Respawn Entertainment has issued a statement regarding the ongoing harassment of the Apex Legends developers, announcing that although they welcome community input, the line between feedback and harassment of staff cannot be crossed."We want to remind our players that we have a zero tolerance policy for threats and the harassment of our developers", Respawn announced on their social media platforms yesterday evening. They go on to state that they will "take the appropriate action to ensure the health and safety of our team".Respawn ended the statement by saying that they "love hearing feedback and will continue to work alongside our community to foster a respectful, collaborative environment, and uphold the competitive integrity of our game". It wasn't specified by Respawn as to whether or not the statement was prompted due to a certain incident, or if the Apex Legends developers were receiving threats as a whole. However, it should go without saying that there is no excuse for the harassment of developers regardless of the circumstances.
Unfortunately, it's not just the Apex Legends devs that have been on the receiving end of threats and harassment from players. Earlier this year a developer for God of War: Ragnarok was repeatedly harassed by the community in order to announce the release date for the game. The harassment even got to the point where members of the community were sending developers explicit photographs.
This prompted Cory Barlog, the Creative Director of Video Game Development at Santa Monica Studio, to take Twitter in anger, "I cannot believe I even have to say this but don’t fucking send dick pics to ANYONE on this team, or anyone in this industry for that matter", Barlog said.
When it comes to a competitive shooter such as Apex Legends, weapon balancing, bugs, and other gameplay issues can get players pretty heated. The launch of Season 14: Hunted last month brought with it a new Legend, new gameplay features, and plenty of balancing adjustments. Not all of these changes are always to the liking of fans, but this is never a reason to harass developers.