What's your opinion on the EA star wars battlefront II loot box situation?

[rileysrjay]

I'm sure you all know by now about how loot boxes and micro transactions in $60 triple A games is a growing trend in the gaming industry. Lately the biggest fallout seems to be around Star Wars battlefront II, which makes you play around 40 hours or pay real money to unlock a single special character such as Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader. In response to the criticism, EA said this on reddit:

The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes.

As for cost, we selected initial values based upon data from the Open Beta and other adjustments made to milestone rewards before launch. Among other things, we're looking at average per-player credit earn rates on a daily basis, and we'll be making constant adjustments to ensure that players have challenges that are compelling, rewarding, and of course attainable via gameplay.

We appreciate the candid feedback, and the passion the community has put forth around the current topics here on Reddit, our forums and across numerous social media outlets.

Our team will continue to make changes and monitor community feedback and update everyone as soon and as often as we can.

What's your opinion? Personally I'm tired of the crappy loot box system trend, and I'm pretty pissed at EA after they basically said "oh, we aren't going to have paid DLC in battlefront II" and turning around and doing this crap. Not that it matters for me, I was already not going to buy battlefront II anyways after how the first one went over. This just re-affirms my decision.

Here's some links if you want to know more about the situation:
https://kotaku.com/ea-defense-of-star-wars-battlefront-ii-becomes-most-dow-1820396527/amp
https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBa...ously_i_paid_80_to_have_vader_locked/dppum98/

 

[smileyhead]

-466804 points on EA's post, mother of God.

 

[rileysrjay]

-466804 points on EA's post, mother of God.

Yup, most downvoted post ever on Reddit by a longshot. Iirc the former most downvoted (now second most downvoted) post was around -22,000 (and that was a dude asking for downvotes on purpose).

 

[linuxares]

Fuck them, fuck lootboxes and fuck everyone protecting "it's only cosmetic lootboxes" bullshit yargon. If you give them an inch they will take the whole yard. It's always been like that. It will never change if not people stop supporting these businesses even if the game is the best game ever. Just never buy it, period.

 

[migles]

in about a month, everyone will forget about it...
they will very likely rethink about this game situation, maybe remake the loot boxes thing (give you darth vader)
but next month, they will come with another game based of micro transactions, it will be a little fuss but eventually become normal again

 

[Youkai]

Nah they will just see that there will be a lot people buying the game and again a lot people paying lots of money for the extra only so that they realize that for the next game they have to make the loot boxes more expensive and make it so that the good stuff only starts dropping after someone spent at least another 100$ for the boxes XD and again they will be shown that it was the right thing to do because lots of little kiddos get money thrown after them nowadays.

When I was a kid I had to save my allowance for 3 month to buy a game now they are pissed if they get less than 100$ a month because all their awesome friends run around with an Iphone X and the most expensive brand clothes and get 100+$ a week....
These kids don't care if its expensive or not as they don't have to work for the money so game makers get as much money from them as they want ... the more they want for this stuff the more the kids want do buy it to show their friends how awesome they are

 

[Taleweaver]

To be honest, you lost me at "EA" (okay...just after I checked that it's about the company and not Early Access ). And in an ever larging growing part: the AAA-part of gaming industry. I wasn't about to buy it, and that opinion hasn't changed (I don't do things like "NOW I'll never ever, ever, EVER buy from them").

As such, it's more a thing out of morbid curiosity: why would anyone want to play a star wars game if they apparently can't go with their favorite character from the movies to begin with?

But hey...I guess fanboys will be fanboys. As long as people want to buy something just because it has "Star wars" on the cover and that way overheard intro tune as intro, others will see how far they can go with milking them. Pretty far, from the looks of it.

 

[Kioku]

in about a month, everyone will forget about it...
they will very likely rethink about this game situation, maybe remake the loot boxes thing (give you darth vader)
but next month, they will come with another game based of micro transactions, it will be a little fuss but eventually become normal again

It'll take more than a month.. Guaranteed. It's now a meme.

 

[Veho]

Storm in a teacup, it will blow over in a week, everyone will forget it ever happened, and EA will rake in hella dough because it's Star Wars.

Wait a few months for a new outrage, rinse and repeat.

 

[the_randomizer]

EA can suck itself sideways, why people defend them is laughable

 

[Veho]

So they reacted to the "customer feedback", they "listened to their audience" and dropped the cost of crates... and then dropped the credit-per-playtime rate so that it makes no difference, you still have to grind just as long.

 

[Ethevion]

The down votes speak for themselves.

 

[Hells Malice]

I wasn't going to comment but I feel a bit ranty.

The whole thing is overblown. Most microtransaction controversies are, I mean. But this was a big one. It's similar to how Shadow of War ate a lot of shit despite the game actually being balanced 100% fine and the lootboxes genuinely were unnecessary and only for people who lacked time and wanted a bunch of good shit. (not to say this situation is the same, it's clearly not, but yeah. Similar all the same)

Most people who actually played the game pretty much agree the lootboxes were 100% worthless. You basically never got anything good, especially not for the price, and you could earn powerups just fine. The advantages they bring were minimal at best and are just a small way to customize your character (and are earnable through playing just fine). The biggest piece of the controversy were the heroes and villains, which were CLEARLY skewed to encourage people to buy them with real money. Incredibly shitty thing to do, especially since you could be locking a persons favorite character behind a huge paywall or playwall. But those heroes and villains didn't introduce any sort of imbalance or advantage to own or not. They're simply different characters you can access by spending points in a match. I believe they all cost the same? You already start with a roster of heroes and villains you can play, so it's not like you just simply didn't have ANY. I think the only advantage you could point out is that it's less likely someone will be already playing a bought hero/villain, but that's a bit weak. Most people die quick anyway because they think the heroes are gods, and they're not.

EA did it to themselves, but it's sad they did. They really should understand by now that their reputation is so shit, they can't get away with ANYTHING anymore. This'll hurt the game, and that's tragic. It's actually really good. They addressed a lot of concerns from the first. The gameplay is super polished and just an awesome experience. Heroes are fun but balanced, there's a good amount of variety, superb graphics, etc. It's a really good game and well worth the price. But they damaged the hell out of the games reputation and that will guaranteed hurt its playerbase. But i'm pretty confident it'll survive with a healthy population. It's Star Wars after all. Hope it does. I wanna pick it up when I finally have the cash to.