Blocking Linux probably didn’t help those numbers
nearly daily Apex player moving to Linux full time again now that many more games work with it (knowing Apex no longer works). It will suck, but fuck microsoft and good riddance EA.
My friends and I used to do weekly apex nights.
Then they blocked linux. My desktop runs fedora and my other friend ran a steam deck. Ended up moving to Helldivers and DRG.
We played Apex for years. Oh well.
Even before then, people were up in arms about several changes.
Me and one friend used to play regularly, but they just straight up removed duos for almost a year. Trying to integrate a random third player into our teamwork just didn’t work, so we stopped playing.
By the time they added duos back, we’d lost interest.
They made several changes like that, and I’m fairly certain hundreds of thousands of players felt burned in similar ways. You can’t just “temporarily” remove the reason your players stick around, and expect them to stick around.
I doubt it made much of a dent. I’m a Linux user for >15 years now.
I have around a thousand hours in apex and i uninstalled after not playing the past few months. The linux shit was lame but also I just don’t like the changes to the battlepass and the changes to the crafters and sheilds. Love the way the game played a few seasons ago, shame really.
I wish it was considered normal for games like this to die out. Trying to maintain your audience with new content every few months is unsustainable. Ideally these games would release with the content the designers intended, no more and no less, and they would slowly lose their less dedicated players.
That way the more dedicated players aren’t frustrated by having to keep up with a rapidly changing game, and can just get better in peace. I would guess this wouldn’t be profitable for a free to play game with micro-transactions. But, I have a crazy idea. Just charge for the game up front.
it was normal to have a point when your game dies out and you have to reinvest in designing the sequel version of it, or a spinoff. nowadays companies keep the same husk of a game running until the last sucker online stops dropping dollars for cosmetics.
Doing post release content can be good. It gives the devs a chance to do something after they are more familiar with the tools and what content players prefer.
I feel there is a fundamental difference between games like Dwarf Fortress or survival games or even open world story-driven games getting new content though that allows players to explore different options when replaying the game and games like this where the game play loop is inherently short and people are somewhat forced to do the ‘optimal strategy’ whatever that happens to be at the time.
Even in a shooter, you can make maps that encourage different play styles or have different interactive elements that can change the map. Not all of those may exist at launch, or more informed ideas can be used.
