.
I lost all my badges and trackers with the cross progression bug and got pissed off, i can only imagine what you went through.... I bet that they dont even have a customer support service, its fkin disgusting... wouldnt take a day for a dev to look into your account and fix it.
Main issues: game has cheaters, server issues. Publishers response: charge more for battlepass stuff. UA-cam replies: DEI cosmetics, they are turning the frogs gay!! People here need to go outside and touch some grass.
Meanwhile Deep Rock Galactic has FREE battle passes, with no expiration dates, and at the end of each season the items from the pass are added to the basic loot pool you get from just playing the game.
Slight clarification, when season 5 dropped, the system was reworked so instead of stuff being added to the basic loot pool, you can just go back and do any previous season's battle pass whenever you want.
Knew I wouldn't have to scroll for long to find DRG. Ghost Ship Games are really gonna go places of they continue this.. [checks notes] ..basic developer communication and consumer friendly business practices? Almost unheard of nowadays. Rock and stone brothers! To the bone!
It is one of the oldest tricks in the book. You want to raise taxes by 5%, you announce you are going to raise them by 10%. People get angry they shout out, they make a fuss. You announce you have listened to them and have found a compromise, you will only raise taxes by 5%. Most people settle down feeling happy that they have been heard. You laugh all the way to the bank.
Imagine there was a dropdown in game and you can select any of your previously owned incomplete battle passes and contribute progress to the selected one. You would still: - Pay just as much - Be required to play just as much The only difference is that you wouldn't lose access to what you have paid for.
Yeah but there is no FOMO that way that forces players to engage with the game to not miss out on something you won't be able to get after. They want that sweet engagement too.
Even in some games where they don't expire Battle Passes are the most boring overused cancer reward structures in videogames. Like wow so many people working on a videogame and the best they can keep coming up with is the same kind of subscription pass to get you a few skins and a ton of crappy stickers and shit.
I love the progression of in game currency. "We'll make an in game currency that is confusing to users, they have to put in uneven amounts so they'll always have excess and feel like they need to use it, so they'll need to buy more to do so, they cannot convert it back to real money" "We'll make it so there are certain items they can't buy with our fake currency, so they money they've already put in can't be used to buy things they want" "WHY ARE PEOPLE NOT SPENDING THEIR MONEY ON OUR FAKE MONEY?!"
@@benowens6539gacha games that make lots of money are making a lot of money because the games are fundamentally good and because the devs consistently work to update them.
Finaly someone said what I was scratching my head for. "Why the battlepass I bought has to expire? I mean...I already bought...right?" It cannot catch a rust, or sickness, or anything.
Though I still grind through some of them, but when they were introduced into gaming I hated the concept of battle passes from the get go. The only reason I grind through them is because they’re not going away from I like to play so I’ll buy it if I want to, but won’t if I don’t want to.
Yeah, I hated that I had to buy something that I then had to work for with a deadline, especially since the time limit is so arbitrary and only there to generate FOMO in players. For me, battlepass systems do nothing but burn me out faster from a game after the initial feel-good period. It snuffs out your enthusiasm when a casual pace of playing doesn't even make a dent in a battlepass, and you have to do repetitive content in an optimized way to get through it. I don't want to be told how to play a game.
Meanwhile at Deep Rock Galactic: - Gets a battle pass that is completely free. - Stuff from past passes get added to the loot pool, no fomo. - Added past passes from seasons back so you can select the one you want and keep progressing in it. - charges you 0 dollars for anything. - all microtransactions are OPTIONAL. - FOR ROCK AND STONE!!!
What I guarantee happened is a suit who has never touched a video game before walked into a board room meeting, listened for twenty minutes, then said "We're giving them the ability to get something for free? Remove that immediately" and then he went home and puffed on a cigar. That's exactly what happened.
This is exactly how software are selling. In my software company, we have a product which originally came in free to use (it's free to use but there are a bunch of paid features needed to actually made it worth to use). Then the team of that product introduced a whole new feature upgradable from the old one which can increase the convenient for the customers. After hearing it, the CEO's first question was "So now can we sell it?'". The suit only care about the profits, they only care about customer's opinion as long as it involve money
No, it means that they think that's what LITERALLY happened, cigar and everything. Otherwise he could claim that he just meant "celebration" by mentioning the cigar It makes his scenario stupid, but it has a purpose
One of the book series I read when I was younger did this. Bodyguard series, Chris Bradford. They split all the books into two and charged Americans more for half the book than Europeans paid for the full book. No reason just greed.
One thing I’ve noticed is that if you ask a streamer who’s job is to play a certain game, whether they would recommend “getting into” or playing the game that they play, they’ll usually sarcastically say “nah man, it’s an addiction” or encourage it, but all sarcasm fades when you ask an apex streamer if you should play
I didn't know about this drama, but I downloaded the game after a few years the other day just to try it out again. I think it was first day of the season I loaded into a TDM and at least 3 of the 6 enemies were blatantly cheating, like locking on through walls. I hung my head and uninstalled.
I mean, to take a note from your book. "People will still play this and buy into it, nothing will change." All this is, is a way to see how far they can piss players off and then reign it in just enough that they can still make more money than before.
3:27 i quit a while ago as an apex player because their focus was so blindly tunneled in money. ask any of the streamers, pros, other content creators and there are so many lingering and fundamental issues with the game that remain unfixed since the beginning (in both gameplay and development side) that this battle pass drama seriously just hammers the 20th nail on a great core game.
I played since release for maybe 1-2 years, thought it was the best game ever, then stopped because I got tired of how bad the game was getting. Good to know it got even worse, somehow, so I won't be returning.
I used to play and I wish the game was still good, but it just gets progressively worse. Last I heard, cheaters are currently running rampant in lobbies to the point they’re in most matches, which is probably why people got even more mad about the pass change.
I used to play this game like crazy with my friends but I quit due to how frustrating it got. At a certain point, sweating my balls off in high rank lobbies just stopped being rewarding. I honestly can’t think of many games that have been more rage inducing at times, and I say this as a life long fighting game player…
Every time I commented on some creators channels they would gas light me as if I’m not encountering cheater’s and issues!! I have noticed lately the packs bought in store I’ve been getting crap like legendary banners instead of skins where I used to always get skins!! They def updated probability, I’m done wasting money
The reason it was such a big deal is because the game is in probably the worst state it's ever been, Cheaters are running everywhere on every server. The pro players are going unpaid from algs. The devs aren't saying anything to the player base. Still no confirmation that the remote coded execution exploit has been patched. People are teaming everywhere in ranked. And they decide to push out this update in the middle of all of that, Basically a spit in the face.
To add to this the upcoming controller aim assist nerf is rumored to just be a ( More Camera Shake and rotational assist reduced to .3 instead of just removing it entirely) 😂
And the funny part about that is probably the back paddling solution was what they actually wanted to in the first place. Only to make it more palatable they went extreme and then when they backpedaled it so that they could look like they cared.
@GHOSTSTARSCREAM Apex was at one point a great game. I’ve yet to play another FPS with such fluid movement and solid gunplay that creates a massive and nuanced skill gap. There are so many ways to get better. Apex is unique in that sense. But they’ve destroyed a great thing.
Majority of the playerbase is the casual that spends money regardless of situation sadly. I have 7000 hours in the game, and havent spent a dime in 3 years. There is zero need tbh
I'm a predator in this gamer (highest rank in previous seasons) both of them: Asmond and the other lad don't have a clue about half of the issues in the game and try to superficially farm any drama they can find using the same exact analogies with each drama as a result of not being part of it or truly understanding it's depths. Cheating in this game makes it unplayable, on console and PC. Everybody you run in to has a strike pack or is teaming. The servers are horrible, one game you will have 50 ping the next game 200 ( on the same server ) this includes packet loss from 5-100%. In events you cannot purchase the item you want but have to buy packs and hopefully role the item you wish to get, if you wish to get the best item of the event you must purchase every single pack of the event and it will unlock the final item this will cost you around 200$ it's around 5x worse than the battlefront 2 system some years ago until people complained about it. The content and battle passes are a complete joke compared to fortnite and warzone. Cheaters run rampant and don't get banned even when sent videos to hideouts ( the single dude in control of banning people) they have the worst and cheapest servers available (20ghz) servers. The reason for this is because they say: they don't have the money to upgrade. They made around 2billion dollars from this game mind you it might be quite a lot more now though. This game will fustrate you on so many levels from SBMM to terrible performence. It's saving grace is it is the best feeling FPS out there but it is not enough anymore to keep the playerbase. This game feels like the Monalisa being maintained and safeguarded by the stop oil protesters. Cheers.
I played apex for 2 years and know those issues as well as you do, but i dont demand content creators like asmon (who covers lots of topics) to know all the in depth details. Why ? Because those issues all fall back to the fact that ea does not invest in their infrastrucuture and this video is just another example for EA's greed. The guy in the video even says "people highlighted the fact, that apex is not in a technical sound enough state to justifiy the extra charges." Which pretty much sums up the issue
"best feeling FPS" console baby doesn't have to aim with his 60% aimbot, whines about other aimbotters having anti-recoil because the game doesn't play itself enough for you to compete vs anti-recoil. get good
As a Titanfall 1 & 2 fan I've always hated Apex I've refused to play it, they have bastardised the lore and tried to ruin everything beautiful and original about Titanfall. They even started calling it the "apex universe" which REALLY made me mad. The DEI hires at Respawn have caused a lot of this and they are shoving LGBTLMNOP garbage into it as well. Luckily we have the Northstar client on PC but that's it. I think the real Titanfall has been abandoned sadly. A beautiful game series ruined by battle passes, battle royale and clout chasing.
