Yesterday a gamer went on Reddit's very popular Battlefront subreddit and voiced their opinion that EA was gouging gamers in the soon to be released Battlefront II. Some poor idiot from EA responded by inserting their foot very very far in their mouth. 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.
The response garnered 683,000 downvotes, a locked thread and a thousand memes on every major social media platform.
The original complaint is that in a game that costs $59.99, you're going to have to play 40 hours to unlock a single popular character like Luke or Darth Vader. You of course can skip those 40 hours if you want to pay for extra credits or lootboxes. It's WAY more confusing than it needs to be but the The Verge has a pretty good rundown of what's going on here. EA has already backtracked on the policy a bit, but frankly I think they made the policy outrageous in the first place so people would accept the nerfed version. A version what's still a pretty shitty monetization strategy. They're treating Battlefront II, a full price, giant release from the biggest game publisher as a free to play game you might download on your phone.
Some old timey gamers like myself might harken back to the days of Street Fighter II, where if you wanted to play as M. Bison you had to beat him first, but I don't think this is very comparable. We're talking an on-line shooter, in theory you're competing against other games, some of whom may have done the grind or paid the extra $$ to unlock characters and features you can't use while trying to beat them. It's more like playing Arcade Street Fighter II and your opponent has access to all the bosses because they put in two quarters instead of just one.
But Kevin, don't you love Overwatch? Doesn't that game have lootboxes and micro-transactions? Aren't you a giant hypocrite?
Well yes, I'm sure I am but not over this. Overwatch does have lootboxes you can both earn while playing and buy. However none of the items you get in Overwatch lootboxes effect gameplay in any way. All the characters and maps are available to everyone. New characters, maps and gametypes are added all the time for free. The stuff you get in lootboxes is 100% cosmetic, it fun to have cool new skins for your favorite heroes but it doesn't change anything about your character, other than the way it looks or sounds.
Of course EA isn't the first company to pull this kind of garbage. Big ticket video games cost a shit load of money to make these days and publishers are trying to squeeze consumers out of their cash anyway they can. Season passes are somehow just a thing we're completely ok with these days, which boggles my mind. I mean as long as consumers keep paying it companies will keep doing it. It's one of the reasons I'm cool with just buying old games on Steam, once a game is a year or two old all that additional content is usually included.
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