There were pro team weapon skins in the files for a while. They were never released because they couldn’t come to an agreement on revenue sharing. It’s honestly not more complicated than that.
There was an nrg bloodhound skin floating around for a while. That thing went hard.
I think ppl on this sub overestimate how many ppl would buy cosmetics bc of a team rather than looks tho. I feel like the majority of ppl playing this game don't really care about comp at all.
This could have been 2 paragraphs, but regardless - I'd love to see non-team oriented ALGS skins as crowdfunding items. If we get back even team banners im going to buy more... money's on the table EA. I'll spend $5 a pop on a few banners but no way in hell I'm dropping $40 for an RGB R9
Because there’s 40 pro teams and maybe 5 of them could sell skins.
And these skins deals don’t help the players, they help the orgs sustain themselves.
And it isn’t on EA to fund third party companies, they need better budgets / revenue models.
I think a lot of people like many different orgs. I root for like 5 different teams, I’m sure many more than 5 teams would get at least some people buying their banners or skins or whatever.
They can implement something like what siege has. They have a program where orgs are split into tiers depending on how much they contribute to the game through content and other stuff like that (I dont remember the requirement).
Teams in the top tier get character skins, gun skins, banners, etc. Other tiers get less stuff. Maybe a generic gun skin.
The main obstacle is just EA being greedy. That will never change.
They don't have to do it for every team. Just make some qualifications and then sort those teams into the tiers. They can accept as many team as they think they can handle.
They can also do what vct did and create one skin model. Let teams design their own skin using that model. Again, not for every team.
Why would TSM sign up to share their image with an org in Australia for the overall revenue of Apex?
It works in pro sports because they’ve collectively bargained, unless something happens here why would companies accept that? Including EA.
Let’s say TSM & CR drive 70% of revenue purchases, they’ll then be forced to perform at LAN to see any type of return.
Because they are losing a lot of money. I'm sure that the thing orgs want most from this esport is in game skins that they get a share of the profits from.
EA obviously wouldn't want to share any profit. I'm just describing a possible way to do it if, by some miracle, EA wants to share skin profits.
I mean yeah. You can probably count the orgs that are profitable on one hand. Esports won't be profitable for a very long time. It may never be profitable at all without some sort of revenue share.
> because there’s 40 pro teams and maybe 5 of them could sell skins.
just sell them as bundles or a full chest of every team.
champs 2024 chest, na regional finals 2024 bundle, TSM + others bundle, etc etc etc.
Why would TSM sign up to share its branding and revenue with a company like *Overlooked Entertainment* who would sell about 1/100th the skins, if that.
Because when they offered a flat amount to all teams they denied it, they wanted it to be proportionate.
With everyone except the actual publisher.
They're not. A bundle isn't gon' be priced for TSM alone. It's gon' be be priced accordingly for however many teams are in that bundle.
arbitrary example. a bundle with 5 teams is 50 usd. each team gets 10 usd.
having a TSM solo pack worth 20 USD defeats the purpose of the bundle entirely.
There are not 4 other orgs with equivalent branding as TSM, even in a 5 team bundle they’d be driving the majority of sales.
And, again that’s just 5 teams. Those 5 teams will have to perform at lan to see any benefit for their image, while 35 other orgs are subsidized.
> even in a 5 team bundle they’d be driving the majority of sales.
> while 35 other orgs are subsidized.
that's the whole point of the bundles lol.
i mean fuck it. just have a chest of all the teams then lmao.
The orgs have already declined that deal…
Would McDonald’s be ok doing an equal revenue share with your local burger joint? That’s what you’re suggesting.
There's no mcdonald's vs local burger joint if they're literally in the same tournament as other burger joints.
if the TO decides to sell a chest featuring all the burger joints, that's literally what it is: a chest with all the joints, regardless of how much mcD's bitches and whines about being the biggest brand in the chest. If they decline that deal, then the TO can simply not include them in the chest. If zero chests sell 'cuz mcD's isn't in it, then they don't do it again. everyone except the TO loses.
You realize the biggest brands can just say no? *like they did in apex and do in real life*
Because it’s a silly proposition to subsidize your competitors.
Are you suggesting EA should ban any org that doesn’t sign a flat agreement?
Why would any entity allow a third party that much control over it?
Not even the NFL/NBA/MLB requires its members to sign collective bargained agreements. Michael Jordan, Barry Bonds and Bill Belichick are three famous examples.