Wow they added a pride badge during pride month and some voice lines have valk , bang , and probably flirting with each other because they are lesbian in the lore and catalyst is trans, big fucking deal. The movement and gunplay and the abilities are so fun I've sunk thousands of hours into it and I've spent hundreds .I played Titanfall 2 and absolutely loved it but I like apex more. The reason I quit is because it kept getting worse and worse . Ea's scummy greed and the lack of communication and effort made me quit. They tried adding a literal deathbox to a collection event and it was a success, so they kept doing it making it more than the already $160 overpriced heirlooms . Then they did a universal heirloom, another success, so they decide to completely stop doing normal heirlooms to pump out $300 cosmetics. Cheating has always been a problem and nothing has been done about it , you can buy $1 accounts and just punch fly around the map aimbotting people for hours or days and the anti cheat never detects you. They are gonna neglect the game and let it die.
You had me until bringing up the lgbtq stuff. Is it annoying, sure...but does it really impact the game play? No. It impacts the lore sure. I'm on the fence, like I get it isn't needed in the game, on the flip side, you're not the game dev...you dont have to play if you disagree with it..and if the game is solid...no one really cares about the characters being gay..because the game is good. However more games going live service for half the content they had 5 years ago and charging for it is..getting old. I mean I was a destiny player, so I'm not going to take a high ground.. these companies won't learn unless we just stop buying their shit
someone at respawn saw how many battle passes were bought using apex coins that people earned. they then correlated that to lost profits. if everyone who bought a battle pass with apex coins instead spent real money, they would be rich. that's as deep as the conversation went.
Three actual solutions to people not completing the battlepasses. 1) Make them shorter and combine similar rewards so each tier gives a little more. That way, no value is lost. 2) Just add 1-3 weekly challenges per week, which means it's easier to achieve maxing it out. Or even an 1 extra daily instead to promote daily play. 3) Battlepasses remain the same, except they don't expire. Players can still complete the challenges for full exp within a particular battlepass or complete current season challenges for 1/10 of the experience towards previous battlepasses. So, with regular play and engagement, they'd be able to complete old ones to get the rewards they paid for. Nothing is lost, only gained and players taking a break might continue to purchase them knowing they can complete them later. They'd even be able to offer a Battlepass subscription that auto buys each one as it releases, giving them the opportunity to monetise peoples forgetfulness... just like most other subscriptions.
COD WZ does this and it works. My friend for reference only buys blackcell now that its been introduced and has lost several IRL jobs because he would rather spend money on COD then gas for his vehicle to get too work then calls out of work because his car wont start when in reality he cant afford to even to start his car to go too work to make the money to pay for the gas he needs for work. It's a real problem
Easy money trick 1. Make Art Comeptition for Skins and Gun Skins 2. Pick the Top 3 of all Character Skins and Weapon Skins, that the community voted on 3. Bring those skins to the game 4. Give ''Insert % Here'' to Artist that won 5. Take the rest and profit 6. Repeat every 6 month
They’ve already been in that situation with pro players. They’re so greedy that they tried to take the majority of profits from the players pro skins and left the pro players with a single digit procentages. That was two seasons ago, last season they made the skins and didn’t release them due to disagreements on the profit split. It’s a great idea but unfortunately Respawn and EA can’t be trusted with money, period.
They threatened to boycott because of season pass cost...like there isn't enough other shit in that game and the whole EA gaming stuff to boycott EA for good! I got my ENTIRE EA account banned because i said "cunt" and that was me and my friend trolling eachother but the 3rd random apparently cryed and reported. yes i had like 2-3 warning for really stupid minor things like saying to someone you are dumb, or an idiot. Never insulted or threatened anyone in the extreme. And that was over like a 2 year span. I play since day 1 the 1st hour, Over 6k hours. And to gett the entire EA account banned with all games that has nothing to do with apex is beyonde any common sense and just plain stupidity.
I bought 1 battle pass like 5 years ago. And then used that battle pass to farm enough Apex Coins to afford the NEXT battle pass. I got like a dozen of them over 22 seasons or so, for free essentially. Skipping seasons once in a while. They're onto me. But I'm not giving in. I'll just quit buying them. Skins are worth almost nothing to me, and I have like 12 seasons worth.
Just started the vid and remember asmon saying about a "walkback" method where companies will make a massive change,roll it back halfway after negative feedback so people are accepting of a new worse standard thinking they won. My guess before watching the rest of the vid is thats what EA have done here Edit: Fucking surprise surprise lmfaooooo
I don't even believe they "compromised", they just came up a plan that they knew would cause backlash, doubled it and then cut it in half after the backlash.
I could actually see this, but not cause it's a good idea or implemented in a good way to con people. It's cause EA loves fucking shit up. They get a decent idea, but then implement it in some way that just spectacularly fucks it up.
Respawn should make a single player Gundam game. Titanfall 2's single player was GOATed. looks like at this rate under EA they're doomed to live service mediocrity for the foreseeable future though =/
The real issue is lots of people check out the content and then check out of the game early in the season. They are trying to fix that with the BP split changes so every split bring in more people. It's not a bad idea for the community because the game gets really stale at the end of the season. Battlepass changes are better in some ways, but it will largely depend on how quickly you can level it. Season 23 or the next split they are going to add SOMETHING to the "ultimate" tier to entice people to pay beyond 8 apex packs. They'll keep adding stuff to those tiers until they have enough people paying. They are already adding 2 Legendary Variants to the Ultimate+ which simply wasn't a thing in the previous Premium+ tier. You just got 25 level skips which wasn't worth it and no one was probably buying it. So these changes are designed to do two things: 1. Keep people engaged longer by adding a new BP every split so the engagement doesn't drop 2. Entice people to pay real money instead of using their in-game currency so they can generate more profit
I like reward tracks, I like unlockables, I like rewards for playing, and I don't mind paying to unlock those rewards. As long as I only pay once (like when I bought the game). Battle passes are just a reward track that you have to pay for every time a new one comes out. No Man's Sky has shown us there's virtually zero reason to charge for this shit.
Asmongold talking about slot machines in church gave me the thought of having a church with a Gacha for 5 star extra blessed scented holy water. The sad part is that people would even pay for it if it existed
It is my understanding that, at least in catholicism, gambling is frowned upon, and teached against, not sure how you would then go on about your idea inside that community, considering it goes against that teaching.
Although, if you want to extend the joke: going to a priest for confession is a gatcha because you will get a random monetary indulgence for forgiveness. @ChozenBardoUmbra
i think battle passes / earning rewards is fine, but the fomo and limited nature / rarity of battlepass items i find ridiculous and predatory i think people would be even more likely to spend money if they can buy any battlepass at any time rather than only the current battlepass
First they added the new super expensive currency and then this shit. The worst is that Apex is a fundamentally good game. It is. But the corporate greed behind it is just too much. And on top of that we don't have enough EU servers so the game is unplayable at peak hours.
What even more terrifying is that Vince Zampella is now in charge of the Battlefield franchise going forward after DICE was stripped of their baby by EA. Get ready because this type of business model is coming to all things EA.
its the other way around, vince is good at making a singleplayer game, something that DICE forgot to do thats why he was moved to revive Battlefield, the whole reason why apex is a mess right now is because, current leadership of things over at respawn + EA's Business model at work.
@keeneahnungoldrEven though it looks nice im worried for delta force just because its owned by a company that is even worse than ea but atleast its free to play
just the same low tier stuff that everyone else has, so you're not even special for have this skin or that skin. the some of them that can be cool, but even by buying the battlepass, you still need to grind it every day to get the cool stuff at the end. like in fortnite, with the variants of certain skins.
The fact that I had to keep up with battle-passes and spend a certain amount of time playing in order to unlock everything before a deadline was a big reason I dropped Apex Legends, and left a sour taste in my mouth long before all the LGBTWTFBBQ stuff. It's made me pass on a lot of games. If you miss something, it's lost forever, and I resent not being able to have a full game under any circumstances just because I couldn't keep up with some real-life bullshit or whatever.
My stance is a bit more harsh than Asmon. My AAA litmus test: If a game has a battle pass, then I’m giving it a hard pass. No exceptions. Micro transactions, too. Including cosmetic only. A game’s monetization structure and its core gameplay loop are inextricably linked. Monetization tells you where Marketing’s head is at, and when it comes to AAA, designers and the devs in the trenches always end up downstream from the money men. Real life is way too freaking busy to waste time playing something that I’ll walk away from feeling scammed, rather than enriched.
What's stupid is that their research shows that what Battlepasses do is help with engagement by giving people something to "grind" for BUT they actually have a big negative because they de-value the rest of your microtransactions because of the sheer value difference.
