EA’s recent decision to stop Apex players buying battle passes with premium currency rubbed fans the wrong way. Now, the game’s Steam listing is being nuked with negative reviews.
EA Games revealed on July 8 that it’s splitting the Apex Legends battle pass in two, and will disallow players from purchasing battle passes with in-game currencies—instead requiring them to fork over 10 real-life bucks.
It’s a big change from the previous system, where players could purchase one battle pass and save up the currencies they earn to purchase the next one. The playerbase is up in arms; fans are so unhappy with the change that the game received thousands of negative Steam reviews, making its recent review scores plummet to Overwhelmingly Negative as of July 19.
88 percent of all reviews from the past 30 days are negative, totaling over 40,000, most of which were from the last week or so. Apex received over 7,500 negative reviews yesterday alone. That’s a huge number, but the game is still sitting at Mostly Positive on Steam—for now.
Most reviews cite the changes to the battle pass as their primary reason. “Titanfall died for this slop,” one disgruntled player wrote. Many others wrote about EA’s “greed” and “forced monetization,” though many also name “cheaters” as an issue that the developer ignores in favor of squeezing more money out of the playerbase.
These last 10 days have been troublesome for the battle royale, and if things continue, the game’s player count and review scores might suffer further. GTA publisher Take-Two Interactive recently explained how negative reviews can have a major impact on a brand (thanks, Game World Observer), both financially and in terms of its reputation. EA is yet to respond or announce any changes to its new policy, which appears to be purely focused on increasing profits rather than provide extra value for players.
