Apex Legends developer Respawn Entertainment has come under scrutiny from fans, accusing the devs of advertising a false discount on the Silverback skin bundle, claiming it’s discounted more than it truly is.
Skins and cosmetics are a huge revenue stream for numerous games, especially free-to-play titles like Apex Legends. In turn, Respawn consistently releases unique cosmetics, which usually become unavailable after a limited period of time.
For the festive season, Apex Legend’s Holo-day event sale was followed by the new year sale, with lots of cosmetics on offer. However, one skin bundle in the store has sparked controversy.
Apex Legends player HardVegtable highlighted the issue with the Silverback skin bundle discount in a Reddit thread on December 30.
The Silverback bundle originally served as a fundraiser for the ALGS Championship prize pool, and sold for 2500 Apex Coins, in May 2021. All the bundles were sold at this fixed price of 2500 coins.
However, the game is now showing that the bundle has been discounted to 2150 from 3300 Apex Coins – despite it never being that price.
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“That’s false advertisement essentially,” said one player. Another likened it to the tactics used in brick & mortar stores: “This is actually pretty common, you see it often in retail stores.”
“I feel like they think a customer is an idiot and it irritates me the most,” said another player.
The Apex Legends store is often the focus of players’ ire, but is the game’s primary revenue stream, given that it is totally free to play. Owners of rare skins also bemoan the developers for adding these cosmetics back to the store, thereby diminishing their rarity.
It’s unclear whether the inflated discount value was an intentional move by Respawn or an honest mistake. However, players are still getting a discount on the original value of 2500 – even if it’s not as big a discount as advertised.
