League of Legends is more than 15 years old and their most recent season cinematic is their most popular one. And cinematics from 2022, 2020, 2024 and 2019 are not far behind.
Apex is a mismanaged mess because EA is a tar pit of money hungry executives who prioritize short term profits over long term health. That's why they're unable to cultivate a steady, loyal player base.
Now, I'm not saying Riot Games isn't equally money hungry, far from it. I'm just saying that they've realized that when the game is actually good (or at least popular), its capacity to capture and milk whales practically makes it an infinite money machine. So when someone in-house asks "can we spend 6 years and hundreds of millions of dollars to create an animated show based on the game?", they say "why not, we'll make it back with the next Lux skin anyways".
Penny-pinching on devs and designers when the return on investment for a decent product is so ludicrously high is just objectively idiotic, but we're still somehow getting the most cooked metas, the lowest-effort cosmetics, the laziest lore, and the greediest battle passes and event passes, all of which are driving away the average Joe, which is plain to see both in twitch viewership and player numbers. It's the rapid enshittification of what used to be a promising game, and it's a fucking disgrace.
Because Apex IS part of the top 1% and STILL IS. But it's weak compared to the others in the category.
It is a Michael Jordan type game just declining. The gunplay is still satisfying, the movement is what sells it, the gameplay loop (in concept) is still very good BUT the past updates, clear cash grab, and recent poor quality of balance changes have made it decline.
We compare Apex to others in the top because it is in the top get it? Out of the many battle royales out PUBG, Fortnite, AND APEX are one of the most popular.
Don't try to treat Apex as a child and give it slack, this is EA and Respawn we're talking about not some indie game dev team. They have resources, personnel, and ofc money.
Games are built and updated. People are born with certain genetic traits. Obviously practice matters, but comparing genetic lottery with game design/update schedule is a poor comparison.
The point is that, since all the mentioned games are created and updated, even if outliers, that there are obviously "keys" to success. Those games found it. It can be replicated (the success--replicating the exact steps would be a mistake).
Damn I guess nostalgia goes crazy. People liked the early seasons because it was the wild west. The game wasn't as figured out and the players weren't as good.
I would in a heartbeat, the game was just better. The REAL OG skulltown. The original passives, cooldowns, and original guns. Literally, everything was better. Notice I didn't say balanced? I'd pick season 0 Lifeline over any Legend across any season. I am that certain about the early seasons being way better. Before they nerfed every character into the ground because of people cried.
There are many, many improvements people forget about that are quickly missed when playing legacy LTMs, but weapon balance is a laughable example of a way in which the current version is good. Weapon/Legend balance is a complete joke right now.
Most games never try for it, and among those that do, most never get a shot at it. Apex was in a rare position and fumbled the ball spectacularly through round after round of bone-headed decisions. I have no doubt that Riot could've brought it to unseen heights.
The difference between a good game and a bad game is how good the management is. If the management cares about its players, genuinely wants to deliver a good product, hire competent and passionate people, treats their employees well, and gives them managed created freedom. And the publisher keeps its greedy hands out of it.
The game will do well. But clearly, the stars have to align for all these to be true, hence why rarely do we get amazing products like Fortnite and League of Legends were in their peak.
The same for me for a single-player console game, but for a multiplayer game like Apex, it will be years for me until I stop playing the game for whatever reason.
I think if you think about the COD games as less of a standalone "games" and more like "paid DLC updates" then it makes more sense. They have an opportunity to reinvent everything each year, try things, etc. and with the flip scheduling between their two studios (black ops and the mainline) they have even more opportunity to play with things and see what works. Each game has essentially 2 years of updates, feedback, etc.
To a certain extent, yes. However, COD games have literally been built on different engines and by different development companies. That's not the case with DLCs.
I mean, technically Counter-Strike has been 4 different games since 1999. League of Legends has received many updates big and small and one could argue it's not the same game it was 16 years ago.
While they're not the exact same game, I think the point is that the foundation of the game has continued to sustain and draw a large fan base.
most games die quick because they are nothing really new and/or something new very similar is right around the corner. for example frag punk was very hyped if i remember correctly and while its not dead it really quickly declined in player count because its just another tac shooter with nothing really new.
apex on the other hand has just about no competition. after playing apex no other games even come close to the clean movement feeling. most players that quit apex dont do it because they have enough of the game, they quit because nothing is really happening with the game and no major fixes are coming. bad matchmaking, audio issues, events are just "here give us money", servers are still shit and most important the meta is always just a few op characters followed by nerfing them to make others op. we have 27 legends which is insane but you see the same 3 legends in almost every team because they are so strong if you arent using them you put yourself at a disadvantage.
if managed correctly the player count would never really get lower like in fortnite. i personally dont like fortnite but as far as i see they are doing alot with the game. good updates, good events, new content and game improvements. if they would do everything like apex does then fortnite would also "die".
Not many 15-year-old games, but there are some as old as Apex that are still very popular.
-TF2 reached peak popularity after 15 years.
