Current Events > Report: EA may not bring loot boxes back to Battlefront II.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Electronic Arts may not bring microtransactions back to Star Wars Battlefront II, the chief financial officer of Electronic Arts told a gathering of investors earlier this week. This is the first time EA has publicly acknowledged that the controversial money-making system may not return to the Star Wars game.

At the time, EA said that microtransactions would "become available at a later date, only after we've made changes to the game."

But speaking at the 37th Nasdaq Investor Conference on Tuesday, EA CFO Blake Jorgensen noted that microtransactions may not return to the game when asked about how the company is dealing with the backlash.

"Clearly we are very focused on listening to the consumer and understanding what the consumer wants and that's evolving constantly," he says. "But we're working on improving the progression system. We turned the MTX off as an opportunity to work on the progression system inside the game. We're continuing to do that. I think there's an update this week and again next week.

"Overtime we'll address how we will want to bring the MTX either into the game or not and what form we will decide to bring it into."

There are some bits about legislation regarding loot boxes as well:

Lee points out that in working to draft a bill they are also trying to pave the way for lawmakers in other states to draft their own bills on the matter. Lee notes that his office has been receiving calls from politicians all over the country, noting specifically a state representative from Missouri asking about the law.

In the letter, Lee draws a straight line between loot boxes and gambling, noting that the "loot box game mechanism is designed to exploit the same psychological responses that make slot machines addictive, posing a significant risk to vulnerable consumers" and that loot boxes are often designed to look like slot machines in how they pay out their non-monetary rewards.

The letter calls for politicians to limit the availability of loot boxes to those 21 and over, have loot boxes and the games that include them be regulated by the same groups that regulate gambling, require a clear disclosure of the odds of winning items in loot boxes, enable regulators to audit loot boxes.

http://www.rollingstone.com/glixel/news/ea-may-not-bring-loot-boxes-back-to-battlefront-ii-w513439

It'll be very interesting to see what way they go with microtransactions and loot boxes with this game, and all future titles. Will this have repercussions with their Ultimate Team models in their sports franchises?
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But can they make the progression system not suck shit
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DarthAragorn posted...

But can they make the progression system not suck shit

Can you simply not buy EA games?
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Honestly I'd respect EA so much more if they just said "Yeah we want Lootboxes in the game to make money, it's a good game though roll with it."

Rather than this whole "We're listening, it's player progression, we want you to feel satisfied! Balance!." nonsense.

Pay to win is one thing, but doing Pay to Win and then talking like a father explaining to a 4 year old where babies come from in a really condescending way is horrible.
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UnfairRepresent posted...

Honestly I'd respect EA so much more if they just said "Yeah we want Lootboxes in the game to make money, it's a good game though roll with it."

Rather than this whole "We're listening, it's player progression, we want you to feel satisfied! Balance!." nonsense.

Pay to win is one thing, but doing Pay to Win and then talking like a father explaining to a 4 year old where babies come from in a really condescending way is horrible.

my favorite part was where they said they couldn't do cosmetic lootboxes cause canon
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Meanwhile Bethesda is still chugging along
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wackyteen posted...

my favorite part was where they said they couldn't do cosmetic lootboxes cause canon

Then the game was immediately datamined to show that they did have cosmetics and skins in the game, which further highlighted how much bullshit EA is spinning.
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I wonder how much of this is due to the potential "loot boxes are gambling" legislation and how much of it is due to Disney (who owns the Star Wars franchise) telling EA to "stop screwing up and making us look bad by association", because it's probably at least a little of both.
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I just hope that they won't stop the updates. like, i'm enjoying the game shitty progression system and all (imo we should move past progression systems in multiplayer), but I bought it assuming there would be a year or two of content
admittedly I reuqested a refund and Amazon still gave me a copy, so i'm not exactly in a position to complain
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Too little too late. I don't trust them yet.
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I though their master plan was to disable microtransactions and then turn them back on after the holidays.
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Alucard188 posted...

wackyteen posted...

my favorite part was where they said they couldn't do cosmetic lootboxes cause canon

Then the game was immediately datamined to show that they did have cosmetics and skins in the game, which further highlighted how much bullshit EA is spinning.

Not to mention

1. Their previous games did.

2. there's plenty of in canon cosmetics they could do.

My favorite is when they and other companies claim they need lootboxes and season passes and day 1 DLC and 5 special editions to reach a profit.... and then tell their stockholders and actually this doesn't make a difference at all towards whether or not they turn a profit.

It's so... just...scummy
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honestly the only thing i play is the Starfighter Assault <_< I hope we get more maps/objective sets/scenarios for those. Also a way to control or influence what we fall into, Prequel or Original or Sequel. the way it just randomly throws you into matches isn't always that fun. The first order Star Destroyer map is total ass and i'd rather just not play it.
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Alucard188 posted...

require a clear disclosure of the odds of winning items in loot boxes, enable regulators to audit loot boxes.

This is how Japan does it and it'd be a welcome change.
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iron jojo posted...

Too little too late. I don't trust them yet.

lmfao at the idea of actually trusting EA, ever.
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wackyteen posted...

iron jojo posted...

Too little too late. I don't trust them yet.

lmfao at the idea of actually trusting EA, ever.

Well I don't see it happening any time soon but I'm a never say never type of person.
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If they would have just made the loot boxes cosmetic only, no one would have been upset about it.
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Game is counterintuitive AF tho. Fix that too
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Disney is putting down the hammer.
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In other words, the game's selling worse than expected and Disney's pissed at "Star Wars" and "gambling" being used in the same sentence, so EA's either permanently away from it or are just shutting up about something they will bring back later.
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I feel like this is a good start for micro transactions from EA... hopefully
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