So you dont play games at all? Except like 1 AAA game every few years (like elden ring), or some shitty 2D indie things? Like 98% of games (from shitty ones to grest ones) have AT LEAST payed cosmetics. 😅😅😅
Apex was my last hurrah when it came to competitive AAA titles. Between predatory monetization systems, influxes of cheaters, and not enough internal resources to address the problem, my motivation to play quickly dwindled. I now take that passion and energy I had for games, and turned my day to day into a video game. A game in which the more I achievement hunt, the more I get done and the more accomplished I feel. I now wonder what drove me to spend so much time on them.
But why should I compete with p2w? I play a free game because its free and cant be bother to buy a game. I enjoy being f2p because its a single player game and the experience of the game is me just playing alone anyways. Why should I be bother to go to rankings? Its like playing Elden Ring/Ghost of Tsushima/Sekiro/ArmoredC6 why should I play a meta gameplay when I can play the way I want?
The issue was less about the cost and more on the fact that the quality has gone down, season 0 i would have payed more for the pass because they did so much cool stuff durring each season. Now no more map updates, town take overs, unique game modes, story stuff. Now the only new stuff is skins and its hard to justify paying extra and being forced to pay every season. The extra cost makes it feel like we are being forced to pay for skins in future events without having them
dude $50 for a recolor of a battlepass skin???? a gun skin no less. the exotic shards piss me off to no end. and dont get me started on the bp skin recolors theyve released to sell heirlooms. ot just the shit quality of the skins in general. the one where all the legnds swap outfits was such a cool idea and it was done so terribly smdh. all the while they dont do ANYTHING to fix the game.
For the longest time I’ve been praising apex for their battle pass, I thought it was the only battle pass done right and that every battle pass should be like apex. Now they’ve tarnished that…
This literally didn't affect gameplay at all, if you think this type of change makes a game suck, then you're the reason why they do stuff like this lmao
The guy in the video keeps saying "forced to spend (x) amount". You're not forced to spend anything. It's simple, don't buy it. Let the game kill itself.
Try telling the people who have been buying the pass up to this point that, they won't. People will eventually forget about this until the next 'scandal'.
Apex changed the battlepass after 5 years. Warzone 1 got deleted and all the battlepasses/skins they bought got deleted. Since Warzone 2 there is a battlepass which costs 30$. It's interesting how different communities are..
Yeah that's what grimy epic games did to Fall guys you used to be able to use crowns to buy new cosmetic skins that you would earn through completing a match but then they decided to split it and give all the lame stuff for crowns and then said you can no longer use the crowns for the more premium stuff that cost real money. And then of course they took it off of the steam store but that makes sense because steam is their competitor
super unpopular take here: after hundreds of hours on Apex and having a lot of fun playing it, I actually wished for months I could somehow pay money for it to support it, but all of the deals in the shop look super scummy and worthless so I don't buy them just because I don't want to buy scummy shit. If Apex wasn't a free game and it just cost like $60, I'd probably just buy it, but then it'd be harder to invite friends to play with me, so the free to play aspect does have an appeal in that aspect for a team-based game. I'm thinking of what a "good" or "fair" monetization would work for a free to play game that wouldn't feel scummy, and I realize it's actually really simple: just remove all the RNG and FOMO bs, have a straight up shop page where you can buy any item/skin/whatever that was ever created for the game whenever you feel like it, for a fixed price that doesn't change. You know, just like a real life shop. This would actually appeal to me and I'd probably buy something that I liked, because I wouldn't feel pressured in any way and just have fun with the idea I can get it comfortably.
I’ve thought about this as well. As much as people complain about the prices in apex, it’s probably the best monetization structure to have. A free to play game, with some (relatively) expensive skins/items that are purely cosmetic and NOT pay to win. So people who either want the skins or just simply want to support the game can buy it and people who don’t, don’t have to buy it. I don’t see anything wrong with that. My only problem is when apex does the scummy gamble thing in the item shop where instead of buying an item directly, you have to buy packs to get random items and hope you get what you’re looking for. That’s absolutely scummy and they need to stop that, but other than that, I have no problem with how the game is monetized.
It's definitely weird to see the lack of objectivity, but I suppose people just see corporations as an enemy to take advantage of. You can literally unlock the purely cosmetic battlepass for free and then continue to gain an indefinite number of items while enjoying the constantly updating content without ever giving back to the company but people incessantly acuse the company of "greed." I spent $10 on the season 1 BP and now have thousands of dollars of cosmetics all the while enjoying the fruits of the companies labor through all the gameplay/content updates. I and others like me, are the greedy ones.
@@jcarby23 I 100% agree. We have essentially been getting free battle passes for the past 5 years. And people threw a temper tantrum when they finally wanted to change the prices. We should really be grateful that we’ve (essentially) had it free for all these years. But in fairness, it’s just like Asmon said, this is only a problem b/c the game is in a bad place. Apparently in valorant they don’t allow u to use in game currency to buy the BP, you have to spend real money every time. And I’ve never heard anyone complain about and that’s b/c the game is good (I’m assuming). So in fairness, the outrage is stupid, but also no one would care if the game was better.
it's because the game has had predatory practices increasing INSTEAD of actually fixing the bugs and doing anything at all about the cheater problem. every single season there's something that bugs out and now the battlepass itself turned from basically free ($5 for one time purchase forever for every bp) to another thing that could potentially cost 40 bucks per season.
I started playing Apex for a couple of months when it came out till I realized the company was really to slow with updates. When people will start to give up games and hope bro. Never touched it again, problem solved. Some games are made for playing only few hours,some you have to play a bit every few months.
@@MarianPV20 true. nealy all phone games too. but i dont BRs either.... i think its ok to have a pass. but its not fun when every games has one... i do stay away from free to play games too since i feel they have a way of asking for money. mobile games dont really count since they are mainly free to play but i use pay for some and pay to remove the ads if they offer that i seem to enjoy the game.
This is basically just price anchoring, you see it all the time in shows like Hardcore Pawn and other shows where they have to decide on a price. Start off with a completely unreasonable price, and when someone reacts to it being far too high you lower it bit by bit until the buyer considers the price reasonable enough to stop arguing over it.
Bold of Asmon to assume that I out my hands on any type of Pay2Win game. I haven't done that in over a decade. Once I learned my lesson it was never again.
Something neither of you mentioned but I feel is a big factor for the outrage is the fact that the price increase is double. Not that people are thrilled about inflation, but most customers can handle occasional marginal price increases and mentally wrap their heads around why. but doubling the price overnight would make most consumers of any good or service pretty bummed
@@nateshepardson1204but she can ‘now’ (it’s been a while) use her robot to res teammates while she can remain in active combat - it’s much better. f this battle pass update tho obviously
7:00 What absolute terrible toxic take on f2p players.. Some people actually just play games casually and aren't meta slaves, believe it or not. Some people don't spend money because they know it's dumb and they'll still get power crept anyway. Some people actually enjoy the challenge of that handicap and find it more rewarding. For most people it's not about "keeping up with whales", they don't even care about that. Some have their fun with a game and then quit the moment it starts to suck because they don't have to worry about sunk cost from spending. Never thought I'd see Zack shitting on people for not buying microtransactions in a game..
That's just u not understanding his point. His point is that "if you take pride as being f2p". There's no respect for that. You know you are going into a gimped game where everything is psychologically designed to make u spend or suffer as f2p, don't take pride in it. He's referring to people who gloat about how they can do x or y or be the only mfker that should be praised for just being f2p. 😂.
The first game to use "the battle pass" was dota 2 back in 2013 and they have been doing it every year since. And it has always been next to impossible to make meaningful progress without buying levels. The actual rewards are usually between level 300 - 500. If you're lucky you might reach level 50 for free.
Battle passes are supposed to be rewards for playing the game. Free players get some freebies and paying players get more premium content at a heavily reduced price point. They should not expire after seasons are over, you should just be able to select one and grind it out. Another huge issue with Apex's battle pass system is you can't really grind it. You have to do daily and weekly challenges. Regular gameplay gives you none or almost no XP last i checked. Dailies and weeklies should be bonus side quests to fast track or catch up, not forced as the only way to even complete the battle pass. Not only are they forcing you to play a bunch of hours to get the rewards you paid for, but they are also forcing you to play in a way you may not want to do.
They enforce the time limit that some players are unable to finish for the battle pass as a way to try to get their players to stay on their game combined with the eomm system, which both combined have been what's drove a lot of people off the game
Instead of removing functionality and adding cost to it, the better move is to create a more premium tier and add features to it. The status quo stays, and a new premium measure is created.
