THE free-to-play shooter genre is one of the most lucrative in gaming, with companies making millions from skins and other microtransactions.
While people don’t pay for the game itself, the passionate fan base is often more than happy to make smaller purchases for their favourite characters.
Not every player buys these skins, but most regular players purchase the seasonal battle passes, which allow them to unlock more items as they play the game.
Most games offer a free and premium battle pass, with the premium pass packing more rewards as players level up.
Many games also allow players to get the premium version just by playing the game, usually by earning and spending in-game currency.
Apex Legends has just announced that it will be moving away from this system, and going forward, premium battle passes can only be purchased using real money.
In the previous system, the premium battle pass could be purchased seasonally for 950 Apex Coins, the game’s in-game currency.
However, not only will the premium battle pass now cost $9.99 (roughly £8), but it will also have half the levels and change every six weeks.
This means that Apex players will have to pay around $80 (approx £64) a year for battle passes that were previously free.
Making the change more insulting is that the price for a year’s worth of the battle pass is now the price of the average full-price game.
Players are furious about the changes, but developer Respawn has not responded to the outrage at the time of writing.
Some studios have gone back on unpopular changes in the past, but it is not yet clear what the situation with Apex Legends will be.
If you want to read more about free-to-play games, check out our Zenless Zone Zero review.
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