Respawn reverses incredibly unpopular Apex Legends decision

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Electronic Arts and Respawn have reversed one of the most unpopular business decisions in recent memory.

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A bit ago, Respawn revealed a new battle pass for Apex Legends, the live service FPS darling that has generated billions of revenue since launching in 2019. There was one big change to Season 22's battle pass: Gamers could no longer spend Apex Coins to get the premium battle pass. Instead, they'd have to shell out a flat $9.99 for S22's premium battle pass.

This predictably led to mass backlash among the Apex faithful. The push for heavier monetization comes at a retraction point in the games industry, with nearly every single video games company on the planet shrinking its employee base with mass layoffs in order to maximize revenues and profits. EA is no different--the company shed itself of thousands of workers despite making $7.1 billion in revenue in FY23; "During FY24, EA returned $1.505 billion to stockholders," reads the company's latest financial report.

Apex Legends players pushed back in a big way, though, and review-bombed the free-to-play shooter on Steam. At the time of writing, Apex's recent reviews are overwhelmingly negative with over 80,000 review-bombs having been detonated on the store page.

So EA and Respawn did what any company would do: They reversed course, and will now allow gamers to buy Apex Legends' Season 22 premium battle pass with Apex Coins. The old exchange rate has been re-established and S22's battle pass will cost 950 Apex Coins.

"You've spoken, and we've listened. With the release of Season 22 we will restore the ability to get the Premium Battle Pass for 950 Apex Coins. We recognize that we could have handled the Battle Pass changes better--that's on us," Respawn wrote in a new message to fans.

Check below for the revised battle pass structure:

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