The problem is that Apex is in a terrible state! An entire E-sports competition has been hacked, players have been hacked during their game, they've even received cheats, and so on. And the game is plagued by problems that have been with us from the start, never to be solved: Cheaters The sound Hitboxes Balancing (only 2 updates per season, if not for cosmetic events) EA and Respawn literally do nothing! Every season you get 3 or 4 collection events plus store events for no game modes or nothing new apart from the same slightly modified ones. No content at all, even the beginning of the seasons is poor! A "map change", sometimes a new character and that's it! They don't solve any problems and concentrate on monetization! Worst of all, it's bad! We've had 2 events cost more than $150 and they were Recolors, Recolors, old skins... Events with good skins cost over $300. No wonder people are upset about the Battle Pass change! The game's going badly, they're doing nothing when they've got the money and the means, and they still dare to try and make you pay more. As a former developer said, they know the problems, all of them, even they're just looking for an immediate profit. Milking the Game until it dies
The major reason they aren't getting player engagement over the 90 days is they don't help make the game playable (which is a broad conversation) ie matchmaking more balanced for new players, bug fixes and game crashes plus a major overhaul of the anti cheat. Asmon mentioned well why don't you make it available past the 90 days they have by creating another currency (exotic shards) to get lvl 100 reactive skins haha. I'm all for a payment scheme in this game but you can't say this is a community outcry to spend more money on the same battle pass.
I’m sure if battle passes did not expire, it would drastically increase the MAU. It would retain more players season over season because most would stick around to complete the pass.
Does Asmon know about the $80 Reinhardt hammer being offered in OW2 right now, that has a weapon inspect that is ONLY available when using that weapon when it can clearly be used on all of the free weapon models?
Still is just a cosmetic in a free to play game, so I don't see why should anyone care. If people are dumb enough to buy it and make the price raise that's on them
I played Apex years ago one day. I practiced in the offline mode to get used to the controls and movement. I picked the Black girl with the smoke grenade launcher. My tactic was to shoot the smoke grenade on a fortified position. Making their range weapons useless. I would move in, spamming grenades and finishing them off with the shotgun. 9 kills later (My squad was scattered the entire time) I was being barraged with the classic whining of hacker and bullshit. But then the squeakers in my squad started hounding me about joining their clan and crap. It was at that point i realized that the game is just a first person shooter with the community of LoL.
i play apex from release, after the "fix" the BP is actually a lot better for an f2p players. the 2800 coins option were BS before, now you can get it for 20$ and it's a better offering, so nobody was hurt tbh. The main problem was not being able to buy it with ingame currency, and it's fixed now. f2p players pretty much got x2 resources with this update, and a bit more skins. so it's good
I don't care about BPs if its just skins but when companies start locking game content like weapons/new heroes/etc behind a paid BP thats when I have the problem.
Company losing profits:
-"Sir, we are losing sales!"
-"Double the price and halve the content!"
-"But, what if we offer something that they want to buy then the profits would come
to us instead of squeezing customers until they leave"
-"... you are fired"
Coming up with something they want to buy costs money fool. We're trying to take a candybar, cut it in two, and sell both as full priced candybars. We're not making a jumbo bar.
I'm convinced they're trying to lose money
Servers are expensive and players leaving requires surcharges to make up the difference
I'm convinced Respawn didn't want to work on the game anymore, so they wanted to go out like the Hindenburg. Memorable.
@@Kenpachi-q3q it's moreso Apex is in a spot where new players dont get attached to it anymore. People playing have played apex, they played last year and the year before. There are 20+ characters and 4 or 5 maps and a higher skill ceiling than most games. If you hop in as a newbie today, you won't have fun and you won't keep playing
Point being, it's a game set to gradually die as they predicted when they released it (an eta of 5 years) at some point there are negative effects to releasing too much content in relation to bringing in new revenue. EA margins are not as big as people think.. when those start to slip the question is how can we get the most out of it now, plan an exit, move these players to newer titles in the near future where there is margin value in moving resources?
Each character is less relevant, each skin holds less value, each map added doesn't "add" value to players (they either play this map they like or want the olds ones back) each BP is worth less, each added heirloom is less meaningful. Now the retention of new players is tanking so it will die.. but how long do we take damaging margins to keep it up?
The community they got the feedback from was their shareholders not the gameplayers
I mean they reverted it the day the steam report of them hitting alltime lows in neg reviews but i guess share holders rate on steam all the time :)
I‘m not so sure of that anymore since the Ubisoft shareholder asked them some questions which they stuttered around refusing to answer.
I wonder how many shareholders are actually barely looking into things unless their numbers are going noticeably down.
duh lol its ea
We noticed you could be making more and your not making our expectations while at disney we keep losing billions of dollars and we will give you more money
It why I left my favorite battle royale apex about 7 months ago I knew this is where they was headed…it’s EA remember
He skipped the part where apex tweeted "if you need help just ask" and then started hiding and deleting people's comments such as "i need help fighting cheaters" or "i need help paying for the new battle pass"
Source? You can't delete or hide replies on Twitter, as far as I know.
Update: you can hide them from yourself so you won't see replies/tweets, but it doesn't hide tweets/replies from anyone else.
@@wowyomadyou really think that
@@Bigchungusbangs prove me wrong. A single legit source would work
@@wowyomad i think paid users can hide comments or something
@@wowyomad have you ever used twitter? or are you just talking out of your azz? dont bother answering, we all know its the latter
They did use player metrics and community feedback to come to this decision. They saw that their players still had money for food at the end of the month. EA can’t stand for that
I felt like I should add this:
I lost my account due to a Cross Progression bug and EA couldn’t care less about me as a player and it showed.
Around mid October of 2023 Cross Progression was triggered and it gathered all the champs and cosmetics in the main account of each player.
By end of January 2024 I reinstalled the game and it re-triggered the Cross Progression process again in my account, only to gather nothing at all on an account that was level 15 with nothing but the 5 default champions they give every new account to play with.
I know it might sound bad, but I couldn’t sleep that night. All the hours and money I invested in that game, as well as collectible cosmetics from events, everything was gone. And this was THE game I was playing with my best friend.
I emailed them begging for help and by the time I was able to talk to “someone”, they sent me 3 different emails with 3 different people, presenting themselves as X person from EA support, and giving me 3 completely different (and impossible) reasons to why my account was deleted.
They don’t give a f*ck.
sry for you bro at least you are not one of the guys who spent 1200$ on this game playing it for over 5 years.
@@dandalas2168still lost some money! But it wasn't even half of that! I think I would go insane if I lost that amount of money
It's the worst feeling in the world. Feeling like you got ripped off and lost something you can never get back. Nothing feels like it can make up for it, especially if it's something that happened recently. You have my sympathies.
I lost all my badges and trackers with the cross progression bug and got pissed off, i can only imagine what you went through....
I bet that they dont even have a customer support service, its fkin disgusting... wouldnt take a day for a dev to look into your account and fix it.
@@SlCKNESS_ definitely one of the worst feelings ever. I appreciate all of your comments!
Testicular Torsion
I like it tho cause you get atleast 2 viewpoints.
Same. I didn't know about the Trump shooting until Asmongold uploaded about it on the clip channel.
It’s essentially just Respawn & EA beating a dead horse.
Yeah, me too and I do this for a living
Same
Western company we want to make more money: Split battlepass
Eastern company: Bikini skins go brrr.
Bikini skins that cost your lifes savings 😂
@@nahfr. Still easily better than any DEI cosmetic.
@@KnightofAges dude, i honestly dont care if its better than DEI or whatever im not buying a skin worth more than 20 bucks
@@nahfr.ngl,I kinda agree
Main issues: game has cheaters, server issues.
Publishers response: charge more for battlepass stuff.
UA-cam replies: DEI cosmetics, they are turning the frogs gay!!
People here need to go outside and touch some grass.
Meanwhile Deep Rock Galactic has FREE battle passes, with no expiration dates, and at the end of each season the items from the pass are added to the basic loot pool you get from just playing the game.
Rock and stone brother
ROCK AND STONE!
For Karl!
Slight clarification, when season 5 dropped, the system was reworked so instead of stuff being added to the basic loot pool, you can just go back and do any previous season's battle pass whenever you want.
Knew I wouldn't have to scroll for long to find DRG. Ghost Ship Games are really gonna go places of they continue this.. [checks notes] ..basic developer communication and consumer friendly business practices? Almost unheard of nowadays.
Rock and stone brothers! To the bone!
It is one of the oldest tricks in the book.
You want to raise taxes by 5%, you announce you are going to raise them by 10%.
People get angry they shout out, they make a fuss.
You announce you have listened to them and have found a compromise, you will only raise taxes by 5%.
Most people settle down feeling happy that they have been heard.
You laugh all the way to the bank.
Diabolical and genius.
Wild
Imagine there was a dropdown in game and you can select any of your previously owned incomplete battle passes and contribute progress to the selected one. You would still:
- Pay just as much
- Be required to play just as much
The only difference is that you wouldn't lose access to what you have paid for.
Like Helldivers 2
@@JVCFever0Literally helldivers 2
Yeah but there is no FOMO that way that forces players to engage with the game to not miss out on something you won't be able to get after. They want that sweet engagement too.
Battle passes expire in MOST games, to create FOMO, and its scummy and disgusting.
Yet people still buy them like the thousands that bought the $500 Ahri skin
It also forces the player to grind the game to complete the battlepass
if you're a poor boy, just say so.
Even in some games where they don't expire Battle Passes are the most boring overused cancer reward structures in videogames.
Like wow so many people working on a videogame and the best they can keep coming up with is the same kind of subscription pass to get you a few skins and a ton of crappy stickers and shit.
@@grimmow187dumb commemtery
I love the progression of in game currency.
