Crisis management - Respawn entertainment

Respawn entertainment came under fire recently as they decided during a reddit AMA(ask me anything) that they would go on to insult their fan base. During the AMA questions were asked as usual about development, upcoming features, E.T.C. But when asked about the prices of the purchasable cosmetics(skins for character models and so on), which roughly cost about $16 of premium currency, one of the developers had this to say

when talking about the fan base of their free-to-play game Apex legends. In the world of free-to-play games there is monetization of cosmetics unfortunately those items are hidden in loot boxes, which is a whole other controversy, and to get specific skins for your favorite character in Apex you have to buy premium currency in the $20 range to have enough to get the skin which as previously stated equates to $16. Lets think about that for a second $16 for a slight change to the appearance of a character that has no other benefit other than to look different, no extra abilities, no boost to health or damage, just a slight variation of the characters base model. how was this further expressed by Respawn you ask? Well let me tell you. "I've been in the industry long enough to remember when players weren't complete a--hats to developers and it was pretty neat," the Respawn Entertainment project lead Drew McCoy said to the captive audience that was reddit. Now to play devils advocate just a little here, we all know that the internet is a very vile place where people say many things that are hurtful, terrible and sometimes bordering on criminal and i believe some of the developers involved got a little heated. What respawn should have done in this interaction was not make it personal, not to get mad or take things to where they did. Most people know if they can take some heat as what the internet gives but those should know if they can or not. What was Respawn's reply to the fans about this you ask? Well it wasn't that great. Head of Respawn Vince Zampella tweeted this the following monday

It is in this writers opinion that Respawn take some of the money made from inflated cosmetic prices to work on a better PR team that won't shoot itself in the foot because somebody on the internet was mean.