In February, Apex Legends had a surprise release that amassed millions of players in just its first hours of playability. Within a little over a week, upward of 25 million players had visited King’s Canyon to team up in squads, search for loot, and the battle for victory. While the battle royale game snowballed to success in the beginning, it has hit many snags along the way. From annoying bugs to a less-than-impressive Season 1, Apex Legends has struggled to keep up with its initial popularity. Despite this, there has been a ton of hype surrounding the release of Season 2. During this year’s EA Play event in early June, it was announced that the second season would officially arrive on July 2nd. Leading up to this, Respawn Entertainment has frequently been staying in touch with their player base with updates and sneak peeks at upcoming content. After struggling over the last few months, the hope was that this Apex Legends season would introduce more ways for players to feel connected to the game. Unfortunately, however, it seems that while Season 2 has added fresh content and more to explore within the game, it hasn’t helped much statistically. From game-changing alterations to weapons and loot to the addition of daily/weekly missions, giant monsters finding their way onto the map, and the introduction of new Legend, Wattson, there are a lot of exciting things happening on King’s Canyon. Based on this, the game seems to have appeased players by providing them a lot more variation and diversity to playstyles and what they can achieve, but on a statistical note, it's just not adding up. Stock shareholders for Electronic Arts, the gaming company that published Apex, were seemingly unimpressed with Apex Legends Season 2. Just after its release, shares plummeted by over 5% -- the lowest they’d been since Apex’s release five months ago. While investors and players alike had been highly anticipating the season’s release, it currently sits as one of the lowest companies on the S&P 500 Index – an index that follows American stocks. Unfortunately, Apex has also hit a snag in Twitch viewership as well, which could be contributing to the lack of stock interest. While millions of people were tuning in to watch their favorite streamers play Apex Legends during its release, that has steadily decreased over the last few months. According to TwitchTracker, Apex Legends is currently averaging around 30,000 viewers, ranking the game as number 10 for most watched Twitch games and a staggering 70,000 viewers behind the average of top competitor, Fortnite. Despite Respawn Entertainment keeping tabs on what players wanted to see from the game and doing their best to provide that content, the game is still facing troubles in many ways. Only time will tell how Apex Legends continues to perform, but for now, players can enjoy the many new additions to the game and, hopefully, investors will follow suit.
In February, Apex Legends had a surprise release that amassed millions of players in just its first hours of playability. Within a little over a week, upward of 25 million players had visited King’s Canyon to team up in squads, search for loot, and the battle for victory. While the battle royale game snowballed to success in the beginning, it has hit many snags along the way. From annoying bugs to a less-than-impressive Season 1, Apex Legends has struggled to keep up with its initial popularity. Despite this, there has been a ton of hype surrounding the release of Season 2. During this year’s EA Play event in early June, it was announced that the second season would officially arrive on July 2nd. Leading up to this, Respawn Entertainment has frequently been staying in touch with their player base with updates and sneak peeks at upcoming content. After struggling over the last few months, the hope was that this Apex Legends season would introduce more ways for players to feel connected to the game. Unfortunately, however, it seems that while Season 2 has added fresh content and more to explore within the game, it hasn’t helped much statistically. From game-changing alterations to weapons and loot to the addition of daily/weekly missions, giant monsters finding their way onto the map, and the introduction of new Legend, Wattson, there are a lot of exciting things happening on King’s Canyon. Based on this, the game seems to have appeased players by providing them a lot more variation and diversity to playstyles and what they can achieve, but on a statistical note, it's just not adding up. Stock shareholders for Electronic Arts, the gaming company that published Apex, were seemingly unimpressed with Apex Legends Season 2. Just after its release, shares plummeted by over 5% -- the lowest they’d been since Apex’s release five months ago. While investors and players alike had been highly anticipating the season’s release, it currently sits as one of the lowest companies on the S&P 500 Index – an index that follows American stocks. Unfortunately, Apex has also hit a snag in Twitch viewership as well, which could be contributing to the lack of stock interest. While millions of people were tuning in to watch their favorite streamers play Apex Legends during its release, that has steadily decreased over the last few months. According to TwitchTracker, Apex Legends is currently averaging around 30,000 viewers, ranking the game as number 10 for most watched Twitch games and a staggering 70,000 viewers behind the average of top competitor, Fortnite. Despite Respawn Entertainment keeping tabs on what players wanted to see from the game and doing their best to provide that content, the game is still facing troubles in many ways. Only time will tell how Apex Legends continues to perform, but for now, players can enjoy the many new additions to the game and, hopefully, investors will follow suit.