"We'll make an in game currency that is confusing to users, they have to put in uneven amounts so they'll always have excess and feel like they need to use it, so they'll need to buy more to do so, they cannot convert it back to real money"
"We'll make it so there are certain items they can't buy with our fake currency, so they money they've already put in can't be used to buy things they want"
"WHY ARE PEOPLE NOT SPENDING THEIR MONEY ON OUR FAKE MONEY?!"
Live Service games = We want more of your money for less work
Every gacha game ever.
@@kibousn1686 wrong
@@vinniegret4841 Which one's? I'm not saying you're wrong I'm just curious
@@benowens6539gacha games that make lots of money are making a lot of money because the games are fundamentally good and because the devs consistently work to update them.
@@benowens6539he won't answer
Finaly someone said what I was scratching my head for.
"Why the battlepass I bought has to expire? I mean...I already bought...right?"
It cannot catch a rust, or sickness, or anything.
Halo is the only game i know that doesnt expire after you buy the pass.
Gotta love Live Services, eh.
Though I still grind through some of them, but when they were introduced into gaming I hated the concept of battle passes from the get go. The only reason I grind through them is because they’re not going away from I like to play so I’ll buy it if I want to, but won’t if I don’t want to.
@@nicksloggett3573 Wow, and thats bad, considering how bad halo has been fucking up lately
Yeah, I hated that I had to buy something that I then had to work for with a deadline, especially since the time limit is so arbitrary and only there to generate FOMO in players. For me, battlepass systems do nothing but burn me out faster from a game after the initial feel-good period. It snuffs out your enthusiasm when a casual pace of playing doesn't even make a dent in a battlepass, and you have to do repetitive content in an optimized way to get through it. I don't want to be told how to play a game.
Meanwhile at Deep Rock Galactic:
- Gets a battle pass that is completely free.
- Stuff from past passes get added to the loot pool, no fomo.
- Added past passes from seasons back so you can select the one you want and keep progressing in it.
- charges you 0 dollars for anything.
- all microtransactions are OPTIONAL.
- FOR ROCK AND STONE!!!
- The cosmetics actually look cool, and there is more customization in the game than Apex or Fortnite
I mean, in apex all micro transactions are also optional.
What I guarantee happened is a suit who has never touched a video game before walked into a board room meeting, listened for twenty minutes, then said "We're giving them the ability to get something for free? Remove that immediately" and then he went home and puffed on a cigar. That's exactly what happened.
This is exactly how software are selling. In my software company, we have a product which originally came in free to use (it's free to use but there are a bunch of paid features needed to actually made it worth to use). Then the team of that product introduced a whole new feature upgradable from the old one which can increase the convenient for the customers. After hearing it, the CEO's first question was "So now can we sell it?'". The suit only care about the profits, they only care about customer's opinion as long as it involve money
You didn't need to add un ironically to the start of that sentence. It doesn't make sense.
No, it means that they think that's what LITERALLY happened, cigar and everything. Otherwise he could claim that he just meant "celebration" by mentioning the cigar
It makes his scenario stupid, but it has a purpose
@@whocares9033 The cigar description brought the point home and completed their characterization.
“I used the stupid to become stupid” 🤣💀 nice one bro
Remember: Titanfall 3 died for this. Might've been a mercy spawn kill.
Titanfall dead af that’s why the games flopped
They're trying to kill Apex with these actions or lack thereof for their next AAA game I reckon
Titanfall 3 would be a stain on the IP much like Reforged was on Warcraft since all the people who made the first two are long gone
Titanfall never left. Gitgud
Titanfall 3 is dead, because no is interested in this. Apex actually prove this, so stop this populistic shit
One of the book series I read when I was younger did this. Bodyguard series, Chris Bradford. They split all the books into two and charged Americans more for half the book than Europeans paid for the full book. No reason just greed.
Search Google for the PDF if that’s the case. Two wrongs make a right in this instance.
Americans have the money. Makes sense
I mean it's a good business strategy lol 😂 besides Americans claim to be richer than Europe so they giving something back to you 😂
oh shit I vaguely remember reading those. not a bad author, he's like a discount Anthony Horowitz
One thing I’ve noticed is that if you ask a streamer who’s job is to play a certain game, whether they would recommend “getting into” or playing the game that they play, they’ll usually sarcastically say “nah man, it’s an addiction” or encourage it, but all sarcasm fades when you ask an apex streamer if you should play
I didn't know about this drama, but I downloaded the game after a few years the other day just to try it out again. I think it was first day of the season I loaded into a TDM and at least 3 of the 6 enemies were blatantly cheating, like locking on through walls. I hung my head and uninstalled.
I mean, to take a note from your book.
"People will still play this and buy into it, nothing will change."
All this is, is a way to see how far they can piss players off and then reign it in just enough that they can still make more money than before.
3:27
i quit a while ago as an apex player because their focus was so blindly tunneled in money. ask any of the streamers, pros, other content creators and there are so many lingering and fundamental issues with the game that remain unfixed since the beginning (in both gameplay and development side) that this battle pass drama seriously just hammers the 20th nail on a great core game.
The greed for money ruins everything.
I played since release for maybe 1-2 years, thought it was the best game ever, then stopped because I got tired of how bad the game was getting. Good to know it got even worse, somehow, so I won't be returning.
I used to play and I wish the game was still good, but it just gets progressively worse. Last I heard, cheaters are currently running rampant in lobbies to the point they’re in most matches, which is probably why people got even more mad about the pass change.
I used to play this game like crazy with my friends but I quit due to how frustrating it got. At a certain point, sweating my balls off in high rank lobbies just stopped being rewarding.
I honestly can’t think of many games that have been more rage inducing at times, and I say this as a life long fighting game player…
Every time I commented on some creators channels they would gas light me as if I’m not encountering cheater’s and issues!! I have noticed lately the packs bought in store I’ve been getting crap like legendary banners instead of skins where I used to always get skins!! They def updated probability, I’m done wasting money
Apex thinks all gamers are Activision customers...
What? Apex literally owned by EA
@dziugazz and EA is an even worse company.
@@ALX112358ya I was bout to say EA just as bad. Mfs can never have a decent server and they are always doing cash grabs.
EA.
Bud EA taught every other company how to rip off gamers. They've been doing it since 2010
Battle passes are such shit. It's a micro transaction you need to pay for, then also spend 100 hours unlocking the shit you PAID for.
It's just good business, the more time you are playing the game, the more likely you are to buy other products
Skill issue
its more like youre buying the "privilage" to be able to unlock the rewards
The battle passes in apex are completely optional, and there absolutely nothing pay to win in it. So…
@@marcgil256How’s the boot taste
The reason it was such a big deal is because the game is in probably the worst state it's ever been, Cheaters are running everywhere on every server. The pro players are going unpaid from algs. The devs aren't saying anything to the player base. Still no confirmation that the remote coded execution exploit has been patched. People are teaming everywhere in ranked. And they decide to push out this update in the middle of all of that, Basically a spit in the face.
To add to this the upcoming controller aim assist nerf is rumored to just be a ( More Camera Shake and rotational assist reduced to .3 instead of just removing it entirely) 😂
And the funny part about that is probably the back paddling solution was what they actually wanted to in the first place. Only to make it more palatable they went extreme and then when they backpedaled it so that they could look like they cared.
Bingo. And it leaves gamers thinking they've triumphed.
It’s crazy how easy it is to keep a game good but developers always seem to miss the ball for some reason
bc goals for games switch as they age. the goal goes from being a good consumer friendly game to milking a dying cow
@GHOSTSTARSCREAMnot even a hot take lmao
Literally just revert it to season 2, and change nothing. Every problem, solved.
its not devs, its midde management and leadership. this is big corpo eveywhere.
@GHOSTSTARSCREAM Apex was at one point a great game. I’ve yet to play another FPS with such fluid movement and solid gunplay that creates a massive and nuanced skill gap. There are so many ways to get better. Apex is unique in that sense. But they’ve destroyed a great thing.
"people are addicted to eating dix"
FU** lmao
Steam now "102,431"
i do indeed like dix
"I hate this new battle pass"
"Also take my money for the new battle pass"
The modern gamer...
They hand over the money then complain about it and why it just continues to get worse
Majority of the playerbase is the casual that spends money regardless of situation sadly. I have 7000 hours in the game, and havent spent a dime in 3 years. There is zero need tbh
Which is why companies just need to do damage control.
PLayers have all the powers but prefer to stay addicted.
I'm a predator in this gamer (highest rank in previous seasons) both of them: Asmond and the other lad don't have a clue about half of the issues in the game and try to superficially farm any drama they can find using the same exact analogies with each drama as a result of not being part of it or truly understanding it's depths. Cheating in this game makes it unplayable, on console and PC. Everybody you run in to has a strike pack or is teaming. The servers are horrible, one game you will have 50 ping the next game 200 ( on the same server ) this includes packet loss from 5-100%. In events you cannot purchase the item you want but have to buy packs and hopefully role the item you wish to get, if you wish to get the best item of the event you must purchase every single pack of the event and it will unlock the final item this will cost you around 200$ it's around 5x worse than the battlefront 2 system some years ago until people complained about it. The content and battle passes are a complete joke compared to fortnite and warzone. Cheaters run rampant and don't get banned even when sent videos to hideouts ( the single dude in control of banning people) they have the worst and cheapest servers available (20ghz) servers. The reason for this is because they say: they don't have the money to upgrade. They made around 2billion dollars from this game mind you it might be quite a lot more now though. This game will fustrate you on so many levels from SBMM to terrible performence. It's saving grace is it is the best feeling FPS out there but it is not enough anymore to keep the playerbase. This game feels like the Monalisa being maintained and safeguarded by the stop oil protesters. Cheers.
