Christopher D. AndersonIn what looks to be an actual victory for gamers, EA has dropped the microtransactions just hours ahead of the release of Battlefront 2. This is only temporary though. EA claims they are taking another look at the in game monetization and changing it so that it’s not so much pay to win. You can read about their pre launch update here .
Why such a quick response?
The backlash earlier this week was pretty vicious. And rightly so. It’s not the first time EA has been in hot water. Just recently there was quite a bit of backlash for Need for Speed:Payback because of the same thing, microtransactions that made the game pay to win. Instead of a decent response it was blown off for the most part and things died down fairly quickly.
But the message seems to have gotten through this time though. Part of that may have to do with the material. In case you all have forgotten, the Star Wars franchise is owned by Disney. It seems that a big company like that wouldn’t want this kind of blemish on their company name and that very well might have had something to do with EA’s decision to change the microtransactions.
That’s not to say that the crazed fans didn’t have anything to do with it. Everyone definitely sent a message. And part of me hopes that that is a big part of what helped them make their decision as well. If that’s the case then that’s awesome. I hope it is.
What does this actually mean?
It means that eventually microtransactions will be back in Battlefront 2 but for now it's not a pay to win game. You have to wonder if this will effect EA at all though. They made a decision from a business standpoint to include microtransactions in the game because it would make them more money then if they didn’t. Now that they have changed heart what does that mean for the company? Anything?
Apparently the stock for EA has already gone down as Wall Street is a little concerned. And most likely they have lost money on the game sales themselves as most likely a lot of people that have canceled their pre orders of Battlefront 2 won’t come back. At the very least out of spite.
This doesn’t mean the end of EA by any means but it seems like this incident might very well leave a mark. Either way, the outrage from gamers was actually effective this time. Which is probably a good thing for the future of the industry. We’ll see how this all holds up before it’s all said and done however.