*I wrote this post about a month into my time with Apex, and is still relevant, with the exception that Respawn/EA did decide to release lower-priced skins. Sort of. I look forward to them fixing this in season 2 and I will evaluate at the end of the season*
Apex packs are interesting to me because they are what I consider a value microtransaction. At the same time, they are pretty terrible and promotes massive grinding if you decide to not spend money. Let's explore both sides of the coin.
A value micro-transaction is an item that when purchased, gives you a reason to spend money in a way that is natural. League of legends pioneered this with their skins, which not only were cosmetic but granted different effects and also different animations to go with it. Arcade Riven is a good example of this. Apex packs are a value microtransaction because they give you reasons to buy. Apex packs have guaranteed loot rarity depending on certain factors. For example, every 30 packs (though it has been debated if there is a chance that one can even not get this) guarantees a legendary item. Also, each tier has a specific percent chance of obtaining as well and you can never get a duplicate item. Combining these three things mean that more often than not, you can get some dope stuff. What's more is that by simply opening more apex packs, you are lowering the amount of common and rare items to be obtained, which means that you will start to get what you want as you spend. Of course, every legend, gun, and loading screen item has about 10-25 different variants, so it would still take quite a bit of money to get everything. As if to throw salt in the wound, they will feature legendary skins in the item shop that you can purchase for the low price of…1800 Apex Coins, which translates into 20 dollars since you cannot purchase specifically 18 dollars worth of coin (100 Coins = 1 Dollar)
Don’t get me wrong, I love apex a lot. I love how polished the game is and how focused the developers are towards fixing the few balancing problems the game has. But I think in order for items to be a fun grind to obtain and for EA to extract maximum profit from their microtransactions, there needs to be a reimagining on how you get in-game items. I have what I think would be an optimal solution to the issue and it's pretty simple: Higher base crafting material, lowering of prices, and an expansion on the usage of legend tokens. Currently, crafting material is used solely to be able to buy skins (fact check) as well as purchase banners, quips, poses, phrases, and stat trackers. Legend tokens are used only to buy Legendary variants in the store (which is ingenious!) and legends. Higher crafting material means that it would be more rewarding to buy apex packs s which would spur sales. Expanding the use of legend tokens for the other legend cosmetics would give people something to buy. It is pretty easy to stockpile legend tokens since it only costs about 36000 Legend tokens to purchase all of the currently locked legends. Legendary variants don’t come often for most people since you need the legendary skin first in order to purchase the variant with legend tokens. By expanding the number of things to buy, people will have fewer legend tokens, which mean they will be incentivized to get apex coins! Lastly, lowering the price of legendary items to 800 coins instead of 1800 would spur A LOT of purchasing. In order to make up for this, you can offer a higher tier legendary skin which has cooler visual effects ie: league of legends skins. I think these changes will make apex irresistible for its core fanbase, which is how Fortnite became the money-making behemoth it is today.