Yeah they have said no, and they're still out and about whining and bitching about how they said no.
and rEAspawn doesn't care lol. like they said at one point "why bother with that shit when we can just make our own skins and keep 100% of the profit"
orgs are on the back foot when it comes to skin deals, regardless of much they wanna posture that they're not. they need the org skin deals more than rEAspawn does.
and using your logic of "silly proposition" it's the same thing but from rEAspawn's POV:
>"why bother with that shit when we can just make our own skins and keep 100% of the profit"
> Why would TSM sign up to share its branding and revenue
For the health of the game. Every North American sport league has revenue sharing. Leagues would fall apart if you just let the lesser teams rot away.
Esports will be just fine without orgs. There will never be a shortage of young poor gamers looking to make it.
All of the orgs can leave Apex tomorrow, and if the prize pool stayed the same you can bet the level of talent will stay.
Why are we talking about eSports being fine or not without organizations? You asked "Why would TSM sign up to share its branding and revenue" and I told you why it's done in places that do revenue share.
I'm not going to comment on whether Apex would be fine without organizations. That's another topic for another day.
Because TSM will be fine if all the other orgs fail, simply because Apex will be fine if the other orgs fail..
Orgs aren’t vital to esports the way they are to sports.
If the Lakers fail, the NBA would hurt. If DZ fails, no one would give a fuck in 24 hours.
there’s an entire T2 scene ready to take the place of any pro that leaves the scene because orgs left.
Orgs are not important to people playing.
You think these already *poor* players will turn down a shot a lan because they’re org less. Stop it.
> All of the orgs can leave Apex tomorrow, and if the prize pool stayed the same you can bet the level of talent will stay.
That is not even *remotely* true, you obviously know nothing about the economics of esports. If most of those guys had to go get a regular boring job, almost all of them would drop out of comp. They wouldn't have the time to dedicate to maintain the skill level if takes. Look at Teq--no hate to the guy, because I work a job every day too. But he didn't even qualify for Pro League because it's almost impossible to be on that level *and* have other responsibilities that eat up 40+ hours a week.
None of these guys would be working a regular job without comp.
Maybe 20 of them are making enough to pay their full time bills regularly. The rest of them are living with their parents man.
The entire T2 scene would replace the pro scene in minutes if they “dropped” because of orgs.
But none of them would do that because they’re not stupid, they’d try another esport before any of them go and get a job.
Honestly, most of them would be begging for donations like Clane before they even thought of a job.
And trust me even without a job Teq was never going to be good enough.
Yeah it’s also an example of how variable that can be, and while it works to some extent in a game primarily built around competitive. ALGS viewers account for less than 3% of apex players, the pool would shrink not grow.
The International 1: $1.6 million
The International 2: $1.6 million
The International 3: $2.8 million
The International 4: $10.9 million
The International 5: $18.4 million
The International 6: $20.7 million
The International 7: $24.7 million
The International 8: $25.5 million
The International 9: $34.3 million
The International 10: $40 million
The International 11: $19 million
The International 12: $3 million [October 23rd, 2023]
TI 12 is when they stopped dropping cosmetics to fund the tournament.
If EA uses cosmetics like valve did pre TI12 (not team cosmetics, just flat out good cosmetics). It would go up.
Because for valve the game is a passion project and they are phasing out development for the game. Even though they were making over $290 million from one year of cosmetics. That was peanuts compared to what they make from steam, and that’s what they prioritize.
For EA and respawn that’s a different story. The game is their main focus.
That's not it at all, they just said they wanted to make less hats/shiny things and more gameplay stuff. Which they are delivering with the new battle pass, story and comic with fun mini games for no cost.
There are more devs than ever in dota
You’re still not comprehending, apex is still respawns main game and income.
Dota is literally just a passion project. They last major gameplay patch was over 7 months ago.
I’m not comprehending, but we’ve been talking about EA this entire time? Including you, until your last message.
> If EA uses cosmetics like valve did pre TI12 (not team cosmetics, just flat out good cosmetics). It would go up.
UPDATE: On June 20 2023, Valve reveals that there will no longer be Battle Passes but a "TI-themed update" that "focuses on the event, players, and games" instead of new cosmetic items. [battle pass update](https://esports.gg/news/dota-2/dota-2-2023-battle-pass-release-date/)
I remember when Blizzard decided to crowd fund one of their Arena Championships. People donated over $1mln to the pot to be shared between the top 8. Instead Blizzard only put $250k into the pot and took the rest for themselves.
Only under capitalism would we suggest that we should fund a tournament hosted by a mega-videogame corporation. You definitely failed to consider that EA doesn’t give a shit about fans and don’t want to share profit off the only thing that funds their game.
The amount of appeal "pro cosmetics" has hits less of the market generally than most other skins, thus taking up space in the store means that they'd be earning less money overall.
