Battlefront II: The whole
story…as of November 20
So a lot has happened since I talked
about EA and their closure of Visceral Games a few weeks ago. In that editorial I briefly touched
upon how Battlefront
II was becoming yet another classic EA cash-in title, with
microtransactions galore. But that turned out to be only the tip of the
iceberg.
If you missed what’s been happening
over the last few weeks, allow me to tell you the tale of the time a fanbase
actually made the greediest company in gaming take a step backwards.
Some fans who pre-ordered Battlefront II on one of EA’s premium
services were able to access the game early, and they were far from pleased at
what they saw. The game was a wretched hive of scum and villainy, clearly run
by gambling and pay-to-win methods. Sending some of your real world money to EA
will earn you “crystals”, which can be spent on loot boxes for a chance at getting a weapon or ability
card that you can use in battle.
Unsurprisingly, those who didn’t mind
shelling out extra money quickly found themselves at the top of the totem pole,
with powerful weapons earned instantly via EA’s shady gambling machine. But
it’s okay, you could still earn all that gear in-game!
…after grinding for hours.
It quickly became a running gag online
about how, if you weren’t able to pay money to access it early, it took 40
hours of gameplay to earn enough crystals to unlock Darth Vader. The official Battlefront subreddit turned against EA
in seconds, with so many cancelling their pre-orders outright that EA decided
to take the low road and hide the “cancel pre-order” button on their website.
In what is quite possibly the world’s
worst attempt at damage control, an EA community manager went on the subreddit
to try and resolve the conflict. “The intent is to provide players with a sense
of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes.” said the manager.
The subreddit disagreed, and officially made the post the most downvoted
comment in reddit history, sitting at 676k at this time of writing.
I think EA forgets that there’s no
pride or accomplished in playing 40 hours of a game just to unlock the thing
you want. I feel proud when I defeat a difficult boss. I feel accomplished when
I discover a secret. Playing a game for 40 hours just to unlock a secret
character because you don’t want to pay any extra money past the $60 you paid
up front is just boring and spotlights the game as a money laundering machine than an actual piece of interactive entertainment.
Finally EA relented, reducing the
price of heroes by 75%. But sharp-eyed players were quick to see through their
lies, as it was quickly apparent that the rewards you received were reduced by
75% as well. Whereas you used to get 20,000 crystals for finishing the
campaign, you now only received 5,000.
War continued to rage on the
subreddit, as EA and DICE announced their intention to hold an AmA (ask me
anything) to try to salvage as much as they could. The event didn’t last very
long, as the team members only answered easy questions they could dismiss with
a hand-wave and a “move along!” Popular gaming pundit Jim Sterling received the
most upvoted question, asking EA’s opinion on the ethics of microtransactions
and the bizarre implication that they thought a Star Wars game needed to be pumped full of pay-to-win elements
because of the fear it might not sell well. Unsurprisingly, his questions went
ignored by EA.
The story began getting picked up by major
news publications, as Wall Street noticed that EA's stocks were plummeting at a
meteoric space ever since the controversy emerged. Shareholders (the people EA
really wants to please, not us gamers) were reportedly growing worried they’d invested
poorly, and some folks over in Belgium are reportedly investigating the game
for promoting gambling to children.
Perhaps as a response to the Belgium
investigation, EA officially announced on the eve of the game’s launch that all
payment elements in the game would be removed…temporarily. While it’s nice to
see that for once community pushback actually managed to topple one of the most
notorious companies in the industry, that last word is the most important one.
Temporarily. In my eyes they’ve just hidden these paid elements under their
mattress until the Belgium investigation is over, bringing them back out of the
woodwork before Christmas, when the game will reach its widest audience.
Only it was quickly found that this
decision wasn’t EA’s idea at all, but rather the true owners of the Star Wars license and future ruler of
all mankind: Disney. CEO Bob Iger reportedly wasn’t happy with the name of one
of his biggest franchises attached to a gambling controversy, leading to EA
pulling the microtransactions from the game…again, only temporarily. And that’s
where the story stops for now.
So that’s Battlefront II. A game with No
Man’s Sky levels of controversy in roughly a week before it even launched.
But honestly, at the end of the day, I wouldn’t be surprised if this chaos
ended up helping the game industry as a whole. This has obviously been a
massive PR nightmare for EA, and I doubt that Activision, Warner Bros., and
some of the other crappy developers would like to go through what EA is dealing
with right now. Maybe Battlefront II will
be the game where a developer goes just far enough to blow it big time,
discouraging the other industry villains to follow suit.
In any case, this fight is not over
yet. While I can’t tell you how to spend your money, I’d recommend against
buying Battlefront II and feeding
into EA by saying “even with all the controversy I’ll still give you my cash!”
I’m personally still debating if the game is even worth my time as a rental just so I
can review it here if. This game, just like EA’s last installment in this series,
only exists as a moneymaker releasing in the same timeframe as the hype for a
new episodic Star Wars movie is
peaking. Don’t give in to the Dark Side.
Song of the Week
Darth Vader’s Theme – Star Wars Battlefront II (2005)
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