The Apex Legends subreddit has seen better days. Recently, developers Respawn Entertainment had to make some changes to how their Iron Crown Event cosmetic skins were sold after fans complained that it was absurd they were tied to RNG loot boxes. The team at Respawn announced some upcoming changes that will allow those that wanted the skins to buy them directly for $18 (USD).
The Reddit thread announcing the changes also included an attempt at apologizing to the community. To say that it didn't go over too well may be a bit of an understatement.
The thread quickly spiraled into a realm of insults, swears, and plenty of grievances. Only, some of these came not from the fans but from members of the Respawn Entertainment development team. This includes Reddit user dko5, also known as Drew McCoy. According to Twitter, where he uses the same handle, McCoy is Project Lead at Respawn Entertainment. Other remarks found on Reddit come from user Jayfresh_Respawn. This is Jay Frechette, the Respawn Entertainment Community Manager.
Some of the comment replies by Respawn were made in response to garbage-tier comments by Reddit users. No matter what the context was, the comments from the Respawn devs set off another round of anger on the Apex Legends subreddit today.
Though some of the offending remarks were allegedly deleted by dko5 and Jayfresh_Respawn, a few of the more anger-inducing comments were screenshotted and compiled in a Medium post. The two that have angered fans the most are:
McCoy goes on to call some players "freeloaders."
The community manager then chimed in:
The thing is, the devs aren't really all that wrong. In fact, a lot of their responses are justified given the amount of mudslinging, entitlement, swears, and excessive rage that was thrown at them. Let's face it: Gamersâ„¢ are some of the biggest assholes out there and are a big reason why it's often safer for developers to just remain silent at all times. It honestly looks incredibly hypocritical that the community is crying foul the moment they get a taste of their own medicine. But on the other side, these devs are still speaking on behalf of their product, their studio, and their employer in those Reddit remarks. It doesn't paint the dev team in a good light either as a result.
Really, it's just some pretty shitty behavior from everyone involved.
I realise it's a different genre with different expectations, but they've managed to avoid anything close to this.