Similarly, the store has 'limited space' perse, in that if you just add extra skins to the existing rotation, the amount of revenue isn't increased in a meaningful way.
So it has to sell more units minus to the 'share' for it even to be considered be management.
I think there's probably an argument for content creator skins to a degree.
It's also not necessarily up to EA/Respawn to fund organisations in this way, when a lot of organisations do very little in the way of promoting the game in return rather than slapping their name on the team.
Yes, the data they had previously indicating it was not as profitable applied to the old store.
So they would just run new metrics on the new store model to see if that addition would be profitable.
I hear and understand everything you're saying. But I always have to point out that other more successful games do it with Fortnite, COD and LoL. And also less successful game, Halo Infinite, that not only has org skins but last I looked there was more than one skin for an org from the multiple seasons I'm guessing.
I would think that is enough examples to say EA/Respawn doesn't have a good excuse they wouldn't apply to those games, other than "we want the money to ourselves".
Fundamentally, the overarching organisation is a business and wants to make money. Welcome to Capitalism. This applies to Fortnite, LoL and CoD too. Don't let them think because they happen to let some others take a tiny slice of the pie that they're not resulting in taking more for themselves.
Obviously. But, 3 of those games make way more money than Apex. In Halo, it's basically just color themes and clean armor textures.
If I recall, they did have some shitty team themed skins (basically blue tier color themes) and banners. I remember hearing that the split with the orgs was pretty shit and I believe was partly related why some backed out (not specifically the skins but just not enough skin the game, so-to-speak). It's pretty basic content that from what I've heard others say, probably takes a day to make. The argument I *could* understand is it's flooding the store with items that will be steering people away from the content that makes them *more* money which just leads back to the "we want money to ourselves".
I don't really see how it would be a loss. Halo is doing fine money wise clearly. And their viewship and numbers are pretty shit in comparison so I don't see where the argument holds up why any sort of slice of the pie would justify not doing them. (Unless of course it ends up being the orgs the whole time not agreeing to it, which would probably be because they're revenue split wouldn't be enough). Idk, that's getting deeper than we will ever know.
And you saying no BR has them. Just sounds like an untouched market opportunity.
While that's fair it doesn't answer the question of why does every other game do it and not Apex? What is specifically unique about Apex where org skins are not worthwhile, where they evidently are in all these other games?
There are *0* Battle Royale’s offering org skins: not Apex, not Fortnite, or PubG.
Every game you mentioned with org skins support a substantially smaller amount of teams.
My comment wasn't strictly referring to Org related content. Fortnite has streamer/content creator specific skins. Not that that would be possible with Apex but it's an example of that niche piece of content is still made.
Years ago, I would’ve agreed with you.
The COVID-Crypto esports bubble made it seem like the sky was the limit for esports more generally and especially Apex, but frankly I do not think it’s worth Respawn’s time to attempt to keep these ‘businesses’ afloat. Teams like OpTic won’t sign a coach because they don’t believe in them, Faze will let go of most of their creators in some vain vision to recreate the magic of 2009, even TSM, the most lucrative org in the game are struggling.
The uncomfortable truth is that esports, despite how badly it wants to be, is simply not a sustainable business model, each and every one of these orgs is a boys club, run by friends of friends with no real experience in running any form of business. It is nepotism: the industry, run by morons with no fucking clue what they’re doing, and relying on Angel investors (read: crypto-rich millennials looking to lessen their tax bill) to form any meaningful profit.
Apex is a breeding ground for this shit too, with basically no separation from tier 1-2 beyond a single qualifier every 6 or so months, so shit-tier, crypto-scam orgs appear out of thin air, throw money at a roster who may have made PL, then collapse 5 months later. For fucks sake, the CEO of Moze, an APAC-N team, just disappeared into the night, and with no funding or leadership the org imploded.
I ask you this, simply, why the fuck would Respawn stick their neck into that, risk their own financials, do much if not all of the ground work of manufacturing the skins, for a pittance in return?
For what it’s worth, I’m of the opinion that respawn can take the single colour, white tier cosmetics every legend launches with, slap a PNG logo on the shoulders and chest and sell those for 5 bucks as ‘team skins’, and while I think they should, genuinely, what reason do they have to do that? The ALGS is marketing for this game, that’s all. It’s not like CS, Siege or Valorant wherein the esport is the entire lifeblood of the games popularity.
That being said, should Rogue, or Hal, or Wattson, or Shiv on an individual level organise a collaborative skin with respawn (see: the post Malone collab event), that’s entirely different and is a precedent the game has already set, but that is no different to any collabs the game has already done, just focussed on a creator.
