You might have heard about the whole controversy around Electronic Arts and their most recent game, Star Wars: Battlefront II. Well here's a rundown of the events.

How it started

Back in spring, DICE announced that the second game in the series that rebooted the legendary classic from early in the 2000s, will not have a season pass as they have something different planned. This of course generated hype around the game, especially since the Star Wars franchise is leased exclusively to EA, and people actually gave them a chance. To me, this screamed microtransactions, but hey, I just have EA or something. But just before launch, there was a Beta for those that still foolishly preorder videogames, and they would find out exactly what EA had in store for the customers.

Guess what it was? I'll give you one try...
Aaaaand it was obviously lootboxes that hid iconic Star Wars characters behind a paywall. Now sure, at this time, shills will say that you can earn it in game. Redditors have done the math and calculated that it would take 40 hours of playtime to unlock a single hero. That's 40 hours on top of which you need to add loading times, matchmaking times and all that, would mean basically three days of non-stop gaming to unlock a single hero. So people voiced their concern about this, as well as the fact that these lootboxes also contained direct buffs such as aim assist, making it a direct Pay2Win economy, even though it is a premium 80$ game.
EA tried to answer fans' concerns by hosting a reddit AMA..

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The reactions

As you can see, it did not go well. In fact, this post, which consist of nothing more than bullshit PR speak, is the most downvoted post in reddit history, amassing a total score of -680,490, winning by a huge margin, the second most downvoted post only having a -24,333, and this one only got so many of them because it literally asked for downvotes. I did not expect this, but I am filled with glee to see this dreadful company getting shit on. Of course, EA couldn't care less about this, as long as they make money. But this backlash was so huge that their stocks plummeted on friday, and they do care about that.

Another nontroversy was that a supposed EA game developer by the name of BiggSean66 on Twitter, took the "ooh #GamerGate is attacking me"-angle and stated that he received death threats and personal attacks over the internet. No evidence needed, obviously, just #ListenAndBelieve. Not surprisingly, major news companies just ran with this, criticising customers that didn't want to get fleeced and backing poor, innocent EA.

Now, sure, I agree that death threats are not cool, but they don't mean jack shit on the internet, if you ask me, everybody gets them. But most surprisingly of all is that Kotaku of all publications made an article, detailing this development. And it appears that this guy fabricated the whole thing. He's not a game developer and didn't receive any credible threats. After being discovered, he purged all mentions of EA and protected it, like a coward.

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The changes

After all the attacks and thousands of people refunding the game, EA issued the statement above. They announce that all microtransactions will be removed from the game and everything will only be earned from gameplay. On top of that all prices have been reduced by 75%. However, this is misleading, because gains have also been slashed from 20,000 to 5,000 credits, so basically all earnings are exactly the same.

On top of that, as I have highlighted, real money transactions will be reenabled at a later date. In my opinion, this is just a marketing move to save the launch, as that is when any game makes the most sales. Unfortunately, people are already drinking the koolaid, and it's baffling to me how anyone can trust this company that has ruined every successful and loved studio or franchise they have acquired, from Bullfrog, Westwood Studios, Maxis etc. and have been voted the worst company in the US... twice.

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Conclusion

Luckily, it's been fun watching EA being lambasted this week, quite cathartic. Even the Starcraft II Twitter account threw shade at them in this thread. Although I think Blizzard-Activision is just as bad, it was funny. Also, polish company CD Projekt Red, developers of The Witcher series, when asked about their online integration in future games hat they "leave greed to others" in this tweet.

I think nobody should ever trust EA with anything, and this attack should continue. I'm glad that the Metacritic user score is sitting at 0.9 at the moment, and even outlets like IGN, known for shilling for giant corporations only gave the game a 6.5. Frankly, never preorder any game, regardless who makes it; wait for reviews and even holiday sales or something. I, for one, am boycotting EA, and if by some miracle, they actually release a good game (though it hasn't happened since Mirror's Edge), I would have no shame in pirating it.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you think EA deserves this, getting off too easy, or are people too hard on them? Share below, along with any feedback you might have. It is greatly appreciated!

Thank you for reading, and keep on steemin'!

(clicking any image will take you to its source)