As you have no undoubtedly heard, the latest EA release, Battlefront 2, is rife with issues before it's even been released to the public. The main culprit is their loot box system, where users must either spend cash on crystals or spend an ungodly amount of time earning credits to unlock heroes or purchase loot boxes, which allow players to "improve their characters". The response to this basically pay-to-win scenario has been overwhelmingly negative, with a post with EA's response to the criticisms receiving the most downvoted posts ever on Reddit which is currently at 676,000+.

In response to this, EA has decided to completely disable all in-game purchases for the Battlefront 2 just before it's release. EA's statement is below:

Thank you to everyone in our community for being the passionate fans that you are.

Our goal has always been to create the best possible game for all of you – devoted Star Wars fans and game players alike. We’ve also had an ongoing commitment to constantly listen, tune and evolve the experience as it grows. You’ve seen this with both the major adjustments, and polish, we have made over the past several weeks.

But as we approach the worldwide launch, it's clear that many of you feel there are still challenges in the design. We’ve heard the concerns about potentially giving players unfair advantages. And we’ve heard that this is overshadowing an otherwise great game. This was never our intention. Sorry we didn’t get this right.

We hear you loud and clear, so we’re turning off all in-game purchases. We will now spend more time listening, adjusting, balancing and tuning. This means that the option to purchase crystals in the game is now offline, and all progression will be earned through gameplay. The ability to purchase crystals in-game will become available at a later date, only after we’ve made changes to the game. We’ll share more details as we work through this.

We have created a game that is built on your input, and it will continue to evolve and grow. Star Wars Battlefront II is three times the size of the previous game, bringing to life a brand new Star Wars story, space battles, epic new multiplayer experiences across all three Star Wars eras, with more free content to come. We want you to enjoy it, so please keep your thoughts coming. And we will keep you updated on our progress.

While that's at least a step in the right direction regarding Battlefront 2's pay-to-win loot box system, and while EA has slashed the prices on heroes already, it's still unclear how long exactly it'll take users to unlock popular heroes through normal gameplay.

Source

 

[Xzi]

Grinding Gear Games did it right. F2P with supporter pack and skin shop, with no influence in game.
Actually it's not hard to find devs/publishers who did it right but on the other hand, the big publishers have way more audience so the betrayal feels bigger.

Very true on both counts, but Path of Exile is a standout as well. Not exaggerating when I say it's definitely the best F2P game ever released. Top 3 at least in best aRPGs as well.

 

[Burlsol]

They're just turning them off and waiting for people to buy the game as a result to turn them back on. It's a massive honeypot, and the sad part is, it's going to work.

This. They even say it further in the news release that they will be bringing them back in later.

Nobody caved, EA just had to scale back and postpone their plans because Disney got pissed at EA for milking fans of the franchise for every penny they could (Milking fans of Starwars for every penny is Disney's job).

 

[gnmmarechal]

That's a start.

 

[stomp_442]

Could EA be the worst company in America, again.

Ever since that fiasco EA had with the Nintendo Wii U, I have vowed to never ever buy an EA game, and I'm glad to say that I haven't bought one.

 

[codezer0]

Activision blizzard deserve it far more for being the first to shoehorn it in front and center. Case in point: Overwatch. But i bet they fall under the loophole of not being an American company to be nominated.

 

[Burlsol]

Activision blizzard deserve it far more for being the first to shoehorn it in front and center. Case in point: Overwatch. But i bet they fall under the loophole of not being an American company to be nominated.

They may have made loot boxes popular, but they were far from being the first or only. CS:Go started most of the craze with certain players paying significant amounts of money to gamble for the sake of a rare weapon skin or a knife to sell so they can buy more crates. This whole scam became more popular because of some streamers who were being given money to open crates by viewers (for some silly reason), even when those streamers were in communication with the various betting sites running a very major scam. But, of course EA did do a bit of this back with random result crates for ME3 for their multiplayer stuff. And Korean MMOs have been doing grab bag type micro transactions for over a decade now.

The part where EA crossed the line however is where they tried to do a premium game where substantial parts of intended game mechanics can only be experienced by people who throw hundreds of dollars (in addition to the price of the game) for a gamble box or play for what equated to 6 months of constant no-sleep playing to unlock special characters while having more stuff which was entirely behind a pay wall. What crossed the line was where these things were not cosmetic in nature but gave those people with large wallets a statistic or playstyle advantage over others while also being exclusively able to play those characters for what would have been weeks before any non-whale player could have obtained even one of those characters. Furthermore, the whole game was designed around this system to actively encourage people to spend money on a gamble, innocently, one box at a time. I've seen and heard stories of parents who realize 6 months later that their kid has spent thousands of dollars on CS:Go just trying to get a rare skin to show off to their friends. I can't imagine how bad this could have been for consumers (or really the parents who don't know any better) if the shitstorm wasn't raised.

