The CEO of Respawn has made a public apology just days after the studio made a public apology for a major monetisation misstep in the currently ongoing Apex Legends Iron Crown Collection Event. However, this new apology is for comments from Respawn’s staff on social media about the recent Apex Legends backlash from fans.
Respawn Staff Comments After Apex Legends Backlash and CEO’s Apology
Recently, Respawn launched the Apex Legends Iron Crown Collection Event, which introduces several new things to the game. However, it also features an event-exclusive cosmetic skins system which broke a pledge made by the studio over monetisation. (Cosmetics were available solely through Apex Packs.) When fans spotted this there was a fierce backlash online. Shortly after, Respawn offered a public apology and also laid out changes which have since been implemented to the system.
However, following the backlash, some developers from Respawn took to the game’s SubReddit and subsequently got into an argument with angry fans. Things got so bad in this argument that Vince Zampella, the CEO of Respawn, has now had to offer a public apology for the comments made by staff about the Apex Legends backlash. “On Friday, we gave Apex fans an update on how we were changing the Iron Crown event,” he says; “Some of the team then joined a discussion with our community on Reddit, and things got to a pretty bad place. Some of our folks crossed a line with their comments, and that’s now how we want Respawn to be represented.”
Zampella went on to state that; “I apologise to any of our fans that were offended. I will always stand behind the team here at Respawn and support them on speaking out against some of the toxic and nasty comments being directed at them, including everything from death threats to comments aimed at their family and loved ones. But we shouldn’t contribute to it when we do comment, and add to the very thing we want to prevent. Last week we didn’t do that, and going forward we will be better. Having an open, healthy relationship with our community is incredibly important to all of us at Respawn.”
Looking Forward to the Future
Hopefully, Zampella’s statement will smooth over the social media debacle. Between that and the new changes to the Iron Crown event; perhaps Respawn can start to put this unfortunate episode and the Apex Legends backlash behind them. Certainly, the last week has made it very clear what fans want from monetisation in Apex. Hopefully, Respawn has taken that lesson onboard. However, fans who are active online often have long memories. The studio will no doubt need to work hard to rebuild bridges in the wake of this incident.