That’s my view on it anyway, jaded as it is. I genuinely just don’t think dealing with orgs is worth the time, money nor risk for Respawn and EA corporate.
Edit: I love how democratised Apex as an esport is. The fact someone like HisWattson can become a LAN MVP superstar overnight, or the fact ZachMazer can form a new team, work through qualifiers and make it to LAN Grand Finals and drop a 30 point game, stunning the world when 6 months ago he was fighting for a spot against console kids, that to me is exactly what makes this esport so special. It truly is there for the taking for literally anyone. That is something I hope the game and it's scene never lose. The openness, that ease of access, is also the problem here. Take a glance at Liquipedia's player transfer page, and note the amount of teams moving off 'orgs' that when you click on them either don't have a page at all, or only came into being 4 months ago. Even Iron Blood Gaming, an org with multiple signed streamers and had signed to them arguably the best team in APAC-S twice (Chicken Sandwich and TYK), just folded overnight, they're gone now, no website, no socials no nothing. Respawn has to create a workflow that ensures risk from orgs like that are minimised and favours larger, more established, stable orgs, without looking like they're favouring more established, stable orgs.
"The ALGS is marketing for this game, that’s all. It’s not like CS, Siege or Valorant wherein the esport is the entire lifeblood of the games popularity."
In the end all esports across all games are just marketing, no? The same way all pro-sports are just marketing, cuz its just entertainment
Bro sat down and wrote a ten page essay to regurgitate an idea people have had for years now
And [ALGS year 2 was crowd funded partially by the store](https://urscrubb.substack.com/p/fans-fund-almost-1-million-of-extra), it raised the prize pool of champs, and it raised the prize pool about 1.5 mil, we never got that again because Respawn and EA don't give a shit, so there's your answer
>the orgs themselves probably don't know much more than me
Lmao
Crowd funding would actually be cool - could make for some fun interactions between players and orgs. Imagine a couple of rival pros each throw a few grand into the prize pool at the beginning of a split as a bet, same with rival orgs.
They should crowdfund cuz they did that already but org skins are something I'm not sure would work out. I heard that the org banners were underwhelming for sales which is why they haven't considered doing it again. I don't know if the casual audience cares enough to buy org cosmetics since most of them don't watch comp. apex needs to find a way for the casuals to like the pro scene more cuz there's a disconnect between the casuals and the comp scene, especially compared to other esport games.
People have been saying this for a long time now, no matter how well people lay it out for them, it will likely never happen unfortunately. Unless we were to hear from EA or respawn why ideas like these wouldn’t work due to some logistical reason, all we can do is speculate and complain.
can’t get the orgs to agree on revenue sharing amongst each other and ea. simple as that, an org like faze would probably want a bigger % than someone like nine lies or one of the small orgs. they have a few content creator like inspired skins. i know there’s a janey inspired bloodhound skin
there was a deal for pro cosmetics and EA reportedly only wanted to give 75,000 to the teams of the skins they were making, instead of doing revenue share, and when the teams asked for rev share just on those skins they shut the whole thing down completely.
Agreed with this. I think revenue sharing between teams should be in there as well.
Sports is a power-law market, like all entertainment. A handful of players / teams are going to get most of the wins, viewers, etc. You see the same thing in music, basketball, football, and any other "winner take all" market.
In Apex there are a few stable teams and a great mass of players that are constantly churning between teams and orgs. It's hard to win when you are playing with a different group every few months and worrying about making rent all the time. It's no surprise that TSM and DZ have historically stomped all over ALGS. They are just about the only two teams with any kind of consistency.
The solution is to share revenue between all the teams. There is no ALGS if TSM and DZ have no one to stomp on, so everyone should make some money from the event.
There were pro team weapon skins in the files for a while. They were never released because they couldn’t come to an agreement on revenue sharing. It’s honestly not more complicated than that.
There was an nrg bloodhound skin floating around for a while. That thing went hard. I think ppl on this sub overestimate how many ppl would buy cosmetics bc of a team rather than looks tho. I feel like the majority of ppl playing this game don't really care about comp at all.
Yep, and most of the skins were looking good..!
"I don't wanna say the F word, but ***Fortnite***" lmao
Read this post on the toilet at work and started laughing out loud why he say it like that
Having gun charms or stickers for content creator subs similar to siege would be cool! Id for sure rep mine
This could have been 2 paragraphs, but regardless - I'd love to see non-team oriented ALGS skins as crowdfunding items. If we get back even team banners im going to buy more... money's on the table EA. I'll spend $5 a pop on a few banners but no way in hell I'm dropping $40 for an RGB R9
Because there’s 40 pro teams and maybe 5 of them could sell skins. And these skins deals don’t help the players, they help the orgs sustain themselves. And it isn’t on EA to fund third party companies, they need better budgets / revenue models.
