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Apex Legends professional players finally receive their winnings from the Apex Legends Global Series after placing many complaints and making a public cry out about the delay of payment.
This occurrence is quite unusual for the Apex Legends community and the esports community at large. It is typical that players receive all their prize money almost immediately after tournaments. However, this particular matter of concern has sprung up for about four to five-month
This delay of payment caught public interest after the Australian player from Moist Esports, Ben “Wxltzy” Walton, revealed that he was going to compete at the Split One Playoffs LAN event, without being paid his previous winnings in July 2022 at the ALGS Championship LAN.
Esports commentator and co-owner of Full Squad Gaming, Jake Lucky, confirmed on December 28 that the players have finally been paid their winnings, which is suspected to be a result of the spiralling public attention it was garnering.
Yesterday Apex Pro Wxltzy complained about not being paid from the teams last LAN ($18,000 owed by EA/PGL)
Happy to say with the help of some public attention that the lads have been paid within 24 hours of posting 🙂
— Jake Lucky (@JakeSucky) December 28, 2022
Reports also suggested that most of the players who were paid first and shortly after the public outcry were the players who had made the complaint to co-event organisers PGL, and those who had taken to their social media pages to disclose the situation.
The Danish in-game leader, Casper “Gnaske” Prstensgaard, from European esports outfit Pioneer, said on Twitter: “Finally got my prize money from the championship. Only took 5 1/2 months Fuck you @pglesports for making me spend hours solving this shit and the endless disrespect I received from your staff.”
“Only when I provided the legal actions I was gonna pursue did you do shit.”
Gnaske said that regardless of finally being paid, they still ran at a loss, as the value of the money has declined from all the months wasted without payment.
“During this time the currency conversation rate dropped heavily which lead me to lose around 2850 USD…”
Reports revealed prior to the Apex Legend event early this year, all participating players were asked to sign a “Prize Winner Declaration and Release” which stated payments of the winnings will be done three months after.
However, with how things later unfolded, it took more than just three months before the players were rewarded for their winnings.
Following this controversy, other players, coaches, and Apex Legends teams such as DarkZero and Cloud9 have also reported not being paid winnings in a much earlier event, the Split Two playoffs, which were in May 2022 in Sweden.
Gnaske urged players who are still affected to make a public outcry and make sure to constantly send them an email in this regard.
“Spam email them, it’s worked for everyone who’s been paid so far,” he said.
Currently, neither of the game organizers, EA nor PGL, have made any public statements reporting what the reason was for the delayed payment and why some other players from an earlier event are still yet to be paid.
This silence, however, has driven speculation that the organisers had no intention of paying and may only be doing so now because it was made public.
