Disney strongly influenced EA's decision to temporarily remove Micro-transactions on Battlefront 2

[AlTech]

Disney apparently strongly influenced EA's decision to temporarily remove Micro-transactions from Star Wars Battlefront 2.

 

Disney executives were upset that EA was causing negative controversies surrounding their marquee product.

 

Hours before the game was supposed to launch, they even allegedly went so far as to threaten to remove EA's license to make Star Wars Games and highly encouraged EA to remove Micro-transactions and fix the system.

 

EA complied and removed Micro-transactions temporarily so they could figure out a solution.

 

EA has definitely caused tangible harm to the Star Wars franchise. All because of EA's addiction to the Recurring Revenue Business and Games As A Service.....

 

When reached for comment, EA refused to comment on if the Pay 2 Win elements would be removed.

 

Source:

 

[PlayStation 2]

EA caused tangible harm to themselves, not to the Star Wars franchise.

In any case, I'm not surprised Disney went hard on them. Could you really blame them for bringing very bad PR for them?

[Valkyrie Lenneth]

1 minute ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

EA caused tangible harm to themselves, not to the Star Wars franchise.

In any case, I'm not surprised Disney went hard on them. Could you really blame them for bringing very bad PR for them?

ea already did enough dmg to themselfs with all the bullshit, all they care about is money i dont buy ea games anymore lol

[PCGuy_5960]

Makes sense, if very few people buy the game because of these microtransactions, Disney is going to lose money as well. 

 

IMO, EA should just remove microtransactions altogether or make them cosmetic only

Edited November 19, 2017 by PCGuy_5960

[AlTech]

Just now, Dan Castellaneta said:

EA caused tangible harm to themselves, not to the Star Wars franchise.

Disney seems to think the Star Wars franchise was damaged or harmed by this....

Just now, Dan Castellaneta said:

Could you really blame them for bringing very bad PR for them?

If i wasn't terribly into Star Wars, i legit wouldn't watch Star Wars Episode 8 in December.

 

That's how bad EA screwed up.

[vanished]

Turning them off doesn't actually solve anything, all it does is show that maybe they actually are aware of the hate.  To actually "fix" this properly would probably require additional months of development since clearly the micro-transactions were baked into the game from the start.  I remember when game makers would just strive to make the best game, which would ultimately maximize profit by it selling to more people... then later micro-transactions were added in as a sort of fringe thing but now it seems like game makers start with a core designed to harvest as much as possible from micro-transactions, and then just fluff out a "game" around that in order to support those micro-transactions.

[AlTech]

1 minute ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

Makes sense, if very few people buy the game because of these microtransactions, Disney is going to lose money as well. 

Disney doesn't really care if the game sells OK or not. They're worried that the franchise's reputation could have been harmed by EA.

[vanished]

3 minutes ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

EA caused tangible harm to themselves, not to the Star Wars franchise.

In any case, I'm not surprised Disney went hard on them. Could you really blame them for bringing very bad PR for them?

I wonder what if any direction Disney gave EA from the start.  I'm assuming it was nothing since if they had, I'd imagine it would have been something like "make a really good game", not "try to squeeze out every last cent possible by any means necessary, even if it makes everyone hate you" since I just don't get the feeling Disney is like that, and I think my theory is supported b the fact Disney has condemned EA for doing this.

[BWLServers]

All they have to do is mirror something like Overwatch. Great game, with cosmetic microtransactions that are also earned through gameplay, which in turn earns you a higher rank.

[AresKrieger]

5 minutes ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

EA caused tangible harm to themselves, not to the Star Wars franchise.

In any case, I'm not surprised Disney went hard on them. Could you really blame them for bringing very bad PR for them?

"Who gave those assholes at EA starwars rights, those scumbags need to pay"

^^^ I think this about sums up why Disney was mad, people became angry at them for something an associate did, well that and the gambling aspect blew up and star wars is black and white morals in main themes

 

1 minute ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

wonder what if any direction Disney gave EA from the start.

The single player campaign is canon so they must have had some direct input of some sort, plus any character design choice needs approval

[Bouzoo]

As it turned out, it was James Pitaro who contacted Andres Wilson, not Bob Iger as first info said.

 

8 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Disney doesn't really care if the game sells OK or not. They're worried that the franchise's reputation could have been harmed by EA.

Oh I reckon it's not only reputation of Star Wars but of Disney as whole, there have been way bigger accusations going towards them, starting with this brilliant poster (seriously, very clever idea).

 

 

Newest info hints that Lucasfilm forced EA/Dice to go this road over cosmetic only items. If so, then this is all on Disney and you can bet they want it all gone asap. 

 

As until now, Belgium, Sweden and Netherlands are investigating loot boxes as gambling. The Huffington Post, The Wall Street Journal, BBC and CNN have covered the whole situation. 