Bro... Saying apex legends is the best feeling fps... I know that's all opinion, but even that's a damn joke. The game has been trash since release.
I played apex for 2 years and know those issues as well as you do, but i dont demand content creators like asmon (who covers lots of topics) to know all the in depth details. Why ? Because those issues all fall back to the fact that ea does not invest in their infrastrucuture and this video is just another example for EA's greed. The guy in the video even says "people highlighted the fact, that apex is not in a technical sound enough state to justifiy the extra charges." Which pretty much sums up the issue
@RobAtkinson-wj4rc right! I mean about the pred thing, I got it in season 12 and it definitely means a lot to me. But I get your point.
"best feeling FPS" console baby doesn't have to aim with his 60% aimbot, whines about other aimbotters having anti-recoil because the game doesn't play itself enough for you to compete vs anti-recoil.
get good
It’s the best movement fps of all time. Coming from a 25 year CS player.
They should name these kinds of Battle Passes something like: Making end of quarter revenue goals” or “doing it for the Shareholders”
As a Titanfall 1 & 2 fan I've always hated Apex I've refused to play it, they have bastardised the lore and tried to ruin everything beautiful and original about Titanfall. They even started calling it the "apex universe" which REALLY made me mad. The DEI hires at Respawn have caused a lot of this and they are shoving LGBTLMNOP garbage into it as well. Luckily we have the Northstar client on PC but that's it. I think the real Titanfall has been abandoned sadly. A beautiful game series ruined by battle passes, battle royale and clout chasing.
What does any of this have to do with the alphabet?
@@Jimbo676-dc4fq The alphabet mafia usually makes everything about them, just give it time.
Wow they added a pride badge during pride month and some voice lines have valk , bang , and probably flirting with each other because they are lesbian in the lore and catalyst is trans, big fucking deal. The movement and gunplay and the abilities are so fun I've sunk thousands of hours into it and I've spent hundreds .I played Titanfall 2 and absolutely loved it but I like apex more. The reason I quit is because it kept getting worse and worse . Ea's scummy greed and the lack of communication and effort made me quit. They tried adding a literal deathbox to a collection event and it was a success, so they kept doing it making it more than the already $160 overpriced heirlooms . Then they did a universal heirloom, another success, so they decide to completely stop doing normal heirlooms to pump out $300 cosmetics. Cheating has always been a problem and nothing has been done about it , you can buy $1 accounts and just punch fly around the map aimbotting people for hours or days and the anti cheat never detects you. They are gonna neglect the game and let it die.
You had me until bringing up the lgbtq stuff. Is it annoying, sure...but does it really impact the game play? No. It impacts the lore sure. I'm on the fence, like I get it isn't needed in the game, on the flip side, you're not the game dev...you dont have to play if you disagree with it..and if the game is solid...no one really cares about the characters being gay..because the game is good.
However more games going live service for half the content they had 5 years ago and charging for it is..getting old. I mean I was a destiny player, so I'm not going to take a high ground.. these companies won't learn unless we just stop buying their shit
How does DEI have anything to do with this?
apex has been on a downfall for so long now, this is just gonna be the nail in the coffin
EA: guys, how do we make more money?
Jerry: "Sir, double the price = double the money?"
EA: Brilliant Jerry!
“My man” 👈🏽
EA in a nutshell
EA: before that write it on feedback to make it look like it not our idea
Narrator: And with that idea jerry earned himself a 100% pay raise. Brilliant minds shall not go unnoticed in EA
It was Respawn idea from the start, not EA.
someone at respawn saw how many battle passes were bought using apex coins that people earned. they then correlated that to lost profits. if everyone who bought a battle pass with apex coins instead spent real money, they would be rich. that's as deep as the conversation went.
Three actual solutions to people not completing the battlepasses.
1) Make them shorter and combine similar rewards so each tier gives a little more. That way, no value is lost.
2) Just add 1-3 weekly challenges per week, which means it's easier to achieve maxing it out. Or even an 1 extra daily instead to promote daily play.
3) Battlepasses remain the same, except they don't expire. Players can still complete the challenges for full exp within a particular battlepass or complete current season challenges for 1/10 of the experience towards previous battlepasses. So, with regular play and engagement, they'd be able to complete old ones to get the rewards they paid for. Nothing is lost, only gained and players taking a break might continue to purchase them knowing they can complete them later.
They'd even be able to offer a Battlepass subscription that auto buys each one as it releases, giving them the opportunity to monetise peoples forgetfulness... just like most other subscriptions.
Companies are really thirsty with monetization.
I play World of Warships and some of their tactics are downright disgusting.
Never heard any community feedback say they want to pay DOUBLE for a battle pass!
COD WZ does this and it works. My friend for reference only buys blackcell now that its been introduced and has lost several IRL jobs because he would rather spend money on COD then gas for his vehicle to get too work then calls out of work because his car wont start when in reality he cant afford to even to start his car to go too work to make the money to pay for the gas he needs for work.
It's a real problem
Easy money trick
1. Make Art Comeptition for Skins and Gun Skins
2. Pick the Top 3 of all Character Skins and Weapon Skins, that the community voted on
3. Bring those skins to the game
4. Give ''Insert % Here'' to Artist that won
5. Take the rest and profit
6. Repeat every 6 month
They’ve already been in that situation with pro players. They’re so greedy that they tried to take the majority of profits from the players pro skins and left the pro players with a single digit procentages. That was two seasons ago, last season they made the skins and didn’t release them due to disagreements on the profit split. It’s a great idea but unfortunately Respawn and EA can’t be trusted with money, period.
@@UntoTheLaot icant....
If you can get away with $500 skins then this should not be a problem either. Gamers get what they deserve.
They threatened to boycott because of season pass cost...like there isn't enough other shit in that game and the whole EA gaming stuff to boycott EA for good! I got my ENTIRE EA account banned because i said "cunt" and that was me and my friend trolling eachother but the 3rd random apparently cryed and reported. yes i had like 2-3 warning for really stupid minor things like saying to someone you are dumb, or an idiot. Never insulted or threatened anyone in the extreme. And that was over like a 2 year span. I play since day 1 the 1st hour, Over 6k hours. And to gett the entire EA account banned with all games that has nothing to do with apex is beyonde any common sense and just plain stupidity.
I bought 1 battle pass like 5 years ago. And then used that battle pass to farm enough Apex Coins to afford the NEXT battle pass. I got like a dozen of them over 22 seasons or so, for free essentially. Skipping seasons once in a while. They're onto me. But I'm not giving in. I'll just quit buying them. Skins are worth almost nothing to me, and I have like 12 seasons worth.
Just started the vid and remember asmon saying about a "walkback" method where companies will make a massive change,roll it back halfway after negative feedback so people are accepting of a new worse standard thinking they won. My guess before watching the rest of the vid is thats what EA have done here
Edit: Fucking surprise surprise lmfaooooo
I don't even believe they "compromised", they just came up a plan that they knew would cause backlash, doubled it and then cut it in half after the backlash.
100%. I've called this strategy the "EA Apology" for years. They do this all the time
I could actually see this, but not cause it's a good idea or implemented in a good way to con people. It's cause EA loves fucking shit up. They get a decent idea, but then implement it in some way that just spectacularly fucks it up.
Classic purposeful walk-back PR stunt. Now I wanna try Apex.
all they had to do was make a premium skin shop with past season skins and sale them for 3-5 dollars
Meanwhile DRG has free passes and the ability to change the season to grind for a skin you want
Rock and Stone!
Its a paid game
@@Marvin-vs3tuthat cost a fraction of AAA game, unlimited time on any BP, optional cosmetic bundles only. So I don't see a problem much
DongRaeGu?
I'm so tired of having to belong to a community when I play a game. Lame as shit. As if it's so damn important
It’s just a term used by terminally online people who don’t know what a real community is.
"A feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals."
Peeps gotta be in a tribe
@@EricEyetooth Do you know what a community is? lol.
You don’t have to be, whatsoever. You choose to pay attention to if, lol. Get off the internet - problem solved.
Respawn should make a single player Gundam game. Titanfall 2's single player was GOATed.
looks like at this rate under EA they're doomed to live service mediocrity for the foreseeable future though =/
Everyone imp/almost everyone who made titan fall left respawn alr most once ea wouldn't let respawn do their own thing w apex
An eternity
@DPH_Psychosis You also have the new Gundam Breaker 4, for both single or co-op play. If you havent tried it before, check out the Breaker series.
But how do they sell you cosmetics in a singleplayer game
Eww single player ? Why not just replay titanfall 2.
