How is EA’s Apex Legends on PS4, Xbox One & PC Doing So Far?
Apex Legends
PS4™, XONE™ & PC
Electronic Arts surprised us back in February with the release of their newest free-to-play battle royale game, Apex Legends, for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. With no pre-launch news, no teasers and campaigns, publisher EA and developer Respawn Entertainment literally throw the game out in the open without any warning, during a downturn in EA’s finances.
Back in 2018, the company received left and right criticisms and gamer backlash, due to loot box transactions in Battlefront 2, adding up Battlefield V and FIFA 19‘s disappointing sales. Evidently, EA’s 2018 is one hell of a difficult year. Yet, the company still managed to release Apex Legends as a free-to-play game. That’s one brave fight.
Here’s what Lead producer Drew McCoy had to say about Apex Legends’ marketing strategy.
“We’re doing a free-to-play game, with essentially loot boxes, after we were bought by EA, and it’s not ‘Titanfall 3.’ It’s the perfect recipe for a marketing plan to go awry […] So why have that? Let’s just ship the game and let players play.”
Surprisingly, Apex Legends achieved victory and even became a Twitch phenomenon. Within the game’s eight-hour launch period, over one million unique players from all around the globe unite to fight in Apex Legend’s battlefield and rose to 10 million on its third day. The numbers of players just kept increasing and reached a whopping 25 million total amount of registered players after just one week since its release.
Apex Legends as Twitch Phenomenon
Right after a few days of the game’s release, Apex Legends hit the 11.8% of Twitch’s entire audience, averaging 156,183 viewers in just one week. In fact, the game surpassed Twitch’s longtime favorites such as League of Legends and Fortnite, holding 10.2% and 9.8% respectively.
You can check out the graphical info below, via crazygames.com, followed by an explanation.
Apex Legends highest average views mark came on February 10th, with 278,004 viewers. Its peak came on February 12th, with 674,070 viewers. These numbers could be expected for the amount of hype that surrounded Apex Legends’ release, but despite a gradual decline in average views between February 13 – February 28, Apex Legends still ended the month with an average 222,005 viewers. This edged it out over long-time Twitch favorite League of Legends, which had an average of 142,591 viewers for February.
It’s worth noting that this isn’t simply gamers briefly watching Apex Legends to gauge its hype. In the final week of February, Apex Legends amassed 26,655,239 total hours viewed (combined total of all viewers in 7 days, obviously the game has not been streaming for 3042.83 years).
EA Paid Twitch Streamers
EA indeed come up with a different strategy to market Apex Legends and one of which is the common form of guerilla advertising. The company paid several well-known Twitch streamers such as Ninja, Dr. Disrespect, Tim the Tatman, and Shroud to play the game. Of course, this prominent Twitch streamers said that they were being sponsored by Respawn, EA’s development studio.
Most of them can be seen with an #ApexPartner hashtag displayed on their Twitch profiles. What’s interesting about this is that, even though EA was no longer paying them, they still continue streaming the game, ended up praising it even more.
You can check out another graphical info below, via crazygames.com
So, if you still haven’t tried this game yet, you better download it now on your PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
ALSO…
Complete your Apex Legend experience through buying various cosmetics or extra characters in the game’s Store for one epic battle royale game possible! Get your PSN & Xbox digital cards ready and of course, don’t forget to grab yours here at Playasia!
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Enjoy the launch trailer of the game below followed by the game’s features.
【TRAILER】
【FEATURES】
- Strategic Battle Royale – If you’re going to survive the Apex Games, you have to think fast. Master your Legend’s abilities, make strategic calls on the fly, and use your team’s strengths to your advantage in vicious 60-player matches.
- Innovative Combat – Experience the next evolution of battle royale with Respawn Beacons you can use to resurrect your teammates, Smart Comms to help you communicate, Intelligent Inventory so you can grab only what you need, and an all-new way to drop into the action with Jumpmaster deployment.
- Regular Sessions – Compete every season to unlock new Legends, fresh weapons, themed loot, and more.
Also, you can check out the cool screenshots of the game via IGN, in the gallery below.