You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games here
EA’s most recent investor call broached topics anywhere between Ultimate Team, expansion of The Sims franchise, and mobile gaming. However, one thing that important to note was the corporation’s defence of free-to-play games in the face of investors claiming they are “dilutive to industry pricing power or maybe gamers’ perception of value.”
EA CEO, Andrew P. Wilson, said “no,” free-to-play are not as above. “The industry has continued to grow broadly across both the traditional premium category and the free-to-play category. And certainly as you think about mobile gaming coming into that ecosystem, that is almost double the industry overall, and that’s primarily a free-to-play mechanic.”
Apex Legends has recently hit rock-bottom. A slew of terrible changes to the Battle Pass have contributed to this user-generated review score, with a staggering 80,000 of the recent reviews awarding the game a Negative review score. This came in part thanks to the new Battle Pass structure which offered slightly more efficient and targeted awards by splitting the pass in two, and then charging the regular price for each one. The biggest issue, however, was the fact that Respawn made it impossible for players to buy it with in-game currency, but only real money.
While, on a purely technical level, it seemed as though the changes would actually increase the quality of each Battle Pass, the anti-consumer practice of not being able to use in-game currency caused outrage within the community. As such, it has seen its review score tank, while it only continues on its downwards trajectory in-terms of player count. Apex Legends is one of the staple free-to-play games out there. While it didn’t emerge until long after Fortnite and the rest of the Battle Royale genre, it’s certainly been a trend-setter in its business practice.
EA’s free-to-play prospects seem to focus on how it can “support all business models,” and “every modality of play.” It plans to offer “different monetisation opportunities” that will “likely drive meaningful growth, not just for the industry but for our company,” Wilson says.
It’s interesting that unlike previous Apex controversy, this doesn’t focus on cheaters or lack of technical security when it comes to e-sports competitions, but due to anti-consumer monetisation. If EA plans to continue with its business models of free-to-play games, you can only imagine you’re going to see even more games labelled as Overwhelming Negative…
About the Author
