EA turns off, 'all in-game purchases' in Battlefront II BUT WITH A CATH

[shadowbyte]

I've been following this game for a while, and this is awesome news....sort of....

 

According to Oskar Gabrielson, GM at DICE, 

Quote

"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"

however, a bit further down,

Quote

"The ability to purchase crystals in-game will become available at a later date, only after we’ve made changes to the game. "

not quite sure how to feel about this, tbh. It's fantastic that one Reddit comment created enough bad PR for EA that they turned off in game purchase, but they keywords are turned off. 

not removed.

turned off.

 

Hopefully DICE can remedy the current gameplay issues, and I'm hopeful for that, as

Quote

"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."

well, this is quite huge, but also quite small

still, it's a step in the right direction.

 

link: https://www.ea.com/games/starwars/battlefront/battlefront-2/news/pre-launch-update?utm_campaign=swbf2_hd_na_ic_soco_twt_swbfii-prelaunchblog-tw&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&cid=42029&ts=1510883206943

 

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, shadowbyte said:

I've been following this game for a while, and this is awesome news....sort of....

 

According to Oskar Gabrielson, GM at DICE, 

however, a bit further down,

not quite sure how to feel about this, tbh. It's fantastic that one Reddit comment created enough bad PR for EA that they turned off in game purchase, but they keywords are turned off. 

not removed.

turned off.

 

Hopefully DICE can remedy the current gameplay issues, and I'm hopeful for that, as

well, this is quite huge, but also quite small

still, it's a step in the right direction.

 

link: https://www.ea.com/games/starwars/battlefront/battlefront-2/news/pre-launch-update?utm_campaign=swbf2_hd_na_ic_soco_twt_swbfii-prelaunchblog-tw&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&cid=42029&ts=1510883206943

 

Unless it is removed, i refuse to buy this game. Sad, because i was so hyped after the beta

[Dabombinable]

So...they only did this because of the gambling investigation going on in Belgium. Meaning that the pricks know that what they've implemented in SWBFII, is actually gambling.

[goodtofufriday]

So does this mean you cant get any characters now? 

 

I hope they change to entirely cosmetic loot only. 

 

But one can only hope. 

[PlayStation 2]

7 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

So...they only did this because of the gambling investigation going on in Belgium. Meaning that the pricks know that what they've implemented in SWBFII, is actually gambling.

It's probably the EU (or in this case, an EU country) being bitchy as it usually is.

[Misanthrope]

So the strategy now it's  "Don't fuck launch period sales, just spring the stupid nickel & dime shit one sales have slowed down to a crawl anyway"

 

Great it means they'll now at first sell you the game for 60 and then turn it to F2P 2 years later. I mean this is an improvement but more akin to having the option to not eat shit but drink piss instead: I mean it's better but still awful.

[DocSwag]

1 hour ago, NovaMan01 said:

Unless it is removed, i refuse to buy this game. Sad, because i was so hyped after the beta

I'm fine with in game purchases as long as they have little impact on gameplay itself, and are mostly only for cosmetic reasons.

[ApolloFury]

15 minutes ago, DocSwag said:

I'm fine with in game purchases as long as they have little impact on gameplay itself, and are mostly only for cosmetic reasons.

I use to think the same about CSGO lootboxes and many other games but now you have many underage people gambling for these cosmetic items from lootboxes that you can grind many hours for or pay with their mother's credit card, we all know they wanted that 'ultra rare' item. I know you said specifically 'in-game purchases' but lootboxes  (the method to acquire them) are becoming in-game purchases. The reason why lootboxes are becoming standard in-game purchases because many people (including me) turns a blind eye and say 'Meh, they're just cosmetic', so we allowed them to get to Shadow of War and Star Wars: BF2 level of craziness (where it creeps into gameplay too) but still say 'Meh, they're just cosmetic'... 

[xAcid9]

2 hours ago, shadowbyte said:

"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."

My ass, that was exactly your intention to lure those poor rich kids to buy it.

[ARikozuM]

1 hour ago, ApolloFury said:

'Meh, they're just cosmetic', so we allowed them to get to Shadow of War

I don't know why you would pay for loot boxes in SoW when the game is beatable with only 40 hours of work, though I get distracted and decide to pummel any large group of uruks for giggles and to build my army.

[ravenshrike]

27 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

I don't know why you would pay for loot boxes in SoW when the game is beatable with only 40 hours of work, though I get distracted and decide to pummel any large group of uruks for giggles and to build my army.

To get the 'real ending' you need to get 100%, which without spending money is a horrific grind.

[Eroda]

they cannot remove the currency because people have already purchased it and removing it would require them to issue refunds. they didnt remove the lootboxes  if they did it would remove all progression they only removed the ability to pay real money to get them you still grind games to get ingame credits to get lootboxes. to remove lootboxes is weeks of work.

 

with CSGO its a little different 1. they give you chance to get cosmetics outright just by playing 2. they give you the crate  you only pay to open it 3. if you dont want to pay you can put it on the market and eventually buy the skin you want

[Kamina]

Damage has already been done. EA doesn't think.

[Master Disaster]

I'm kinda hoping this is the stand that AAA gaming needed, enough people have stood and said "fuck you EA, we won't take this shit anymore" and hopefully they'll realise how we feel about it now.

 

I still don't expect things to change by much though. 2017 is the year gaming died.

[Eroda]

if they cannot monetize games after the initial $60 then they wont provide additional content they will make the game and after a month or 2 you wont play it and then buy their next game. it just wont happen EA wont provide 8 Maps and 12 Weapons and additional Heroes etc etc  for Free  just because they want to keep people happy. that is just throwing money away

[Bouzoo]

4 hours ago, shadowbyte said:

It's fantastic that one Reddit comment created enough bad PR for EA that they turned off in game purchase, but they keywords are turned off. 

not removed.