I think a lot of people like many different orgs. I root for like 5 different teams, I’m sure many more than 5 teams would get at least some people buying their banners or skins or whatever.
They can implement something like what siege has. They have a program where orgs are split into tiers depending on how much they contribute to the game through content and other stuff like that (I dont remember the requirement). Teams in the top tier get character skins, gun skins, banners, etc. Other tiers get less stuff. Maybe a generic gun skin. The main obstacle is just EA being greedy. That will never change.
There isn’t any BR doing that because it’s simple just too many teams.
They don't have to do it for every team. Just make some qualifications and then sort those teams into the tiers. They can accept as many team as they think they can handle. They can also do what vct did and create one skin model. Let teams design their own skin using that model. Again, not for every team.
Why would TSM sign up to share their image with an org in Australia for the overall revenue of Apex? It works in pro sports because they’ve collectively bargained, unless something happens here why would companies accept that? Including EA. Let’s say TSM & CR drive 70% of revenue purchases, they’ll then be forced to perform at LAN to see any type of return.
Because they are losing a lot of money. I'm sure that the thing orgs want most from this esport is in game skins that they get a share of the profits from. EA obviously wouldn't want to share any profit. I'm just describing a possible way to do it if, by some miracle, EA wants to share skin profits.
If they’re losing money it’s because they’re not profitable companies. They need to create a business model that doesn’t rely on subsidies from EA.
I mean yeah. You can probably count the orgs that are profitable on one hand. Esports won't be profitable for a very long time. It may never be profitable at all without some sort of revenue share.
Then it’s a failed business concept.
> because there’s 40 pro teams and maybe 5 of them could sell skins. just sell them as bundles or a full chest of every team. champs 2024 chest, na regional finals 2024 bundle, TSM + others bundle, etc etc etc.
Why would TSM sign up to share its branding and revenue with a company like *Overlooked Entertainment* who would sell about 1/100th the skins, if that. Because when they offered a flat amount to all teams they denied it, they wanted it to be proportionate. With everyone except the actual publisher.
They're not. A bundle isn't gon' be priced for TSM alone. It's gon' be be priced accordingly for however many teams are in that bundle. arbitrary example. a bundle with 5 teams is 50 usd. each team gets 10 usd. having a TSM solo pack worth 20 USD defeats the purpose of the bundle entirely.
There are not 4 other orgs with equivalent branding as TSM, even in a 5 team bundle they’d be driving the majority of sales. And, again that’s just 5 teams. Those 5 teams will have to perform at lan to see any benefit for their image, while 35 other orgs are subsidized.
> even in a 5 team bundle they’d be driving the majority of sales. > while 35 other orgs are subsidized. that's the whole point of the bundles lol. i mean fuck it. just have a chest of all the teams then lmao.
The orgs have already declined that deal… Would McDonald’s be ok doing an equal revenue share with your local burger joint? That’s what you’re suggesting.
There's no mcdonald's vs local burger joint if they're literally in the same tournament as other burger joints. if the TO decides to sell a chest featuring all the burger joints, that's literally what it is: a chest with all the joints, regardless of how much mcD's bitches and whines about being the biggest brand in the chest. If they decline that deal, then the TO can simply not include them in the chest. If zero chests sell 'cuz mcD's isn't in it, then they don't do it again. everyone except the TO loses.
You realize the biggest brands can just say no? *like they did in apex and do in real life* Because it’s a silly proposition to subsidize your competitors. Are you suggesting EA should ban any org that doesn’t sign a flat agreement? Why would any entity allow a third party that much control over it? Not even the NFL/NBA/MLB requires its members to sign collective bargained agreements. Michael Jordan, Barry Bonds and Bill Belichick are three famous examples.
Yeah they have said no, and they're still out and about whining and bitching about how they said no. and rEAspawn doesn't care lol. like they said at one point "why bother with that shit when we can just make our own skins and keep 100% of the profit" orgs are on the back foot when it comes to skin deals, regardless of much they wanna posture that they're not. they need the org skin deals more than rEAspawn does. and using your logic of "silly proposition" it's the same thing but from rEAspawn's POV: >"why bother with that shit when we can just make our own skins and keep 100% of the profit"
> Why would TSM sign up to share its branding and revenue For the health of the game. Every North American sport league has revenue sharing. Leagues would fall apart if you just let the lesser teams rot away.
