Known for their development of the Titanfall series, Respawn Entertainment is back in mainstream video game culture with their popular free to play, battle royale title Apex Legends. In the latest round of buzz, the studio has been on the receiving end of a notable level of backlash. Following the launch of their Iron Crown event, players are peeved about the introduction of Apex Packs.

Apex Packs are equivalent to loot boxes, which the team promised would never grace the game’s environment. With its introduction into the Iron Crown event, the only way Legends can get legendary skins is to earn them from purchasing loot boxes. The only way to get them is to purchase each one for $7 (USD) a pop. In other words, there isn’t a earn it with gameplay system. It’s hidden behind a paywall.

As expected, players are more than displeased and Respawn Entertainment is fully aware of its impact. In response to the community conversation, they issued a lengthy statement on Reddit.

“Hey everyone, at launch we made a promise to players that we intend to do monetization in a way that felt fair and provided choice to players on how they spent their money and time,” Respawn Entertainment’s Jayphresh said. “A core decision during development of Apex Legends was that we wanted to make a world class battle royale game – in quality, depth, progression, and important for today’s conversation – how we sell stuff. With the Iron Crown event we missed the mark when we broke our promise by making Apex Packs the only way to get what many consider to be the coolest skins we’ve released.”

The Apex Legends team believes in remedying their mistake. Beginning August 20th, developers will add and rotate “all twelve event-exclusive items” in the game store with the following schedule right here. In addition, future collection events will supplement the player’s ability to obtain items with more ways than just purchasing Apex Packs. Jayphresh also told the Apex Legend community:

We need to be better at letting our players know what to expect from the various event structures in Apex Legends. Over the last six months we’ve been learning a lot about operating a live service free-to-play game, and one of the take-aways from this week (beyond what was mentioned above) is that our messaging for expectations needs to be clearer. This is a different event structure than the Legendary Hunt from Season 1, and it will be different from planned future upcoming events. We’re learning more each day on what works, what doesn’t, and how to provide the best possible experiences and content to all of you.

With Apex Legends it is very important to us that we don’t sell a competitive advantage. Our goal has not been to squeeze every last dime out of our players, and we have structured the game so that all players benefit from those who choose to spend money – events like Legendary Hunt or Iron Crown exist so that we can continue to invest in creating more free content for all players. This week has been a huge learning experience for us and we’re taking the lessons forward to continue bringing the best possible experience to all of you.”

That’s a lot to take in. So passing on a question to you, do you think the backlash to the Iron Crown event’s Apex Packs are justified? What are your thoughts on how this all played out? Let us know what you think in the comments section below or start a conversation on Don’t Feed the Gamers Facebook page. To stay up to date on gaming and entertainment news as it happens, follow us on Twitter! Here are some of our latest:

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Apex Legends is available to play on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.