 

[orcid]

EA earns too much money with Fifa Ultimate Team. Now they want a shooter which is the same money maker.
They will enable the microtransactions in battlefront 2, when the shitstorm will have calmed down. I dont think they really care when many people boycott the game. They want the the people who will spend 500+ € in microtransactions and these people will buy the game anyway.

 

[Xzi]

They want the the people who will spend 500+ € in microtransactions and these people will buy the game anyway.

Those people might buy the game, but they won't spend money if there's nobody around to use their advantages on.

 

[orcid]

Those people might buy the game, but they won't spend money if there's nobody around to use their advantages on.

There will be enough people around. This is still a star wars game. Probably it will sell less than expected, but I am sure it will be still one of the best selling games of the year.

 

[WhiteMaze]

Why do people still buy this god awful company's games..

 

[SonicfanCEMUTesting]

It doesn't matter if you removed in-game purchases, the game will still be broken af

 

[osaka35]

i'll play a nice used copy so EA don't get crap from me

 

[Ryupower]

well looks like Disney had something to do with it.
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/...nsactions-after-disney-put-its-foot-down.aspx

 

[chartube12]

well looks like Disney had something to do with it.
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/...nsactions-after-disney-put-its-foot-down.aspx

the same guy who decided to cause marvel heroes omega to close without refunds. the console versions were out less then a year. everyone on the consoles should get every penny back...even if its in psn/microsoft credits. but nope thats not happening. the game company said we had to take that up with these two guys at disney.

 

[FAST6191]

From the article
"and the public perception of it"

Bets on without that Disney would have nodded and just waited for their cut.

 

[Taleweaver]

Hmm...when I first heard the news on loot boxes, I didn't really care about it. I mean...it's EA, right? Expecting an honest business model from EA is something like buying a copy of "mein kampf" and expecting political correctness.

And I've got to admit I've got a bit of morbid curiosity on the situation. Some say that EA "pulled out", but they really didn't. Rather the contrary: they slashed both the prices and the achievements (meaning: that part hasn't changed), and the pay-to-win model is only suspended temporarily. It really doesn't take a genius to realize that this isn't a solution to a problem but a workaround. A bit of change of scenery to fool the ignorant. Kind of how people are talking about "microtransactions" instead of DLC*, because the latter has a bad reputation.

But when you look at it from a distance, it's slowly taking terms of concern for me. Free-to-play games can be excused for monetizing on other aspects (the developers need to be paid, obviously), but AAA-games's costs are estimated so they make back their investments on the initial price and perhaps a bit of DLC. This trend is stepping on borderline enticing and even addicting people (minors, even) to gambling. And with this pay-in-advance model, that danger is even larger than on F2P games (if you've already spent 60 bucks on a game, you feel more drawn to spend just a bit of extra** to gain an advantage than on a free-to-play, which you can at least ditch without losing anything).




*okay, technically not really true: it's more a combination of on disk DLC with a gambling mechanism, meaning it's something worse than DLC.
**it's that same mechanic that causes people to get into console war crusades: they've spend lots of money on it, and are thus wanting to justify that money spent on proclaiming it's great...even if it's merely a "good" console.

 

[Jonna]

No, they don't. Rocket League failed hard once they locked new cars in lootboxes. If it was just cosmetics fine, but cars shouldn't be locked behind a gambling mechanic.

Cars are cosmetic. Doesn't matter which one you choose, they all handle and collide the same. The devs have stated this themselves.

 

[the_randomizer]

Disney should revoke EA's rights to the Star Wars IP.

 

[linuxares]

Cars are cosmetic. Doesn't matter which one you choose, they all handle and collide the same. The devs have stated this themselves.

nay, there is a difference between them. People have tested this since day one. If so, Psyonix are lying. Unti, they remove the bullshit boxes, I will still critics their actions. They gone full "triple A" with this. Buy the game, buy DLCs and lootboxes? Where will it stop?

What's the next game that will take inspiration from this? "But it's just 20$" and? Make it free-to-play then, people need to stop these practices before it gets even worse.

 

[supergamer368]

“Everybody has a console or PC to play this on. But how do you think they obtained said consoles and PCs? Through microtransactions”