I often find myself bemused by people who buy in-game skins, stickers and tchotchkes for free-to-play multiplayer games. Then I remember that collecting football stickers is the most fun I've ever had by spending money.

For my pocket money placed into Panini's pockets, I got a completed World Cup '94 sticker book. For buying one of four new bundles of items for Apex Legends, you'll now help fund the ALGS Championship prize pool up to $3 million.

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This is the first time that Apex Legends has adopted this kind of funding model for its esports tournament, and its following in the footsteps of Dota 2's The International. EA will guarantee a prize pool of $1 million, and there's a cap of $3 million on how high it can grow.

Four new bundles will fund the pool, each including a legendary skin, a banner frame and a gun charm. They are:

Mechameleon Bundle

  • 1 Legendary Pathfinder Skin: Mechameleon
  • 1 Epic Banner Frame: Change of Colour
  • 1 Epic Gun Charm: Ancient Guardian

Boared To Death Bundle

  • 1 Legendary Fuse Skin: Boared to Death
  • 1 Epic Banner Frame: Wild Swine
  • 1 Epic Gun Charm: Steely Swine

Wild Speed Bundle

  • 1 Legendary Octane Skin: Wild Speed
  • 1 Epic Banner Frame: Wild Spirit
  • 1 Epic Gun Charm: Cyber Cheetah

Silverback Bundle

  • 1 Legendary Caustic Skin: Silverback
  • 1 Epic Banner Frame: King of the Jungle
  • 1 Epic Gun Charm: Hanging In There

For each bundle bought, EA will add $5 to the prize pool. You can also buy all of the above combined in the Animal Kingdom Bundle, for which EA will add $20 to the pool. The bundles will be available to purchase from today until June 1st.

$5 going towards the prize pool isn't a huge amount considering one of the above bundles will cost you 2500 Apex Coins. You can buy Apex Coins from the in-game store, with 2000 costing £16 and 4000 costing £32. There's no option to buy 3000 or precisely 2500 Apex Coins.

The ALGS Championship prize pool is growing! We're increasing the base USD $1M prize pool up to $3M based on purchases of bundles for the Apex Legends Global Series, available starting today!

🏆 : https://t.co/9ssoc6X5fM pic.twitter.com/WL1BNww3r1

— Apex Legends (@PlayApex) May 18, 2021

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I'm tempted to criticise it for those prices, but as always with microtransactions, looking at the responses to the tweet above will reveal a pretty even split between people saying it's crazy expensive and people going "omg, im gonna get ittttt." Who am I, with my six duplicates of Franco Baresi, to judge?

Apex Legends season 9 launched a couple of weeks ago, introducing a new jetpacking character called Valkyrie and a 3v3 Arena mode. If you're looking for some tips on the latter, check out Ollie's Apex Legends Arena guide.