Investors And Politicians Take Notice Of 'Battlefront II' Controversy

[Guest]

Both gamers and game investors are no stranger to the concept of microtransactions. Although gamers have grown to accept them as a fact of reality, the recent "Star Wars Battlefront II" debacle shows that there is still a line that can’t be crossed.

Investors And Politicians Take Notice Of 'Battlefront II' Controversy : Read more

 

[redgarl]

The cancer of gaming

 

[chicofehr]

The mainstream gamer will keep voting with their wallet for sure. So regulations will be needed to stop this madness.

 

[nikolajj]

I don't care about microtransactions. I do however care about pay to win, and I will not play a game that has it!
DLC that is incompatible with people that don't have it and therefore split the player base is also worrying.

 

[Zaporro]

These "its not gambling because X" are so idiotic, and its more ridicolous when serious organisations accept them:

- Its not gambling because the lootbox we sell can be earned in game by playing it for 100000000000.... hours

- Its not gambling because when player opens lootbox he will always get some item, for example this item X that in our private game has arbitrary virtual value of 50$, but lets skip the fact players obtain same item in game in 1000k's, its absolutely worthless and considered trash

- Its not gambling because we dont change it into real money, lets ignore how players can trade it, list on ebay, trade accounts or in steam inventory

tl;dr;

Stupid organisations that are supposed to decide what's gambling or not, instead of listening to players and trying to understand in game reality are listening to greedy developers who will never ever admit that they put gambling in game.

 

[ubercake]

The article shows Battlefront II sales being down compared to Battlefront I. Though it may play a minuscule part, it's not because of micro-transactions that Battlefront II sales are down. It's because of the fact that the first game sucked so badly.

Additionally, EA followed up the release of Battlefront I with Battlefield I which uses similar crappy game mechanics. Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4 were pretty amazing titles comparatively, but most of us could tell that Battlefield 1 was just Battlefront I with a WWI theme and similar terrible game play. Both Battlefront I and Battlefield 1 feel like very similar games with different skins and although the graphics and sound on both are amazing, the games themselves are bad. I heard EA recently acquired Respawn who is responsible for producing Titanfall 2 and I became sad just hearing it because now I'm wondering what EA will do to ruin the Titanfall series.

EA has decided to dumb down their latest titles and fans of their previous titles want nothing to do with this new direction. Because of Battlefront I and Battlefield I, gamers now have low expectations from EA and are reluctant to buy their products. We've moved on from EA titles to the next latest and greatest non-EA titles.

Now with regard to offering loot boxes as a form of gambling, they may be on to something. But my stance on gambling (or any other thing one could become addicted to) relies on an emphasis on personal responsibility and self-control; personal choices.

No one is forcing anyone to buy these things. Most of these games have some fun-factor without the purchase of any loot box. Also, you have the capability to make a decision as an adult - as most of these games are rated MA and you need your own credit card to pay for micro-transactions - to refrain from buying any game that uses loot boxes for purchase with real currency. If you don't like it, don't buy it.

Also, if I like a game, I want to show support for the developers. I'm not opposed to supporting the further development of expanding environments (DLC etc...) within a given game by offering my own support through the purchase of DLC or micro-transactions. Some of these games offer years of updates. If they baked those expansion costs into the initial purchase, people would be griping about the sale price of the title. For me, if I'm playing a game more than a couple of months, it is a darned-good game (Battlefield 3 and 4; and Destiny 2 is looking to be this way) and I hope they keep adding content to it for the next few years. This is also why I'll throw a couple of bucks to freeware/shareware developers when I like their products as well.