EA Loses $3.1B in Stock Value in wake of Star Wars Battlefront 2 Loot Box catastrophe

[Xander Cousins]

On ‎02‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 9:44 AM, ttam said:

I have friends at both Dice studios and EA and you sad internet people are putting negative effects into peoples lives. It's pathetic.

It's progression, People out raged at the Loot Boxes in game EA made a bad move and implemented it in their Battlefront II as a heavy Pay2Win system (Haven't played so can't give my own opinion) and it just blew up in their face. 

 

Negative effects on people lives is a bit drastic, People are only rejoicing because hopefully EA has learnt their lesson to not do something this bold again with a AAA FPS title let alone a well known Title like Star Wars.

 

The Internet is harsh and EA and all other Game companies know that, Look at the Blow up on Activision on their last call of duty game before WWII they where one of the most disliked videos on YouTube, Bioware got serious shit on bombing Mass effect Andromeda and Bungie got serious shit for their Zero Storyline on Destiny1, What they all did? learn from mistakes (Hopefully). 

[Sfekke]

Look @ttam I never mean to drag developers in this, they are under a lot of pressure from the publishers.

1 minute ago, Alex Colson said:

On 02/12/2017 at 10:44 AM, ttam said:

I have friends at both Dice studios and EA and you sad internet people are putting negative effects into peoples lives. It's pathetic.

 

But EA really went too far.

They are using anti consumer tactics, we are being pathetic?

Look the average employee at EA/Dice/Maxis probably doesn't have the ability to change how the company works, and to those I say

"Sorry for bashing your workplace, they might be amazing for their employees but they are terrible toward the end-user."

[Xander Cousins]

@Sfekke, The video you posted before talking about EA (Didn't watch all of it) Seems very One sided from what I have seen. EA Made a bold move and have paid severely, literally. But to be bashful towards a company for being blatant on it is meh. FFS Activision is doing the same thing with COD loot boxes and COD Points. It isn't as blatant but they do it none the less. They have weapons that are better locked behind either DLC's or Loot Boxes. Secondly them saying that recent patient they got approved for isn't in use in any titles yet is BS. You look at Black  Ops III and you can see it is in there but as a different algorithm. They are literally trying to take money from your pockets by influencing your actions. All EA has done is make the blatant but not overly required. 

[Sfekke]

3 minutes ago, Alex Colson said:

@Sfekke, The video you posted before talking about EA (Didn't watch all of it) Seems very One sided from what I have seen. EA Made a bold move and have paid severely, literally. But to be bashful towards a company for being blatant on it is meh. FFS Activision is doing the same thing with COD loot boxes and COD Points. It isn't as blatant but they do it none the less. They have weapons that are better locked behind either DLC's or Loot Boxes. Secondly them saying that recent patient they got approved for isn't in use in any titles yet is BS. You look at Black  Ops III and you can see it is in there but as a different algorithm. They are literally trying to take money from your pockets by influencing your actions. All EA has done is make the blatant but not overly required. 

Did I say I support Activision/Blizzard/Rockstar/etc?

For the record, I do not.

The video isn't one sided by the way.

What bothers me is you seem to defend this somehow?

No matter how you turn the business model of EA, it ends up in make as much money as possible; just like a lot of other publishers.

EA went the extra mile to just shit on our game in such a bold way.

Trust me, if all these studios cared about their games we would see amazing titles!

 

And now for some random funny video that somehow feels real :

 

[Vantage9]

I was just looking at EA's current stock price, which has taken a further small hit over the last few days (down to around $101).  Interestingly enough, this fall still hasn't dropped the price below where it was at just 6 months ago this year.  In early 2017 it was hovering around $94 and then surged up in May of 2017.  Does anyone know what the hell happened in May that made their price shoot up like that?

[Xander Cousins]

18 hours ago, Sfekke said:

Did I say I support Activision/Blizzard/Rockstar/etc?

For the record, I do not.