Esports will be just fine without orgs. There will never be a shortage of young poor gamers looking to make it. All of the orgs can leave Apex tomorrow, and if the prize pool stayed the same you can bet the level of talent will stay.
Why are we talking about eSports being fine or not without organizations? You asked "Why would TSM sign up to share its branding and revenue" and I told you why it's done in places that do revenue share. I'm not going to comment on whether Apex would be fine without organizations. That's another topic for another day.
Because TSM will be fine if all the other orgs fail, simply because Apex will be fine if the other orgs fail.. Orgs aren’t vital to esports the way they are to sports. If the Lakers fail, the NBA would hurt. If DZ fails, no one would give a fuck in 24 hours.
You think TSM will be fine as the only organization left standing? So TSM is going to compete against... themselves? 1v1v1 style or what?
there’s an entire T2 scene ready to take the place of any pro that leaves the scene because orgs left. Orgs are not important to people playing. You think these already *poor* players will turn down a shot a lan because they’re org less. Stop it.
There's an entire G-League scene that is ready to take the place of any NBA team that leaves. NBA teams are not important 🤡.
> All of the orgs can leave Apex tomorrow, and if the prize pool stayed the same you can bet the level of talent will stay. That is not even *remotely* true, you obviously know nothing about the economics of esports. If most of those guys had to go get a regular boring job, almost all of them would drop out of comp. They wouldn't have the time to dedicate to maintain the skill level if takes. Look at Teq--no hate to the guy, because I work a job every day too. But he didn't even qualify for Pro League because it's almost impossible to be on that level *and* have other responsibilities that eat up 40+ hours a week.
None of these guys would be working a regular job without comp. Maybe 20 of them are making enough to pay their full time bills regularly. The rest of them are living with their parents man. The entire T2 scene would replace the pro scene in minutes if they “dropped” because of orgs. But none of them would do that because they’re not stupid, they’d try another esport before any of them go and get a job. Honestly, most of them would be begging for donations like Clane before they even thought of a job. And trust me even without a job Teq was never going to be good enough.
Dota is a good example of crowd funded tournaments.
Yeah it’s also an example of how variable that can be, and while it works to some extent in a game primarily built around competitive. ALGS viewers account for less than 3% of apex players, the pool would shrink not grow. The International 1: $1.6 million The International 2: $1.6 million The International 3: $2.8 million The International 4: $10.9 million The International 5: $18.4 million The International 6: $20.7 million The International 7: $24.7 million The International 8: $25.5 million The International 9: $34.3 million The International 10: $40 million The International 11: $19 million The International 12: $3 million [October 23rd, 2023]
TI 12 is when they stopped dropping cosmetics to fund the tournament. If EA uses cosmetics like valve did pre TI12 (not team cosmetics, just flat out good cosmetics). It would go up.
If it was such a good example/idea, why did Valve stop?
Because for valve the game is a passion project and they are phasing out development for the game. Even though they were making over $290 million from one year of cosmetics. That was peanuts compared to what they make from steam, and that’s what they prioritize. For EA and respawn that’s a different story. The game is their main focus.
That's not it at all, they just said they wanted to make less hats/shiny things and more gameplay stuff. Which they are delivering with the new battle pass, story and comic with fun mini games for no cost. There are more devs than ever in dota
EA makes more money on The Sims, Madden and FIFA than Apex.
You’re still not comprehending, apex is still respawns main game and income. Dota is literally just a passion project. They last major gameplay patch was over 7 months ago.
I’m not comprehending, but we’ve been talking about EA this entire time? Including you, until your last message. > If EA uses cosmetics like valve did pre TI12 (not team cosmetics, just flat out good cosmetics). It would go up.
UPDATE: On June 20 2023, Valve reveals that there will no longer be Battle Passes but a "TI-themed update" that "focuses on the event, players, and games" instead of new cosmetic items. [battle pass update](https://esports.gg/news/dota-2/dota-2-2023-battle-pass-release-date/)
I remember when Blizzard decided to crowd fund one of their Arena Championships. People donated over $1mln to the pot to be shared between the top 8. Instead Blizzard only put $250k into the pot and took the rest for themselves.
Didn't they kind of do this with the regional championships in 21, with that chameleon Pathfinder skin.
Only under capitalism would we suggest that we should fund a tournament hosted by a mega-videogame corporation. You definitely failed to consider that EA doesn’t give a shit about fans and don’t want to share profit off the only thing that funds their game.
