EA's newly appointed company chief designer, Patrick Söderlund admits they "made some mistakes" by including loot boxes in Star Wars Battlefront II.
In a recent interview with The Verge, Sönderlund explained why EA decided to include loot boxes into Star Wars Battlefront II. "We had the intent that was designed for us to have more people play it over a longer period of time." But, the inclusion of loot boxes quickly backfired and resulted in many issues for EA, including politicians looking to classify loot boxes as gambling. "We got it wrong," Sönderlund explained. "And as a result, we had to take a very quick and drastic actions to turn everything off, and we've since worked and redesigned the progression system." In the latest patch, EA has unlocked all heroes, which were previously locked in loot boxes.
The inclusion of loot boxes in Star Wars Battlefront II became extremely controversial once players found out that progression and heroes were locked behind a random number generator. This resulted in players boycotting the game, while others shared their concerns via social media. EA made a statement about the issue on Reddit, which quickly became the most downvoted post in Reddit history.
After all of the backlash and controversy, EA is trying to remedy the negative perception Star Wars Battlefront II has within the wider gaming community. "We can shy away from it and pretend like it didn't happen, or we can act responsibly and realise that we made some mistakes, and try to rectify those mistakes and learn from them," explained Sönderlund. "We have taken significant steps as a company to review and understand the mechanics around monetization, loot boxes, and other things in our games before they go to market."
For those concerned about future EA titles, Sönderlund states they have listened to customer feedback. "For Battlefield and Anthem, [players have] made it very clear that we can't afford to make similar mistakes. And we won't."
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This is great that they are listening to the people (better late than never right?). However it is still sketchy as the loot boxes and micro transactions is a patent money grabbing model which works on mobile games and now trying to bring into console/pc games. I don't think it will disappear anytime soon but rather evolve into another scheme.
Indeed, there is too much money in it to just let it get knocked from something like this. If this goes down, they'll find another scheme as you mentioned!
It's refreshing to hear, but it might be too little, too late. I think the damage has been done, and people are going to be wary for the foreseeable future. And rightly so! It was so egregious, so blatant, that people will remember this for a long time.
I, for one, will be watching how they treat Respawn Entertainment VERY, very closely.
Indeed. It was definitely a big blooper by them that has send waves in the gaming community. Anything from them in the future will be closely under the microscope imo. Thanks for dropping by!
I don't want the government in my games, but I really don't like pay to win games that you have already paid for
Agreed, Paid to win is not a sustainable model in any game!