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Star Wars Battlefront 2 - now with lootbox drama

Drakron

Arcane
Joined
May 19, 2005
Messages
6,326
Most likely they will do it themself and won't give shit about the other devs. Any way,in good star wars fashion any future games will be shit.

Disney started and then shutdown their videogame division more times I can remember, sure they could but right now they dont have Disney Interactive running.
 

DemonKing

Arcane
Joined
Dec 5, 2003
Messages
5,958
I got this on PS4 for my son and have given it a whirl. Single Player is nothing special. Multiplayer is OK but you have to invest a lot of time to build up the cool star cards you need to be competitive - at the beginning you will be regularly killed by people porting multiple powerups while you have none. Definitely not casual friendly. Aiming is really annoying on a controller as you can't invert the movement controls and keep aiming normal like in Uncharted - it's either both inverted or both normal which sucks bigtime. Starfighter combat is probably the most fun because it works well on a controller. You will crash a lot though even when not under enemy threat.

I wish I could play this with a keyboard and mouse but apparently the PC community is already drying up which means there's no longevity going down that route.
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,087
Location
Bulgaria
Y9E6oG1.gif
 

Cael

Arcane
Joined
Nov 1, 2017
Messages
20,287
and the new movie is shit

I hope star wars dies a brutal death now.

Bwahahahahahahaha!

Today, under the rule of the Disney Social Justice Empire, Star Wars movies feature boring characters standing around giving cringe-worthy motivational speeches and crying.

Does anyone remember the scene in A New Hope where Luke Skywalker, sniffling as tears stream down his face, gives a two-minute monologue to Obi Wan Kenobi about his childhood and how the Evil Empire killed his uncle Owen and aunt Beru and how he hates, HATES them and they’ll never get away with it and he’s going to RESIST, as music swells and the camera cuts to Obi Wan’s face beaming with pride?

No. Owen and Beru get killed, Luke arrives just in time to find their charred bodies, looks sad for a second and tells Obi Wan, “I want to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like my father.” Then he f***ing gets on with it and doesn’t cry like a [non-gender-specific person] for two-and-a-half hours.

Or what about the iconic scene in the Mos Eisley Cantina where Han Solo meets Obi Wan for the first time. “I’m just a lowly smuggler,” he giggles nervously. “I’ve never met a JEDI HERO before!” Oh wait, that didn’t happen either. Han Solo didn’t care about Obi Wan. He called him a crazy old man and laughed behind his back.


People didn’t really care about things that much in the original films. Or if they did, they didn’t stand around talking about their feelings — they just did things, and we sometimes felt things as a result. In the new movies, everyone cares about everything, and they have to tell each other all the time, and as a result the audience feels nothing. The drama is forced, but worse, it’s completely unearned.

SJWs - killing everything they can lay their hands on one item at a time.


EDIT: You know the movie is in deep doo-doo when the only counterpoint to the bad review is: but-but-but-but wymmyn!!!

I spent most of the movie last night enraptured. And not because of the breathtaking action sequences or the dazzling effects. But because every single character who saved the world — the universe, the galaxy — in The Last Jediwas a woman. Every major heroic moment was spearheaded by a woman. Every kickarse character was a woman. Every great line was uttered by a woman.

I can't stop laughing at the snowflake melting.
 
Last edited:

DragoFireheart

all caps, rainbow colors, SOMETHING.
Joined
Jun 16, 2007
Messages
23,731
and the new movie is shit

I hope star wars dies a brutal death now.

Bwahahahahahahaha!

Today, under the rule of the Disney Social Justice Empire, Star Wars movies feature boring characters standing around giving cringe-worthy motivational speeches and crying.

Does anyone remember the scene in A New Hope where Luke Skywalker, sniffling as tears stream down his face, gives a two-minute monologue to Obi Wan Kenobi about his childhood and how the Evil Empire killed his uncle Owen and aunt Beru and how he hates, HATES them and they’ll never get away with it and he’s going to RESIST, as music swells and the camera cuts to Obi Wan’s face beaming with pride?

No. Owen and Beru get killed, Luke arrives just in time to find their charred bodies, looks sad for a second and tells Obi Wan, “I want to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like my father.” Then he f***ing gets on with it and doesn’t cry like a [non-gender-specific person] for two-and-a-half hours.

Or what about the iconic scene in the Mos Eisley Cantina where Han Solo meets Obi Wan for the first time. “I’m just a lowly smuggler,” he giggles nervously. “I’ve never met a JEDI HERO before!” Oh wait, that didn’t happen either. Han Solo didn’t care about Obi Wan. He called him a crazy old man and laughed behind his back.


People didn’t really care about things that much in the original films. Or if they did, they didn’t stand around talking about their feelings — they just did things, and we sometimes felt things as a result. In the new movies, everyone cares about everything, and they have to tell each other all the time, and as a result the audience feels nothing. The drama is forced, but worse, it’s completely unearned.