It's not just that one comment. If we put the comment aside, there have been countless reddit threads in numerous subreddits that don't even have anything to do with gaming, the number or refunds is probably a record one, to the point where EA removed the refund button, their AMA was a train wreck (shocker) and even CNN and BBC covered the situation. 

Yes, the comment made the situation known to people that didn't even know about the game, but they are not the ones making all the noise. 

 

[Bouzoo]

4 hours ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

It's probably the EU (or in this case, an EU country) being bitchy as it usually is.

By that definition every person that made a refund and is taking a stand against EA is bitchy. Which would imply EA did nothing wrong, and god knows they did. 

[Master Disaster]

7 minutes ago, Bouzoo said:

By that definition every person that made a refund and is taking a stand against EA is bitchy. Which would imply EA did nothing wrong, and god knows they did. 

My problem is this basically draws a line in the sand now and I don't see that as a good thing. These greedy fuckers will basically take everything they've done up to SWBF2 as OK by consumers and it will become (in fact it already has become) the norm for every game they release in the future.

 

EA pushed the boundaries for sure, the problem was the boundaries were already a few thousands miles further forward than they ever should have been before this whole EA disaster.

 

Theres a small part of me that wonders if that wasn't the intent all along, maybe they were happy at how much money these systems were making and decided to use a basically untouchable franchise to deliberately push it to far knowing how we would react so they could be seen to publicly dial it back however this thought relies on them being happy with the amount of money they were making and that's a scenario I just don't see happening.

[Bouzoo]

3 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

My problem is this basically draws a line in the sand now and I don't see that as a good thing. These greedy fuckers will basically take everything they've done up to SWBF2 as OK by consumers and it will become (in fact it already has become) the norm for every game they release in the future.

 

EA pushed the boundaries for sure, the problem was the boundaries were already a few thousands miles further forward than they ever should have been before this whole EA disaster.

And people are (finally) pushing even harder. Just take a peek at /r/StarWarsBattlefront and you'll see what I'm talking about. No one is buying the ir bs tactics. 

I agree it should've been dealth with eons ago, but it's never too late to take a stand. 

[Master Disaster]

1 minute ago, Bouzoo said:

And people are (finally) pushing even harder. Just take a peek at /r/StarWarsBattlefront and you'll see what I'm talking about. No one is buying the ir bs tactics. 

I agree it should've been dealth with eons ago, but it's never too late to take a stand. 

I totally agree with the principles of your post but I'm sceptical still.

 

I'm wondering how long it will be before EA are publicly bragging about how much of a commercial success SWBF2 has been, you see for every redditor taking a stand theres a hundred more who will buy the game anyway. I was watching a pretty big streamer on Twitch yesterday and despite his chat being filled with EA discussion since Tuesday (and him even joining in with it on multiple occasions) last night he announces that he will be playing SWBF2 on stream today. This is the problem, first of all its star wars so lots of people are going to buy it regardless and then theres many other people who simply don't care.

 

Remember this....

[ApolloFury]

1 hour ago, ARikozuM said:

I don't know why you would pay for loot boxes in SoW when the game is beatable with only 40 hours of work, though I get distracted and decide to pummel any large group of uruks for giggles and to build my army.

 

1 hour ago, ravenshrike said:

To get the 'real ending' you need to get 100%, which without spending money is a horrific grind.

Well also the thing is game publisher always say these micro-transactions and lootboxes are there for people who are "busy in life" to help speed up the game for them. But the thing is why do they have to charge real money for that privilege? PC games like Skyrim and Fallout we can use console commands to speed our way through the game (coins, ammo, health, etc). Similarly, back when I played on consoles we can use cheat codes for the same privilege.

 

I completely understand the need for someone to make the game easier for them but why these days it is locked behind a "Store" page but not through cheat codes or difficulty settings??!! For instance, every recent Ubisoft game give you the option to buy (with real-money) for in-game currency to help those "busy" people. There is no reason for this apart from milking those people for cash.

[vorticalbox]

4 hours ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

It's probably the EU (or in this case, an EU country) being bitchy as it usually is.

as bitchy as the EU can be and with some stuff being just outrageous, mostly about net neutrality but who isn't doing something to piss off the internet? I digress, the EU actually is very good at maintaining customer rights, calling out bad practice and most importantly issuing pretty little fines for it. 

[Arika]

i find it interesting that DICE had to issue the notice and apology when i can almost 100% guarantee the original plan was decided by EA with little to no input from DICE given how many times EA has fucked over the developers of other games.

[sof006]

Maybe this will teach EA a lesson... Maybe. Probably not. 

[suicidalfranco]

Meanwhile in the f2p market:

Warframe plains of aidolon is amazing, literally changed the whole game and introduced a new endgame and was given out for free

Path of exile after what seems like three months since their last expression which doubled the amount of chapters for the campaign for free, just announced their next expansion to be released in December for free which will expand the endgame. 

Dauntless, the upcoming monster Hunter like f2p game, announced they will drop the lootbox model and apply the warframe path of exile formula: want loot? Here's a sword, here's the monster, go grind. Want to look fabulous? Here's our store with no game affecting stuff that you can directly buy without having to bow down to the rng gods (cause you'll be already doing a lot of that in your hunts)

 

If game as service needs a role model, these three should be on the top list.

 

Also Capcom has come out saying that they will not put this kind of bs in their upcoming monster Hunter world, want to get that cool armour or fabulous great sword carved out of a Azure rathalos? You better get your game on son! Cause grind and working your way through the game is the only way to obtain them, they way it should be in the first place.