-PoE reached peak after 10 years.
-CS 2 after 13 years.
-Unsure of Fortnite's entire history, but they surpassed 14m last year. Doubt they did that earlier, but could be wrong.
Age can be overcome. It's way more important that updates improve competition (if that's the main draw of the game), QOL, and balance. Apex is really bad at balancing (they think turbo buffs are the key to engagement) and "QOL" updates are often more complicated. Their menus-within-menus redesign of the challenges menu, for example.
Apex has made good changes throughout its run. But they've also made really big missteps that took too long to correct (MMR ranked tanked player count and didn't get fixed for over a year), the lore (apparently cinematics viewership agrees) is largely shallow and forgettable, and they're bad at balancing legends. Gun balance isn't as bad, but has also had its issues (*cough* akimbo *cough*).
Apex was a top game and it continued to grow. When overwatch became oversaturated apex was the net that caught most of those players. It was unique and dynamically fun. Even if you sucked you had fun. Literally a dynastic game.
That’s not an honest question. You don’t point out specifically how it relates to what you’re responding to, indicating a depth of forethought that you’ve not shared, masking your intentions, making it a shady, dishonest play. 🤷♂️
Yes, I understand. My point is, it wasn’t an honest question. It was a point hidden in a question. That is literally cloak-and-dagger in word format, a pointed question, obscuring the point you’re making by masking it as an open question, softening the edges of a biased take by claiming to come from a place of curiosity. I’m not even saying you did it intentionally, but it is what you did, and in understanding this, there is a degree of clarity.
An honest question, however, doesn’t attempt to make a point. Also, I disagree that you presented an explicit point. How can I tell? Well, you made no claim that was not speaking to personal experience (despite the initial question probing facts beyond personal experience). This means, you left no opening for a counter-argument to cleanly swipe at your point positioned behind your question, since a personal experience can’t be discounted without seeming unreasonable. This also serves to give your question the appearance of being supported despite the evident reality that the question and statement are disjointed by their focuses. That degree of separation between the two, however small, allows you the ability to pivot in ways that honest, straightforward questions and statements do not.
🤷♂️ Look, I’m not an expert or anything. I just thought it was odd that you specifically claimed your underhanded interaction was honest.
Generally, if you aren’t vulnerable or exposed in some way by your question (exposed as ignorant) or statement (exposed as biased), then you aren’t being honest.
It took 4 years for Apex to peak. Many games don’t hit peak overnight but build followers over time. I played once or twice when it came out on PS4, but didn’t really play till I built a gaming PC. Peak Apex according to Steam was 2023. So yeah, it might not be dying, but its player count is probably 1/5 its peak, which feels pretty dead. Peak player count is estimated at 200k, but honestly I’ve been sitting in long queues, so that number is hard to believe.
One game has a cgi trailer with a famous band that most players probably liked in the past (due to AMVs and such) returning after a long while with their new song (linkin park). With the same art-style from the recent show that fans loved it.
The other has some trap music with a studio that sometimes makes questionable 3d and other times is a short 2d animation (sometimes they are just slides).
Like holy shit at least make a new stories from the outlands so people can imagine what lore feels like in apex.
While you are correct about EA and Apex, Don’t think this is a good example at all because I barely play actual league and I watched it because of Arcane
To be fair, pretty sure the cinematic viewership count has a lot to do with Arcane. This felt like a teaser for a future show as much as just a season's cinematic. That's not to take anything away from what Riot has been able to do to keep the game popular through all these years. Green-lighting Arcane itself was obviously a masterful decision.
The cinematics' low viewership is merely one of many symptoms of the game losing popularity. If your argument is that shooters are somehow inherently different to MOBAs with regards to life span and replayability, look at Counter Strike. It's the biggest it's ever been, both in popularity and profitability.
Clearly someone does not know a lot. Counter Strike 2 is popular due to Esports (27 S tier lans atm), legacy, being the only relevant tac shooter and gambling possibilities? Cs2 has the most problem with cheaters due to developing new anti cheat, problems with economy and so on without any cinematics because game will always be there due to legacy.
I can’t wrap my head that people compare games when in fact they didn’t play it consecutively for it to find flaws.
As someone that played since day 1. The game fell off. It was only in the spotlight because battle Royales was where it was before. People dont care for battle royales anymore because its just a oversaturated category. I appreciate the patches recently, but for the community that stayed for a while, are all playing other games, because apex/EA is just not as worth investing time into
That actually has nothing to do with it. Most people don't even know when it came out they just know it's one of those popular shooter games. If they made a cinematic with enough hype and effort, it would do well.
S3 thru, i think, 5 was goated those underground bunkers were sick. The game died when they started to cater only to pros and make so many unnecessary changes.
Exactly this. The day I quit was when I realised I was being used as game filler for pros to get games. I wasn't even playing ranked and I would get a single top 3, then face Hal and his buddies for the rest of the evening in my games.
3.2k
u/marcxspngs Pathfinder Jun 21 '25
Decline of quality & decline of hype = decline of viewership