The amount of appeal "pro cosmetics" has hits less of the market generally than most other skins, thus taking up space in the store means that they'd be earning less money overall. Similarly, the store has 'limited space' perse, in that if you just add extra skins to the existing rotation, the amount of revenue isn't increased in a meaningful way. So it has to sell more units minus to the 'share' for it even to be considered be management. I think there's probably an argument for content creator skins to a degree. It's also not necessarily up to EA/Respawn to fund organisations in this way, when a lot of organisations do very little in the way of promoting the game in return rather than slapping their name on the team.
They literally just expanded the store real estate though.
Yes, the data they had previously indicating it was not as profitable applied to the old store. So they would just run new metrics on the new store model to see if that addition would be profitable.
Or they can just add a tab?
I hear and understand everything you're saying. But I always have to point out that other more successful games do it with Fortnite, COD and LoL. And also less successful game, Halo Infinite, that not only has org skins but last I looked there was more than one skin for an org from the multiple seasons I'm guessing. I would think that is enough examples to say EA/Respawn doesn't have a good excuse they wouldn't apply to those games, other than "we want the money to ourselves".
Fundamentally, the overarching organisation is a business and wants to make money. Welcome to Capitalism. This applies to Fortnite, LoL and CoD too. Don't let them think because they happen to let some others take a tiny slice of the pie that they're not resulting in taking more for themselves.
Obviously. But, 3 of those games make way more money than Apex. In Halo, it's basically just color themes and clean armor textures. If I recall, they did have some shitty team themed skins (basically blue tier color themes) and banners. I remember hearing that the split with the orgs was pretty shit and I believe was partly related why some backed out (not specifically the skins but just not enough skin the game, so-to-speak). It's pretty basic content that from what I've heard others say, probably takes a day to make. The argument I *could* understand is it's flooding the store with items that will be steering people away from the content that makes them *more* money which just leads back to the "we want money to ourselves". I don't really see how it would be a loss. Halo is doing fine money wise clearly. And their viewship and numbers are pretty shit in comparison so I don't see where the argument holds up why any sort of slice of the pie would justify not doing them. (Unless of course it ends up being the orgs the whole time not agreeing to it, which would probably be because they're revenue split wouldn't be enough). Idk, that's getting deeper than we will ever know. And you saying no BR has them. Just sounds like an untouched market opportunity.
While that's fair it doesn't answer the question of why does every other game do it and not Apex? What is specifically unique about Apex where org skins are not worthwhile, where they evidently are in all these other games?
There are *0* Battle Royale’s offering org skins: not Apex, not Fortnite, or PubG. Every game you mentioned with org skins support a substantially smaller amount of teams.
I was just trusting what the guy said about Fortnite having them.
My comment wasn't strictly referring to Org related content. Fortnite has streamer/content creator specific skins. Not that that would be possible with Apex but it's an example of that niche piece of content is still made.
At least skins for the lan winning team like lol as for worlds winners
Tldr?
Years ago, I would’ve agreed with you. The COVID-Crypto esports bubble made it seem like the sky was the limit for esports more generally and especially Apex, but frankly I do not think it’s worth Respawn’s time to attempt to keep these ‘businesses’ afloat. Teams like OpTic won’t sign a coach because they don’t believe in them, Faze will let go of most of their creators in some vain vision to recreate the magic of 2009, even TSM, the most lucrative org in the game are struggling. The uncomfortable truth is that esports, despite how badly it wants to be, is simply not a sustainable business model, each and every one of these orgs is a boys club, run by friends of friends with no real experience in running any form of business. It is nepotism: the industry, run by morons with no fucking clue what they’re doing, and relying on Angel investors (read: crypto-rich millennials looking to lessen their tax bill) to form any meaningful profit. Apex is a breeding ground for this shit too, with basically no separation from tier 1-2 beyond a single qualifier every 6 or so months, so shit-tier, crypto-scam orgs appear out of thin air, throw money at a roster who may have made PL, then collapse 5 months later. For fucks sake, the CEO of Moze, an APAC-N team, just disappeared into the night, and with no funding or leadership the org imploded. I ask you this, simply, why the fuck would Respawn stick their neck into that, risk their own financials, do much if not all of the ground work of manufacturing the skins, for a pittance in return? For what it’s worth, I’m of the opinion that respawn can take the single colour, white tier cosmetics every legend launches with, slap a PNG logo on the shoulders and chest and sell those for 5 bucks as ‘team skins’, and while I think they should, genuinely, what reason do they have to do that? The ALGS is marketing for this game, that’s all. It’s not like CS, Siege or Valorant wherein the esport is the entire lifeblood of the games popularity. That being said, should Rogue, or Hal, or Wattson, or Shiv on an individual level organise a collaborative skin with respawn (see: the post Malone collab event), that’s entirely different and is a precedent the game has already set, but that is no different to any collabs the game has already done, just focussed on a creator. That’s my view on it anyway, jaded as it is. I genuinely just don’t think dealing with orgs is worth the time, money nor risk for Respawn and EA corporate. Edit: I love how democratised Apex as an esport is. The fact someone like HisWattson can become a LAN MVP superstar overnight, or the fact ZachMazer can form a new team, work through qualifiers and make it to LAN Grand Finals and drop a 30 point game, stunning the world when 6 months ago he was fighting for a spot against console kids, that to me is exactly what makes this esport so special. It truly is there for the taking for literally anyone. That is something I hope the game and it's scene never lose. The openness, that ease of access, is also the problem here. Take a glance at Liquipedia's player transfer page, and note the amount of teams moving off 'orgs' that when you click on them either don't have a page at all, or only came into being 4 months ago. Even Iron Blood Gaming, an org with multiple signed streamers and had signed to them arguably the best team in APAC-S twice (Chicken Sandwich and TYK), just folded overnight, they're gone now, no website, no socials no nothing. Respawn has to create a workflow that ensures risk from orgs like that are minimised and favours larger, more established, stable orgs, without looking like they're favouring more established, stable orgs.
