Star Wars Battlefront II: EA Embraces the Dark Side of Gaming

gene

gene

Audioholics Master Chief
Administrator
The economics of videogames is serious business. Budgets for high-profile games routinely outclass those of blockbuster movies, not to mention the GDP of small independent nations. But, did EA take a step too far in trying to wring even greater profits from games through overuse of microtransacations? The gaming community seems to think so, never has the backlash against a videogame been so great as what we saw last week during the launch of EA's Star Wars Battlefront II.

Is it fair to reward advantages to players that pay?

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Read: Star Wars Battlefront II: EA Embraces the Dark Side of Gaming
 
Cos

Cos

Audioholic Samurai
It has been going on in game for a long time, I am totally against it. I understand that the budget to make games now is much more expensive, but this is the wrong way to do it.
 
Wayde Robson

Wayde Robson

Audioholics Anchorman
Certain games lend themselves to a 'gambling' meta-game with an in-game economy. But when that meta-game taints multiplayer competition with "power ups" for pay, it's bad.

We're accustomed to a natural progressions of unlockables as we play the game, that's fair. In CoD you reach level 52 to unlock one of the best assault rifles in the game. So, a level 52 in a lobby with a bunch of level 10s has a distinct, published and known, quantified advantage. Level and Prestiges translate to time in-game.

If a game allows the substitution of money for time in an in-game economy then it should also be quantified on the player's icon in any lobby. Next to a money icon a sum should denote how much real-world money they've spent on in-game economy features.

However, this runs completely counter to the way these in-game features are setup, you're not supposed to know how much you've spent. For those who do spend money on in-game economies its a scarlet letter of shame.

When researching this article I found an Angry Birds forum (maybe it was a reddit), I was interested in learning the relationship between casual gamers and in-game economies that demand real-world money.

One post in the Angry Birds forum asked players to quantify how much money they spent. The original poster said, with some distain, that he spent almost a thousand dollars.

Apparently he was the only one to ever spend money, nearly everyone (hanging out on an Angry Birds forum, remember) posted that they spent $0. There was definitely an ethic of shame associated with putting real-world money into the game and a lot of pride in saying you gamed the system through some act of in-game baddassery, which I do not comprehend because I've never played Angry Birds, it happened to be the only "pay-to-play" games I know the name of so I looked for it.

Nobody wants to admit how much they spend, and the game system itself is designed to make it seem like a low-cost, incidental investment in a $5 token pack, that you will be liable to do multiple times over time and lose track of how much you've spent.
 
BoredSysAdmin

BoredSysAdmin

Audioholic Slumlord
I think I spend whole whooping $20 on Clash of Clans and all of it was not out of my own wallet, but from Google Opinions Rewards budget. That's the most I ever spend on in-game purchases.
 
darien87

darien87

Audioholic Spartan
I had planned on buying this game until I saw the reviews on Youtube by Angry Joe and others. I'm glad I did. Now I see that Bungie is pulling something similar with their XP throttling to entice you to pay for bright engrams. It's beginning to feel like the whole video game industry is corrupt. I will be going back to single player games for the foreseeable future. At least you don't have to worry about this kind of crap.

I recently started another playthrough of Horizon Zero Dawn. That is a very fun game and the DLC was cool too.

Screw EA. Screw Activision. Screw Bungie.
 
Bryce_H

Bryce_H

Senior Audioholic
I rarely play mutli player games in force. One I did pay in-game money was Game of War: Fire Age ($110). However, despite the investment (ha!) I still got trumped constantly...it would require a continual outlay of cash to be competitive. So I quit.

I currently play several phone games with in-game purchase options, but I have sworn off paying for capability. I current play Clash Royale, Dominations, and Boom Beach.

On the PC side, I almost exclusively play singe player games - Skyrim and Fallout being the most investment of time(suck)

I think some in-game purchase in moderation could be feasible, but it shouldn't be the determining factor to success in the game. I believe I read that to get the purchase options in Battlefront through normal play was some astronomical amount of time...that is foul play in my book.
 
M

matteos

Enthusiast
EA has always operated from the sewer but it's a real shame they took DICE down there with them. This is not the first studio EA has ruined. Westwood Studios was beloved by all back in the day. Ruined by EA games acquisition.

The last good battlefield game was BFBC2. Since then all this garbage has steadily increased. From BF4 to Battlefront to BF1. I won't buy another BF or Battlefront game... Frankly I won't buy another game made by EA. They've gotten so greedy, all the while the quality of the games has slid down tremendously. I think I spent maybe 15 hours with Battlefront 1. I spent maybe 5 hours on BF1... Both are a waste of time. I'm sure this one is even worse.
 
Wayde Robson

Wayde Robson

Audioholics Anchorman
Sadly all this greed could be the end of single player. I can only hope that the Bethesda keeps up single player Elder Scrolls and Fallout games. Last of Us and the new Doom were great single player game experience too (PS4). Multiplayer on both seemed tacked on, which is fine by me. I hope Last of Us 2 (Second Last of Us?) does well by single player too with NO in-game purchases. That crap has gone too far!

Whenever I see "loot boxes" or in-game purchases in games... it's like trying to watch a movie forced to sit next to someone who poop their pants. Seriously, it stinks and you just can't get into the movie.
 
S

shadyJ

Speaker of the House
Staff member
Sadly all this greed could be the end of single player. I can only hope that the Bethesda keeps up single player Elder Scrolls and Fallout games. Last of Us and the new Doom were great single player game experience too (PS4). Multiplayer on both seemed tacked on, which is fine by me. I hope Last of Us 2 (Second Last of Us?) does well by single player too with NO in-game purchases. That crap has gone too far!

Whenever I see "loot boxes" or in-game purchases in games... it's like trying to watch a movie forced to sit next to someone who poop their pants. Seriously, it stinks and you just can't get into the movie.
That is only a problem if you want to play games by major publisher. If you are willing to play games made by smaller studios, there are lots and lots of great choices out there. At least for us, the PC master race!
 
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