Electronic Arts made a blog post indicating that microtransactions in Star Wars: Battlefront II will be temporarily disabled during the launch of the game to help assuage the community and lessen the effects of the castigation that the publisher has suffered at the hands of angry consumers.
The news comes courtesy of a brief blog post from Oskar Gabrielson, the general manager at DICE who wrote in the blog post…
“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.”
The company will be tweaking the microtransactions before reinstating them.
Obviously they aren’t getting rid of the microtransactions for good because this is what they promised to deliver to shareholders, and EA cares more about shareholders than their customers.
Nevertheless, fanboys were quick to praise Electronic Arts and pat them on the back, as indicated in the tweets below.
is willing to deny themselves so much money for the community… Gotta respect them
— StarWarsRebellion (@StarWarsGCWF) November 17, 2017
Well now im buying your game tomorrow. THANK YOU pic.twitter.com/coi2kva8rw
— Pat McGowan (@LucilleMeDaddyy) November 17, 2017
Thankfully some people weren’t so stupid and actually realized that the removal of the pay-to-win factors is only temporary and they will be back later. A few people actually had to point this out to the fanboys who were still defending Electronic Arts by saying that microtransactions weren’t bad; that it’s not really gambling since you always get something; that you don’t have to pay for the microtransactions if you don’t want to; and that EA didn’t have to listen to the community. These people were properly pimp-slapped back into place by the palm of common sense.
They need to rope you in now so they can add all the BS later. The first hit of crack is always generously given. #BattlefrontII #Battlefront2 #EA #Microtransactions #LootBoxes
— Obi-Wan Kenobi (@SirBenKenobi) November 17, 2017
It’s a temporary change. None of this will matter in a months time when our refund policy expires. It’s launch week and they are desperate. It even says it on their post. Adding them later won’t matter once they have everyone’s money. W.e.
— Kevin Solorzano (@solorzke) November 17, 2017
There is some hope for humanity after all.
Star Wars: Battlefront II launches in full on November 17th, so EA is hoping that this change will help net them a strong opening day sales surge. However, they will have a large uphill climb this time around because enough people are tired of the scent of the BS that has been spilling out of the anus of EA’s PR tactics.
Some parents have been attempting to get the attention of Disney and alert them to the gambling system in Star Wars: Battlefront II in order to get them to sever ties with Electronic Arts. The U.K., Gambling Commission and the Belgian Gaming Commission are also both reviewing and investigating the game to see if it breaches gambling regulations within the respective territories. This could be the straw that finally breaks the camel’s back when it comes to Electronic Arts and maybe, just maybe some real justice will come out of this.
(Thanks for the news tip Nick)