Never said you supported other companies, And I Sound like I'm defending EA? Kinda because their is reasonable BS to endure and then their is over Kill, EA Have made great games in the past same as other companies. Like I mentioned before EA Fucked up big time with Star wars BFII and they have paid the price for it. Literally. What I'm saying is people go for the easiest target which was EA along with the loot box issue that was going on they got caught in a shit storm. 

 

But again I didn't watch the whole video (still haven't) But I saw the person comment on the cosmetics menu that was found hidden in the game. That most likely will be used on a rainy day but that was there due to the original thought of the loot boxes to be MAINLY Cosmetic which as mentioned was denied by Disney since they wanted their characters to be original/Vanilla not a COD Rainbow suit. 

 

You think of it by their view which would lose them more money, Rebuilding the foundations of the game which will put the production back and could have lead to the delay of a game or to swap out what the Micro transaction system was gonna use with already existing entities. Swapping it is a cheaper cost and most likely was before their stocks got hit hugely. Sadly as a Consumer Not all their decisions they make can be black and white. 

[Sfekke]

Just now, Alex Colson said:

Never said you supported other companies, And I Sound like I'm defending EA? Kinda because their is reasonable BS to endure and then their is over Kill, EA Have made great games in the past same as other companies. Like I mentioned before EA Fucked up big time with Star wars BFII and they have paid the price for it. Literally. What I'm saying is people go for the easiest target which was EA along with the loot box issue that was going on they got caught in a shit storm. 

 

But again I didn't watch the whole video (still haven't) But I saw the person comment on the cosmetics menu that was found hidden in the game. That most likely will be used on a rainy day but that was there due to the original thought of the loot boxes to be MAINLY Cosmetic which as mentioned was denied by Disney since they wanted their characters to be original/Vanilla not a COD Rainbow suit. 

 

You think of it by their view which would lose them more money, Rebuilding the foundations of the game which will put the production back and could have lead to the delay of a game or to swap out what the Micro transaction system was gonna use with already existing entities. Swapping it is a cheaper cost and most likely was before their stocks got hit hugely. Sadly as a Consumer Not all their decisions they make can be black and white. 

EA doesn't make games, they publish them.

I consider these business practices bad no matter what degree they are used on.

The core model alone is wrong, you cannot fix a bad core design .. ask AMD *If anyone gets that .. yay?!?*

They could have removed micro transactions if Disney said "No cosmetics".

They would have gotten praised, made a little less money this time but in the long run a fair publishers is a wealthier publisher.

F2P games that attempt this get bashed because there studio/publishers doesn't have a reputation & nobody likes nor dislikes them. EA might'v published some of my favorite games, I thank them for that. But that doesn't make me pardon their mistakes and anti-consumer tactics.

[Xander Cousins]

1 minute ago, Sfekke said:

They could have removed micro transactions if Disney said "No cosmetics".

As I mentioned Above They choose not to as it would require a restructure of the game. Nothings black and white when it comes to game design. Anything and Everything linked to a aspect needs removed. Loot boxes and the micro transactions was linked to the Main Menu, End game scoring, It own Sub tab, Currency etc. So pulling it would have required a re-write on all the areas and more. I'm not saying what the did was smart (IMO really fucking Stupid) But they done what they done to keep setback prices low and most likely hoped for it to slide (which it did not) 

 

Disney on the other hand should have caught on about the Micro transactions and loot box system that EA was suggesting and tell them, instead the left it be and look what it has gotten them Mixed PR about the new star wars movie along with people looking negative at the new/updated versions of the Battlefront series.

 

In all fairness I think the backlash would have been less if their wasn't the Loot Box issue going around. IT still would have been Bad backlash on EA but I don't think to this extent as that area was being watched very closely due to the gambling shiz.

 

Other releases EA had welp can't really comment they where screwed once Battelfront II went live.

