You might recall the name Drew McCoy, no? If not, he also goes by the name of “dko5” and is one of Respawn Entertainment’s founding developers. Well, as of today, McCoy is leaving the company after ten years and wants to continue work in the games industry, this is after calling gamers and fans of Apex Legends “ass-hats” and “freeloaders.”
We covered this very hubbub back when it surfaced, and that was on August 16th, 2019. For those of you that don’t play Apex Legends, the devs were running a special event at that time named the “Iron Crown,” which received community pushback after seeing the high cost of entry to acquire one of the new special weapons.
After many gamers and fans alike took to various social media outlets to get the attention of the devs, McCoy came forth and labeled them as “freeloaders” and had the following to say:
“I’ve been in the industry long enough to remember when players weren’t complete ass-hats to developers and it was pretty neat.”
In other words, the man that tried to defend corporate greed by jumping on to social media and berating gamers that weren’t for said greed is now leaving the company responsible for Titanfall, Titanfall 2, Apex Legends, and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order:
For everyone who played our games, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Not sure where I’m going yet, but rest assured I can’t stay away from games for long!
Be excellent to each other 2/2
— Drew McCoy (@DKo5) February 24, 2020
As for McCoy’s history in the games industry, he’s been with Call of Duty developer Infinity Ward for four years and later left that company to start up Respawn Entertainment — alongside co-founders Jason West, and Vince Zampella.
Right now, it looks like the man that sparked controversy last year is going to take a break, and once done, he’ll resurface at another video game related company.