The real issue is lots of people check out the content and then check out of the game early in the season. They are trying to fix that with the BP split changes so every split bring in more people. It's not a bad idea for the community because the game gets really stale at the end of the season. Battlepass changes are better in some ways, but it will largely depend on how quickly you can level it. Season 23 or the next split they are going to add SOMETHING to the "ultimate" tier to entice people to pay beyond 8 apex packs. They'll keep adding stuff to those tiers until they have enough people paying. They are already adding 2 Legendary Variants to the Ultimate+ which simply wasn't a thing in the previous Premium+ tier. You just got 25 level skips which wasn't worth it and no one was probably buying it. So these changes are designed to do two things: 1. Keep people engaged longer by adding a new BP every split so the engagement doesn't drop 2. Entice people to pay real money instead of using their in-game currency so they can generate more profit
I like reward tracks, I like unlockables, I like rewards for playing, and I don't mind paying to unlock those rewards.
As long as I only pay once (like when I bought the game).
Battle passes are just a reward track that you have to pay for every time a new one comes out. No Man's Sky has shown us there's virtually zero reason to charge for this shit.
Asmongold talking about slot machines in church gave me the thought of having a church with a Gacha for 5 star extra blessed scented holy water. The sad part is that people would even pay for it if it existed
sounds like a billion dollars business idea to me.
It is my understanding that, at least in catholicism, gambling is frowned upon, and teached against, not sure how you would then go on about your idea inside that community, considering it goes against that teaching.
Although, if you want to extend the joke: going to a priest for confession is a gatcha because you will get a random monetary indulgence for forgiveness. @ChozenBardoUmbra
@@rl9148 Not completely sure what you meant, but confession is not something you pay for?
@@ChozenBardoUmbra indulgences. It's a battle pass. I'm just kidding btw
i think battle passes / earning rewards is fine, but the fomo and limited nature / rarity of battlepass items i find ridiculous and predatory
i think people would be even more likely to spend money if they can buy any battlepass at any time rather than only the current battlepass
Apex started going down hill after S3. I used to be excited to play back then
First they added the new super expensive currency and then this shit.
The worst is that Apex is a fundamentally good game. It is.
But the corporate greed behind it is just too much.
And on top of that we don't have enough EU servers so the game is unplayable at peak hours.
What even more terrifying is that Vince Zampella is now in charge of the Battlefield franchise going forward after DICE was stripped of their baby by EA. Get ready because this type of business model is coming to all things EA.
its the other way around, vince is good at making a singleplayer game, something that DICE forgot to do thats why he was moved to revive Battlefield, the whole reason why apex is a mess right now is because, current leadership of things over at respawn + EA's Business model at work.
Meh. Battlefield wasn’t the same after BF1. Battlefield was one of my favorite franchises for a long time but they went downhill fast
@keeneahnungoldrEven though it looks nice im worried for delta force just because its owned by a company that is even worse than ea but atleast its free to play
@keeneahnungoldr the game you mentioned is nowhere near Apex mechanics
Battlefield's been dead for a while now. It's okay.
I purchased a pass once and found out it was fomo timed bullshit so i never got another
just the same low tier stuff that everyone else has, so you're not even special for have this skin or that skin. the some of them that can be cool, but even by buying the battlepass, you still need to grind it every day to get the cool stuff at the end. like in fortnite, with the variants of certain skins.
Yeah, same. I saw myself logging into Apex to finish the BP when I didn't want to. So I stopped altogether.
The fact that I had to keep up with battle-passes and spend a certain amount of time playing in order to unlock everything before a deadline was a big reason I dropped Apex Legends, and left a sour taste in my mouth long before all the LGBTWTFBBQ stuff. It's made me pass on a lot of games. If you miss something, it's lost forever, and I resent not being able to have a full game under any circumstances just because I couldn't keep up with some real-life bullshit or whatever.
yeah same , i hate the feeling of "i have to play to finish my pass" instead of "i want to play to have fun"
My stance is a bit more harsh than Asmon. My AAA litmus test: If a game has a battle pass, then I’m giving it a hard pass. No exceptions. Micro transactions, too. Including cosmetic only. A game’s monetization structure and its core gameplay loop are inextricably linked. Monetization tells you where Marketing’s head is at, and when it comes to AAA, designers and the devs in the trenches always end up downstream from the money men. Real life is way too freaking busy to waste time playing something that I’ll walk away from feeling scammed, rather than enriched.
Agreed with all of this. Well said
What's stupid is that their research shows that what Battlepasses do is help with engagement by giving people something to "grind" for BUT they actually have a big negative because they de-value the rest of your microtransactions because of the sheer value difference.
So you dont play games at all? Except like 1 AAA game every few years (like elden ring), or some shitty 2D indie things?
Like 98% of games (from shitty ones to grest ones) have AT LEAST payed cosmetics. 😅😅😅
@@sajmon154nah, He is just giving a speech 😂
@@sajmon154 Correct.
Deep rock galactic is the only game that their battle pass has encouraged me to play the game more.
Apex was my last hurrah when it came to competitive AAA titles. Between predatory monetization systems, influxes of cheaters, and not enough internal resources to address the problem, my motivation to play quickly dwindled.
I now take that passion and energy I had for games, and turned my day to day into a video game. A game in which the more I achievement hunt, the more I get done and the more accomplished I feel. I now wonder what drove me to spend so much time on them.
But why should I compete with p2w? I play a free game because its free and cant be bother to buy a game. I enjoy being f2p because its a single player game and the experience of the game is me just playing alone anyways. Why should I be bother to go to rankings? Its like playing Elden Ring/Ghost of Tsushima/Sekiro/ArmoredC6 why should I play a meta gameplay when I can play the way I want?
Bro, If u played apex, there's a LOT of other reasons to stop playing 😂
Give the community 10 FUs, wait for complaints, take back 3 FUs while feigning sympathy, profit.
The issue was less about the cost and more on the fact that the quality has gone down, season 0 i would have payed more for the pass because they did so much cool stuff durring each season. Now no more map updates, town take overs, unique game modes, story stuff. Now the only new stuff is skins and its hard to justify paying extra and being forced to pay every season. The extra cost makes it feel like we are being forced to pay for skins in future events without having them
dude $50 for a recolor of a battlepass skin???? a gun skin no less. the exotic shards piss me off to no end. and dont get me started on the bp skin recolors theyve released to sell heirlooms. ot just the shit quality of the skins in general. the one where all the legnds swap outfits was such a cool idea and it was done so terribly smdh. all the while they dont do ANYTHING to fix the game.
@@Lili-dv6lm honestly I hope ea stops with all the crap they have been up to, first hellsdivers now this, the already put 5 franchises in the ground
@@giannicolamatteo8155 yeah if im honest i dont know much about helldivers but what theyve done to the sims and apex is beyond disgusting
For the longest time I’ve been praising apex for their battle pass, I thought it was the only battle pass done right and that every battle pass should be like apex. Now they’ve tarnished that…
lol that "A5 wagyu bullsht" caught me off guard 🤣🤣
tldr: apex sucks now
Now??
It's sucked for awhile now
Apex ALWAYS sucked
-This was posted by Titanfall gang
It sucked for years now. Crossplay was a mistake.
This literally didn't affect gameplay at all, if you think this type of change makes a game suck, then you're the reason why they do stuff like this lmao
When was it good? They didnt even do the charge rifle right
-Titanfall ftw
The guy in the video keeps saying "forced to spend (x) amount". You're not forced to spend anything. It's simple, don't buy it. Let the game kill itself.
it's yong yea he's an incel
Try telling the people who have been buying the pass up to this point that, they won't. People will eventually forget about this until the next 'scandal'.
Apex changed the battlepass after 5 years. Warzone 1 got deleted and all the battlepasses/skins they bought got deleted. Since Warzone 2 there is a battlepass which costs 30$. It's interesting how different communities are..
Yeah that's what grimy epic games did to Fall guys you used to be able to use crowns to buy new cosmetic skins that you would earn through completing a match but then they decided to split it and give all the lame stuff for crowns and then said you can no longer use the crowns for the more premium stuff that cost real money. And then of course they took it off of the steam store but that makes sense because steam is their competitor
I really do hate how everything is a live service game now. You quit playing for a couple months, you come back and it's a completely different game.
i promise you EA doesn’t “need” the money, they “want” all the money and have for a long time
2 billion or 3 billion isn't enough for a slightly decent anti cheat obviously
super unpopular take here: after hundreds of hours on Apex and having a lot of fun playing it, I actually wished for months I could somehow pay money for it to support it, but all of the deals in the shop look super scummy and worthless so I don't buy them just because I don't want to buy scummy shit.
If Apex wasn't a free game and it just cost like $60, I'd probably just buy it, but then it'd be harder to invite friends to play with me, so the free to play aspect does have an appeal in that aspect for a team-based game.
I'm thinking of what a "good" or "fair" monetization would work for a free to play game that wouldn't feel scummy, and I realize it's actually really simple: just remove all the RNG and FOMO bs, have a straight up shop page where you can buy any item/skin/whatever that was ever created for the game whenever you feel like it, for a fixed price that doesn't change. You know, just like a real life shop. This would actually appeal to me and I'd probably buy something that I liked, because I wouldn't feel pressured in any way and just have fun with the idea I can get it comfortably.