[Sfekke]

9 minutes ago, Alex Colson said:

As I mentioned Above They choose not to as it would require a restructure of the game. Nothings black and white when it comes to game design. Anything and Everything linked to a aspect needs removed. Loot boxes and the micro transactions was linked to the Main Menu, End game scoring, It own Sub tab, Currency etc. So pulling it would have required a re-write on all the areas and more. I'm not saying what the did was smart (IMO really fucking Stupid) But they done what they done to keep setback prices low and most likely hoped for it to slide (which it did not) 

 

Disney on the other hand should have caught on about the Micro transactions and loot box system that EA was suggesting and tell them, instead the left it be and look what it has gotten them Mixed PR about the new star wars movie along with people looking negative at the new/updated versions of the Battlefront series.

 

In all fairness I think the backlash would have been less if their wasn't the Loot Box issue going around. IT still would have been Bad backlash on EA but I don't think to this extent as that area was being watched very closely due to the gambling shiz.

 

Other releases EA had welp can't really comment they where screwed once Battelfront II went live.

For all I care if they just disabled the "feature" and reworked the menu after release I wouldn't even mind that.

While it would be a bit weird having a dysfunctional menu it wouldn't cause any backlash and might even cause people to praise them.

Disabled as in how it currently is, but instead they remove it long term. I'm pretty sure they'll bring the micro transactions back once we all calmed down.

The moment they do that my actions will be :

Reddit here I come.
*2 Days of arguing with fellow redditors later*

Newsflash :

"EA Removed micro transactions again after massive backlash reoccured when they re-enabled the feature after disabling it!

Stocks dropped by 40%!"

 

:3

[Xander Cousins]

2 hours ago, Sfekke said:

-Snip-

In all fairness it will be interesting in what they will do. You could say they can remove it over long term but that isn't possible it will basically be perm disabled if going that route. Removing it would like I mentioned bring around a whole game restructure that wouldn't be possible to ship out as an update to all platforms. Not exactly a File size problem but you think about it you can't exactly send out an update that removes actual files.

 

Short EA will open up the transactions again it is there source of income for Bug patching and DLC developing. It is A lot of games income for those things. 

[Sfekke]

18 minutes ago, Alex Colson said:

In all fairness it will be interesting in what they will do. You could say they can remove it over long term but that isn't possible it will basically be perm disabled if going that route. Removing it would like I mentioned bring around a whole game restructure that wouldn't be possible to ship out as an update to all platforms. Not exactly a File size problem but you think about it you can't exactly send out an update that removes actual files.

 

Short EA will open up the transactions again it is there source of income for Bug patching and DLC developing. It is A lot of games income for those things. 

I suppose they can update UI elements, but restructure the game .. why don't they just drop it at this point ..

Too little too late.

While I myself am a firm believer that they'll reactivate the micro transactions, only time will actually tell us the truth.

[Lathlaer]

3 hours ago, Sfekke said:

They could have removed micro transactions if Disney said "No cosmetics".

They would have gotten praised, made a little less money this time but in the long run a fair publishers is a wealthier publisher.

Agree but I think you underestimate the power of microtransactions. Whatever you say or think of them, EA knows how to make money and if they decided to reintroduce microtransaction AFTER that shitstorm on reddit, it's pretty clear we are not talking about "a little less money" here. We are talking about A LOT of money, to the point where they are weighing how much can they get away with considering the bad PR they already have.

 

They are greedy but not stupid. If after the initial outrage they say that they still want the microtransactions, they are sure that 1% of whales will outweigh the rest who would only buy the game without ingame shop. And usually it is the case.

 

What comes to mind here are those famous research cases where automobile companies were trying to figure out if it's more profitable to recall a bad batch of cars or simply pay off the death/injury claims from insurance.

 

Obviously there is a point which, if crossed, makes the whole thing unacceptable. If the car research goes public, the backlash is enormous.

 

EA faced that kind of backlash but if they manage to keep a grip on their whales without losing the license, they will be fine. They might suffer a bit from the slap they just got but they will endure.

 

The worst thing that can happen to them is losing the golden hen - SW license. That would be the breaking point where they'd have to realize that they really went too far in their greed and cockiness.  

