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Respawn Entertainment called out the increase in harassment that its employees have been facing from players on social media platforms. The developers reiterated that healthy communication and feedback are always welcome and are looking to improve the game. However, players should not resort to harassment or threats to developers over in-game issues. Sony-owned development studio Bungie also expressed its support and said that toxicity has no place in gaming.
Why Respawn is facing threats and harassment
In August 2022, the Apex Legends community tried to boycott the game by hosting a “No Apex August” event where players would stop playing the game unless developers would address community concerns. There were a number of issues that affected the game recently that took months to fix. Loba’s tactical ability was broken for several weeks while console players were not able to use voice chat.
Even during the Apex Legends Global Series, pro teams faced some game-breaking bugs at the world championship. Team For7 was eliminated due to a bug that prevented one of its players from landing inside the zone. Had the team been in contention for the world championship, the match would most likely be canceled. But it escaped the attention of many fans because For7 was already playing with one less player and had no chance of winning the event due to their table standings.
Audio issues have existed since the game’s release and it is one of the biggest complaints that players have. It has been over three years since the game’s release and players are experiencing the “no audio” bug where footsteps are often muted even if enemies are nearby.
Despite all of the major problems that the game is facing, sending threats or harassing developers of the game is toxic and wrong. Jacob “HisWattson” McMillin of FURIA was allegedly blacklisted by EA after he colluded with a known hacker and expressed his hatred towards Apex Legend’s head of security Conor “Hideouts” Ford.
Respawn responded to all of the recent toxicity stating, “we want to remind our players that we have a zero-tolerance policy for threats and the harassment of our developers. We will take appropriate action to ensure the health and safety of our team.”
If players face issues, they should reach out to Respawn Entertainment through the appropriate channels and use the Report feature. Making personal attacks can ruin the relationship between the developers and the community and toxicity is unlikely to yield any positive results.
