Apex pros are tired of doing the heavy lifting to keep people interested in the game: ‘That shouldn’t be on us’

Apex Legends enters the second half of season 16 after the release brought the highest player count since Apex’s inception. Despite the amount of support that pro players, content creators, and streamers bring to the game, many in the community do not believe in EA and Respawn’s current amount of support to retain the high numbers.

Snip3down, a pro player for FaZe Clan, gave his opinion on The Wide Swing Podcast, a roundtable discussion held by NiceWigg and Greek, official content creators and co-streamers for the ALGS. When the topic of downtime between LAN events came up, Snip3down focused on how Apex’s potential lifespan is dwindling due to this perceived neglect.

Snip3down felt increased pressure as a community figurehead to find ways to support the scene, a sentiment felt by many pros, and pointed out the lack of attention that EA and Respawn had also given to Apex.

“Why are we having this discussion on what we, as players, can do to keep it alive,” he said. “We shouldn’t be having this conversation. EA should be like, ‘Oh, we need to keep the hype. We need to do this.’”

Zach Mazer, a player for Elev8 Entertainment, also claimed there is a disconnect between Respawn’s intentions and actions, and how Apex’s future is unsustainable with the current amount of attention given to the community.

EA and Respawn last teamed up with Twitch Rivals at the beginning of season 16 for the TDM Drop In Tournament but have not showcased any third-party tournaments throughout the entire first split of ALGS competition. Realm, a new league that has many pros and content creators participating for seasonal prize pools, received acknowledgement and support from Respawn and EA but has not been featured or referenced on any social media platform from either company.

Snip3down said he would like to stream Apex ranked on stream, although he found problems with the ongoing hacker and stream sniper crisis that influences every match, forcing the community to seek out third-party matchmaking systems or tournaments, such as Realm.

Snip3down also referenced HisWattson’s past community tournaments, centered around custom lobbies with modded game modes, which had their prize pools and sponsors revoked despite the positive community reception to the event. NICKMERCS runs his own third-party tournament series, the MFAM Gauntlet, without any visible support from Respawn or EA. The most recent iteration featured pros and content creators playing in TDM and Gun Run private lobbies, an idea that Snip3down directly mentioned on The Wide Swing to attract all sides of the community.

Despite the negative feelings about EA and Respawn’s support, the companies have shown an increased presence in monitoring the ALGS, even delaying the Pro League by one week to fix game-breaking issues that caused lobby crashes and a diminished viewer experience. The pros hope that if Respawn can pay attention to the competitive league, it can also pay attention to and promote the third-party scene, giving new life to Apex past the Pro League and the release of each season.

The ALGS returns on April 16 at 12pm CT for EMEA, and at 5pm CT for NA. Fans can watch the coverage on the official PlayApex Twitch and ALGS YouTube channels, or on the official co-stream hosted on NiceWigg’s Twitch channel.