[AresKrieger]

3 minutes ago, BWLServers said:

All they have to do is mirror something like Overwatch. Great game, with cosmetic microtransactions that are also earned through gameplay, which in turn earns you a higher rank

To be play devil's advocate I should inform you any cosmetic that an a character receives must be approved by Disney and their associates. So it's not quite so simple however they could have made arrangements from the start to speed up the process.

[christianled59]

Shitty thing is, with a proper progression system and no microtransactions, this would have been a pretty solid game. They improved on most of the issues from the previous game and I was personally looking forward to it. Now I doubt I'll ever even buy it.

[MrRemnant]

10 minutes ago, BWLServers said:

All they have to do is mirror something like Overwatch. Great game, with cosmetic microtransactions that are also earned through gameplay, which in turn earns you a higher rank.

No. Even loot boxes like that shouldn't be in a game that's not ftp. 

[PlayStation 2]

6 minutes ago, christianled59 said:

Shitty thing is, with a proper progression system and no microtransactions, this would have been a pretty solid game. They improved on most of the issues from the previous game and I was personally looking forward to it. Now I doubt I'll ever even buy it.

Honestly, this game could've worked even with microtransactions if it weren't centered around it. 

Look at where the original basis for modern loot crate systems come from, something like Team Fortress 2 or even CS:GO, to see how one should center their loot crates around.

[christianled59]

1 minute ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

Honestly, this game could've worked even with microtransactions if it weren't centered around it. 

Look at where the original basis for modern loot crate systems come from, something like Team Fortress 2 or even CS:GO, to see how one should center their loot crates around.

I agree. They are giving free DLC in the game, and I would have personally SUPPORTED a microtransaction system if it weren't forced and was mostly cosmetic. The executives behind this business model are either incredibly out of touch with the market or are blinded with greed. Or most likely a combination of both. 

[suicidalfranco]

And that's why you can bet your collective arses that Anthem will have MT shovel up your scrotum and no amount of AMA and negative Reddit posts will that, cause there's no big third party involved with this one 

 

in other news:

Disney shuts down Marvel themed ARPG Marvel Heroes. Date of full servers shut down: 31st December. What a sad day this is for the already niche ARPG genre. Even sadder because this was actually a really good and fun one.

 

 

[suicidalfranco]

7 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

You can hope that people who like it will try to create a private server. People managed to do that with Age of Empires Online, that Microsoft killed years ago. (https://projectceleste.com/)

can only hope so, and that Disney doesn't send a cease and desist when it reaches a beta state

[Matu20]

Microtransactions are not evil, as long as they don't provide any actual benefits over others who haven't paid. But EA done fucked up, BF2 will not come back from this, damage has been done.

[suicidalfranco]

1 minute ago, Matu20 said:

Microtransactions are not evil, as long as they don't provide any actual benefits over others who haven't paid. But EA done fucked up, BF2 will not come back from this, damage has been done.

on a 60-100+$ game? It's beyond evil, it's straight out satanical 

[Matu20]

15 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

on a 60-100+$ game? It's beyond evil, it's straight out satanical 

Even then, microtransactions that do not affect gameplay are fine.

[Mr.Meerkat]

1 hour ago, BWLServers said:

All they have to do is mirror something like Overwatch. Great game, with cosmetic microtransactions that are also earned through gameplay, which in turn earns you a higher rank.

Or Rainbow Six Siege, great game (although its slowly becoming more arcadey and less 'realistic'), real money for cosmetics and the ability to play new operators straight away-which makes absolutely no difference in the higher skill groups as within the first game or two, the advantage of playing an unknown operator already lost (in fact, typically within the first couple of rounds, the advantage is no more). 

[ravenshrike]

1 hour ago, Bouzoo said:

 

 

 

Oh that poster is both hilarious and awesome.

[Notional]

1 hour ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

Makes sense, if very few people buy the game because of these microtransactions, Disney is going to lose money as well. 

 

IMO, EA should just remove microtransactions altogether or make them cosmetic only

Why would they? They make 1.3 billion dollars a year on it. 650 million on FIFA Ultimate Team cards alone:

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2016-03-02-eas-ultimate-team-earning-around-usd650-million-a-year

 

But yeah. EA has been pulling this crap for too long and basically turning a 60-100$ game into an F2P monetization model, was essentially the red wood log that crushed the entire camel. And good for consumers to finally kinda stand up. You can only vote with your wallet after all.

[vanished]

6 minutes ago, ravenshrike said:

 

 

Oh that poster is both hilarious and awesome.

It's the only way to get "normies" to become aware of this problem.  Like, we're all well aware of what's going on, but I would bet that 90% of people have no clue and are just going to blindly buy it anyway... that is, unless images like this that use a recognizable name (Disney, and not EA) go viral