SJWs - killing everything they can lay their hands on one item at a time.


EDIT: You know the movie is in deep doo-doo when the only counterpoint to the bad review is: but-but-but-but wymmyn!!!

I spent most of the movie last night enraptured. And not because of the breathtaking action sequences or the dazzling effects. But because every single character who saved the world — the universe, the galaxy — in The Last Jediwas a woman. Every major heroic moment was spearheaded by a woman. Every kickarse character was a woman. Every great line was uttered by a woman.

I can't stop laughing at the snowflake melting.


At this point SJW is basically the Black Plague of entertainment (and for other things but I want to focus on media/games/movies).

If a company embraces SJWs ideology, you know it's going to become shit. Time and time again this is proving true. It's sad because it will continue to kill old fan favorites and other classics.

The good news is it becomes very easy to weed out quality media from others using this metric.
 

Taka-Haradin puolipeikko

Filthy Kalinite
Patron
Joined
Apr 24, 2015
Messages
19,114
Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Bubbles In Memoria
https://www.gamewatcher.com/news/20...lefront-ii-forums-devs-forbidden-from-talking

EA Is Reportedly Cracking Down On Battlefront II Forums, Devs Forbidden From Talking
2017-12-21 | 52 comments | By Marcello Perricone

Star Wars Battlefront II had a famously bad launch, what with the lootbox controversy and pay-to-win mechanics stealing all the thunder from what should have been the biggest gaming-related Star Wars event of the year. Electronic Arts quickly apologised for the situation without changing anything, but a stern call from Disney caused the publisher to immediately backtrack and remove the game's microtransactions.

Since then, EA has mostly gone silent -- aside from a couple of unfortunate comments. While originally promising weekly updates, Q&A's, and dev diary communication, the Battlefront II team's presence has instead virtually disappeared from the internet, with the only interaction coming in the way of "we're aware" posts pertaining player-reported problems. Now, it seems EA has gone one step further than radio silence, and it's been actively censoring the community all along.

According to several reports we received, the Electronic Arts Official Battlefront II forums have been under lockdown for the past month. The community seems forbidden from criticising the game or talking about current non-technical issues, and any posts on the subject get either instantly deleted or blocked from being posted. Discussions that have been on-going for a while and steer too close to negative criticism also mysteriously vanish overnight, and perhaps more weirdly, the Battlefront II forum is not even listed on EA's "All forums" page at the time of writing.

The worrisome part is that this sort of thing has purposely been happening for a long time. According to several users who spoke to GameWatcher, EA did a similar crackdown of Battlefront I forums when the DLC controversy started, and that practice in turn originated in the days of Battlefield 3. Unfortunately, that arbitrary ban line is still in effect, as we know of at least one case where the poster -- while not exactly flattering and polite-- was far from vitriolic, either.

With EA enforcing their moderator rights in order to control the narrative, players have taken to Reddit as ways of venting their frustration at both the game and the way EA has been handling feedback. Some users have taken to compiling the now-standard list of game problems, while others have taken the more civil approach and respectfully reached out to developers.

One of the latter claimed to have had success in reaching a member of the team, and the conversation he shared stated that the reason for the lack of communication comes down to policies being enforced upon the team. According to screenshots of a conversation with producer Ali Hassoon, there are policies in place preventing him from talking to fans in either voice or written form like he used to do. The nature of those policies or their source is not disclosed, and I've reached out to Hassoon for comment but did not receive a reply by the time of publishing.

While Battlefront and EA are both no strangers to controversy, this may shed a light in a so-far under the radar attitude which sadly appears to have become common practice by part of the publisher. Enforcing a crack down of their official forums and shunning any voice that does not agree with the company's spin on the product can have dire consequences, especially since the developers encourage players to report to the forums for feedback and have all but withdrew from Reddit and other social media sites. If these claims are true, let's hope the company starts to treat its community more like consumers, and less like enemies.
 

Freddie

Savant
Joined
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Messages
717
Location
Mansion
https://www.gamewatcher.com/news/20...lefront-ii-forums-devs-forbidden-from-talking

EA Is Reportedly Cracking Down On Battlefront II Forums, Devs Forbidden From Talking
2017-12-21 | 52 comments | By Marcello Perricone

Star Wars Battlefront II had a famously bad launch, what with the lootbox controversy and pay-to-win mechanics stealing all the thunder from what should have been the biggest gaming-related Star Wars event of the year. Electronic Arts quickly apologised for the situation without changing anything, but a stern call from Disney caused the publisher to immediately backtrack and remove the game's microtransactions.

Since then, EA has mostly gone silent -- aside from a couple of unfortunate comments. While originally promising weekly updates, Q&A's, and dev diary communication, the Battlefront II team's presence has instead virtually disappeared from the internet, with the only interaction coming in the way of "we're aware" posts pertaining player-reported problems. Now, it seems EA has gone one step further than radio silence, and it's been actively censoring the community all along.