[Xander Cousins]

19 hours ago, Lathlaer said:

EA faced that kind of backlash but if they manage to keep a grip on their whales without losing the license, they will be fine. They might suffer a bit from the slap they just got but they will endure.

 

The worst thing that can happen to them is losing the golden hen - SW license. That would be the breaking point where they'd have to realize that they really went too far in their greed and cockiness.  

Pretty Much.

[Humbug]

Regardless of all this stuff; why on earth did Disney sign up exclusively with EA for 10 years of AAA Star Wars games?

 

Why didn't they manage the Star Wars license on a game to game basis? Doesn't that allow for better decision making and less complacency? For example back in the day when Lucasarts wanted a partner for an RPG they went with then independent Bioware, the result was Knights of the Republic. When they wanted an fps they partnered with Raven (makers of Heretic and Soldier of Fortune), the result was the Jedi Knight series.

 

So Why did Disney just sign away Star Wars to one giant publisher for an entire decade? Now EA can run amok with the most lucrative franchise in the world...

 

 

 

[LaLiLuLeLo]

On 12/6/2017 at 1:29 PM, Humbug said:

Regardless of all this stuff; why on earth did Disney sign up exclusively with EA for 10 years of AAA Star Wars games?

 

Why didn't they manage the Star Wars license on a game to game basis? Doesn't that allow for better decision making and less complacency? For example back in the day when Lucasarts wanted a partner for an RPG they went with then independent Bioware, the result was Knights of the Republic. When they wanted an fps they partnered with Raven (makers of Heretic and Soldier of Fortune), the result was the Jedi Knight series.

 

So Why did Disney just sign away Star Wars to one giant publisher for an entire decade? Now EA can run amok with the most lucrative franchise in the world...

 

 

 

I'm guessing EA made Disney an incredible offer that they just couldn't refuse. EA probably thought they could make all that money or even more back, doing whatever scumming practices they wanted without any problems whatsoever,  because Star Wars! I'm glad its not going down like that. But for them to seriously be in trouble people need to also open their eyes with Fifa and Madden. 

[schwarzerrogen]

Haven't really liked EA since they literally fucked Command and Conquer into the ground.

 

So this is fine by me. 

[Xander Cousins]

On ‎07‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 11:59 PM, LaLiLuLeLo said:

I'm guessing EA made Disney an incredible offer that they just couldn't refuse. EA probably thought they could make all that money or even more back, doing whatever scumming practices they wanted without any problems whatsoever,  because Star Wars! I'm glad its not going down like that. But for them to seriously be in trouble people need to also open their eyes with Fifa and Madden. 

FiFA and Madden has been that way for ages, If people thought it was also a problem they would have already complained about it like whats happened with Battlefront II. But people don't care they see that game as that way and don't realise it.   Doesn't bother me don't play those games. 

 

Secondly EA is Just EA they pulled out something Really Stupid and have paid the price for it. TBH This has all cam round due to the Loot Box = Gambling thing. They just picked the worst time to pull this stunt. Any other time would have been better as they may have not got this big of an out lash. Hence why FiFa and madden went under the radar for soo long. But what ya gonna do. I'll be honest I really doubt EA would go bankrupt over this but  they will surely have taken a step back to prevent this from happening again (Hopefully)....

[ravenshrike]

1 hour ago, Alex Colson said:

FiFA and Madden has been that way for ages

Point of order, in my experience FIFA and Madden are played by the type of people who play and bet on fantasy football and as such would have no problem gambling in some other fashion in a video game.

[Xander Cousins]

17 hours ago, ravenshrike said:

Point of order, in my experience FIFA and Madden are played by the type of people who play and bet on fantasy football and as such would have no problem gambling in some other fashion in a video game.

Hence why no up kick about those games have came around and in My opinion I Don't really care since I don't play them. But ya that is the jist of it 

[Linus Tech Tits]

Yessss

[Linus Tech Tits]

On 11/12/2017 at 7:36 AM, schwarzerrogen said:

Haven't really liked EA since they literally fucked Command and Conquer into the ground.

 

So this is fine by me. 

And need for speed series.