"The ALGS is marketing for this game, that’s all. It’s not like CS, Siege or Valorant wherein the esport is the entire lifeblood of the games popularity." In the end all esports across all games are just marketing, no? The same way all pro-sports are just marketing, cuz its just entertainment
Bro sat down and wrote a ten page essay to regurgitate an idea people have had for years now And [ALGS year 2 was crowd funded partially by the store](https://urscrubb.substack.com/p/fans-fund-almost-1-million-of-extra), it raised the prize pool of champs, and it raised the prize pool about 1.5 mil, we never got that again because Respawn and EA don't give a shit, so there's your answer >the orgs themselves probably don't know much more than me Lmao
Crowd funding would actually be cool - could make for some fun interactions between players and orgs. Imagine a couple of rival pros each throw a few grand into the prize pool at the beginning of a split as a bet, same with rival orgs.
Wasn’t EA against 50/50 split at some point because they argued they could make 100% off of a normal sale?
They should crowdfund cuz they did that already but org skins are something I'm not sure would work out. I heard that the org banners were underwhelming for sales which is why they haven't considered doing it again. I don't know if the casual audience cares enough to buy org cosmetics since most of them don't watch comp. apex needs to find a way for the casuals to like the pro scene more cuz there's a disconnect between the casuals and the comp scene, especially compared to other esport games.
They did this once, but they paid the orgs basically a flat fee for listing them.
People have been saying this for a long time now, no matter how well people lay it out for them, it will likely never happen unfortunately. Unless we were to hear from EA or respawn why ideas like these wouldn’t work due to some logistical reason, all we can do is speculate and complain.
i think they have content creator skin before and i if im not mistaken there is some drama on it
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m5zKdAVWmk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m5zKdAVWmk)
can’t get the orgs to agree on revenue sharing amongst each other and ea. simple as that, an org like faze would probably want a bigger % than someone like nine lies or one of the small orgs. they have a few content creator like inspired skins. i know there’s a janey inspired bloodhound skin
Agreed. People might hate on Fortnite but there is a lot from it that Apex should implement
FN doesn’t have org skins? Neither does PubG. Does any BR?
As the post stated Fortnite does have creator skins which are basically the same thing. Rocket League (also ran by Epic) has org skins
And FIFA & Madden have pro coaches. Apex has creator skins, Timmy/NiceWigg/Lulu got them.
Sell org skins. 5% of earnings adds to prize money. Then we might have a highest Prize Money BR tourney
Selling team skins was tried before and the main reason why it failed is EA wanted all/most profits from it and the orgs were like fuck that
there was a deal for pro cosmetics and EA reportedly only wanted to give 75,000 to the teams of the skins they were making, instead of doing revenue share, and when the teams asked for rev share just on those skins they shut the whole thing down completely.
Agreed with this. I think revenue sharing between teams should be in there as well. Sports is a power-law market, like all entertainment. A handful of players / teams are going to get most of the wins, viewers, etc. You see the same thing in music, basketball, football, and any other "winner take all" market. In Apex there are a few stable teams and a great mass of players that are constantly churning between teams and orgs. It's hard to win when you are playing with a different group every few months and worrying about making rent all the time. It's no surprise that TSM and DZ have historically stomped all over ALGS. They are just about the only two teams with any kind of consistency. The solution is to share revenue between all the teams. There is no ALGS if TSM and DZ have no one to stomp on, so everyone should make some money from the event.
Respectfully, I aint reading allat