I’ve thought about this as well. As much as people complain about the prices in apex, it’s probably the best monetization structure to have. A free to play game, with some (relatively) expensive skins/items that are purely cosmetic and NOT pay to win. So people who either want the skins or just simply want to support the game can buy it and people who don’t, don’t have to buy it. I don’t see anything wrong with that. My only problem is when apex does the scummy gamble thing in the item shop where instead of buying an item directly, you have to buy packs to get random items and hope you get what you’re looking for. That’s absolutely scummy and they need to stop that, but other than that, I have no problem with how the game is monetized.
It's definitely weird to see the lack of objectivity, but I suppose people just see corporations as an enemy to take advantage of. You can literally unlock the purely cosmetic battlepass for free and then continue to gain an indefinite number of items while enjoying the constantly updating content without ever giving back to the company but people incessantly acuse the company of "greed."
I spent $10 on the season 1 BP and now have thousands of dollars of cosmetics all the while enjoying the fruits of the companies labor through all the gameplay/content updates. I and others like me, are the greedy ones.
@@jcarby23 I 100% agree. We have essentially been getting free battle passes for the past 5 years. And people threw a temper tantrum when they finally wanted to change the prices. We should really be grateful that we’ve (essentially) had it free for all these years. But in fairness, it’s just like Asmon said, this is only a problem b/c the game is in a bad place. Apparently in valorant they don’t allow u to use in game currency to buy the BP, you have to spend real money every time. And I’ve never heard anyone complain about and that’s b/c the game is good (I’m assuming). So in fairness, the outrage is stupid, but also no one would care if the game was better.
it's because the game has had predatory practices increasing INSTEAD of actually fixing the bugs and doing anything at all about the cheater problem. every single season there's something that bugs out and now the battlepass itself turned from basically free ($5 for one time purchase forever for every bp) to another thing that could potentially cost 40 bucks per season.
I started playing Apex for a couple of months when it came out till I realized the company was really to slow with updates. When people will start to give up games and hope bro. Never touched it again, problem solved. Some games are made for playing only few hours,some you have to play a bit every few months.
if the game has a battle pass. i dont want to play the game at all.
every battle royale have battle pass
@@MarianPV20 true. nealy all phone games too. but i dont BRs either.... i think its ok to have a pass. but its not fun when every games has one... i do stay away from free to play games too since i feel they have a way of asking for money. mobile games dont really count since they are mainly free to play but i use pay for some and pay to remove the ads if they offer that i seem to enjoy the game.
Apex's players when they nerf mobility over and over again: 🗿
Apex's players when the shitty battle pass got even shittier: 😡
It’s crazy bro. Out of all of the bs we’ve dealt with in this game, it’s a stupid battle pass change that made people finally take a stand.
This is basically just price anchoring, you see it all the time in shows like Hardcore Pawn and other shows where they have to decide on a price. Start off with a completely unreasonable price, and when someone reacts to it being far too high you lower it bit by bit until the buyer considers the price reasonable enough to stop arguing over it.
Bold of Asmon to assume that I out my hands on any type of Pay2Win game.
I haven't done that in over a decade. Once I learned my lesson it was never again.
Something neither of you mentioned but I feel is a big factor for the outrage is the fact that the price increase is double.
Not that people are thrilled about inflation, but most customers can handle occasional marginal price increases and mentally wrap their heads around why. but doubling the price overnight would make most consumers of any good or service pretty bummed
Been furious since they took lifelines shield away for Rez 😂
and now u gonna have lifeline reborn enjoy :D
Wow that's dumb. Haven't played for a long time but that's a dumb idea
@@nateshepardson1204but she can ‘now’ (it’s been a while) use her robot to res teammates while she can remain in active combat - it’s much better.
f this battle pass update tho obviously
Oh Apex…how you’ve fallen so far…
Apex was ALWAYS fallen Titanfall is being dragged to hell along with it.
7:00 What absolute terrible toxic take on f2p players.. Some people actually just play games casually and aren't meta slaves, believe it or not. Some people don't spend money because they know it's dumb and they'll still get power crept anyway. Some people actually enjoy the challenge of that handicap and find it more rewarding. For most people it's not about "keeping up with whales", they don't even care about that. Some have their fun with a game and then quit the moment it starts to suck because they don't have to worry about sunk cost from spending. Never thought I'd see Zack shitting on people for not buying microtransactions in a game..
That's just u not understanding his point. His point is that "if you take pride as being f2p". There's no respect for that. You know you are going into a gimped game where everything is psychologically designed to make u spend or suffer as f2p, don't take pride in it. He's referring to people who gloat about how they can do x or y or be the only mfker that should be praised for just being f2p. 😂.
He is whales.
I 100% agree with the FOMO issue. If every game has a battle pass and you enjoy 3-5 games that use them its tough to complete even half of them.
The first game to use "the battle pass" was dota 2 back in 2013 and they have been doing it every year since. And it has always been next to impossible to make meaningful progress without buying levels.
The actual rewards are usually between level 300 - 500. If you're lucky you might reach level 50 for free.
Battle passes are supposed to be rewards for playing the game. Free players get some freebies and paying players get more premium content at a heavily reduced price point. They should not expire after seasons are over, you should just be able to select one and grind it out. Another huge issue with Apex's battle pass system is you can't really grind it. You have to do daily and weekly challenges. Regular gameplay gives you none or almost no XP last i checked. Dailies and weeklies should be bonus side quests to fast track or catch up, not forced as the only way to even complete the battle pass. Not only are they forcing you to play a bunch of hours to get the rewards you paid for, but they are also forcing you to play in a way you may not want to do.
people.. if in your opinion the price exceeds the value, just don't buy it, damn it. simple as that
28:03 ohhhh my yacht
They enforce the time limit that some players are unable to finish for the battle pass as a way to try to get their players to stay on their game combined with the eomm system, which both combined have been what's drove a lot of people off the game
Instead of removing functionality and adding cost to it, the better move is to create a more premium tier and add features to it. The status quo stays, and a new premium measure is created.
battlepass isn't just about its rewards. battlepass is basically like a side quest.
The problem is that Apex is in a terrible state! An entire E-sports competition has been hacked, players have been hacked during their game, they've even received cheats, and so on.
And the game is plagued by problems that have been with us from the start, never to be solved:
Cheaters
The sound
Hitboxes
Balancing (only 2 updates per season, if not for cosmetic events)
EA and Respawn literally do nothing! Every season you get 3 or 4 collection events plus store events for no game modes or nothing new apart from the same slightly modified ones. No content at all, even the beginning of the seasons is poor! A "map change", sometimes a new character and that's it!
They don't solve any problems and concentrate on monetization! Worst of all, it's bad! We've had 2 events cost more than $150 and they were Recolors, Recolors, old skins...
Events with good skins cost over $300.
No wonder people are upset about the Battle Pass change! The game's going badly, they're doing nothing when they've got the money and the means, and they still dare to try and make you pay more.
As a former developer said, they know the problems, all of them, even they're just looking for an immediate profit. Milking the Game until it dies
The major reason they aren't getting player engagement over the 90 days is they don't help make the game playable (which is a broad conversation) ie matchmaking more balanced for new players, bug fixes and game crashes plus a major overhaul of the anti cheat. Asmon mentioned well why don't you make it available past the 90 days they have by creating another currency (exotic shards) to get lvl 100 reactive skins haha. I'm all for a payment scheme in this game but you can't say this is a community outcry to spend more money on the same battle pass.
The only good battle pass is the type that HSR has where it doesn't expire, it just resets so you get the exact same stuff
I’m sure if battle passes did not expire, it would drastically increase the MAU. It would retain more players season over season because most would stick around to complete the pass.
Does Asmon know about the $80 Reinhardt hammer being offered in OW2 right now, that has a weapon inspect that is ONLY available when using that weapon when it can clearly be used on all of the free weapon models?
Still is just a cosmetic in a free to play game, so I don't see why should anyone care. If people are dumb enough to buy it and make the price raise that's on them
I played Apex years ago one day. I practiced in the offline mode to get used to the controls and movement. I picked the Black girl with the smoke grenade launcher. My tactic was to shoot the smoke grenade on a fortified position. Making their range weapons useless. I would move in, spamming grenades and finishing them off with the shotgun. 9 kills later (My squad was scattered the entire time) I was being barraged with the classic whining of hacker and bullshit. But then the squeakers in my squad started hounding me about joining their clan and crap.
It was at that point i realized that the game is just a first person shooter with the community of LoL.
i play apex from release, after the "fix" the BP is actually a lot better for an f2p players. the 2800 coins option were BS before, now you can get it for 20$ and it's a better offering, so nobody was hurt tbh. The main problem was not being able to buy it with ingame currency, and it's fixed now. f2p players pretty much got x2 resources with this update, and a bit more skins. so it's good
0:58 Exactly. I really don't understand people spending money for skins, then complaining when the company capitalizes on it.
Everyday i hate this game even more i hope respawn get away from EA ASAP
I don't care about BPs if its just skins but when companies start locking game content like weapons/new heroes/etc behind a paid BP thats when I have the problem.