According to several reports we received, the Electronic Arts Official Battlefront II forums have been under lockdown for the past month. The community seems forbidden from criticising the game or talking about current non-technical issues, and any posts on the subject get either instantly deleted or blocked from being posted. Discussions that have been on-going for a while and steer too close to negative criticism also mysteriously vanish overnight, and perhaps more weirdly, the Battlefront II forum is not even listed on EA's "All forums" page at the time of writing.

The worrisome part is that this sort of thing has purposely been happening for a long time. According to several users who spoke to GameWatcher, EA did a similar crackdown of Battlefront I forums when the DLC controversy started, and that practice in turn originated in the days of Battlefield 3. Unfortunately, that arbitrary ban line is still in effect, as we know of at least one case where the poster -- while not exactly flattering and polite-- was far from vitriolic, either.

With EA enforcing their moderator rights in order to control the narrative, players have taken to Reddit as ways of venting their frustration at both the game and the way EA has been handling feedback. Some users have taken to compiling the now-standard list of game problems, while others have taken the more civil approach and respectfully reached out to developers.

One of the latter claimed to have had success in reaching a member of the team, and the conversation he shared stated that the reason for the lack of communication comes down to policies being enforced upon the team. According to screenshots of a conversation with producer Ali Hassoon, there are policies in place preventing him from talking to fans in either voice or written form like he used to do. The nature of those policies or their source is not disclosed, and I've reached out to Hassoon for comment but did not receive a reply by the time of publishing.

While Battlefront and EA are both no strangers to controversy, this may shed a light in a so-far under the radar attitude which sadly appears to have become common practice by part of the publisher. Enforcing a crack down of their official forums and shunning any voice that does not agree with the company's spin on the product can have dire consequences, especially since the developers encourage players to report to the forums for feedback and have all but withdrew from Reddit and other social media sites. If these claims are true, let's hope the company starts to treat its community more like consumers, and less like enemies.
Can't say this surprises me. For what I recall I saw this happening during ME3 controversy but there were hints about things couple of years earlier. Mostly, some devs who posted were obviously unaware that bug fixes they made didn't went to patches. After that devs stopped posting for some reason. I didn't really spent that much time in there, but I guess it was unofficial company policy, that if issues was not discussed, it didn't existed. Brand image and all that, but I digress.

Only information channels that matters are odd websites like one where this article originates and forums like Codex and in this case even Reddit. This crap wouldn't be happening if gaming press would do their job and keep larger amount of people informed. I think it's after all, a small fraction of customers who look deeper into things via forums and stuff.

This sort of things, like ME3 fiasco, which damage control was all about 'Blame the whiny gamers', which bait gaming press took at that time, is however only effective in isolated cases and as evident, that situation isn't contained. So this is something quite telling of what company culture is inside. Explain it away, deny, remain silent and control what is being said, all done. Same as after ME3 but nothing was learned from that.

In long term, this sort of solution is still just walking on eggshells and at some point risks not taken in account tends to become reality, like could be seen from financial disaster of ME: Andromeda and now this fiasco.

While I admit that EA's sports game portfolio is strong, there is also the fact that this company is not managed well. Messing with Disney? What sort of end game scenario regarding that these people have in mind, I ask? For all of this, I can think of few and none of those are beneficial for either gamers or current stock owners.

Which brings me to main point. Target group appeal analysis failed, risk / reward analysis failure, protection of established brands, failure and there doesn't appear to be any sort of evidence that anything is learned, even this time, failure. So pattern is likely to repeat, but still I'm not seeing anything of real world consequence with clear impact. So it's quite clear that control is pretty much an illusion.
 

Cael

Arcane
Joined
Nov 1, 2017
Messages
20,287
https://www.gamewatcher.com/news/20...lefront-ii-forums-devs-forbidden-from-talking

EA Is Reportedly Cracking Down On Battlefront II Forums, Devs Forbidden From Talking
2017-12-21 | 52 comments | By Marcello Perricone

Star Wars Battlefront II had a famously bad launch, what with the lootbox controversy and pay-to-win mechanics stealing all the thunder from what should have been the biggest gaming-related Star Wars event of the year. Electronic Arts quickly apologised for the situation without changing anything, but a stern call from Disney caused the publisher to immediately backtrack and remove the game's microtransactions.

Since then, EA has mostly gone silent -- aside from a couple of unfortunate comments. While originally promising weekly updates, Q&A's, and dev diary communication, the Battlefront II team's presence has instead virtually disappeared from the internet, with the only interaction coming in the way of "we're aware" posts pertaining player-reported problems. Now, it seems EA has gone one step further than radio silence, and it's been actively censoring the community all along.

According to several reports we received, the Electronic Arts Official Battlefront II forums have been under lockdown for the past month. The community seems forbidden from criticising the game or talking about current non-technical issues, and any posts on the subject get either instantly deleted or blocked from being posted. Discussions that have been on-going for a while and steer too close to negative criticism also mysteriously vanish overnight, and perhaps more weirdly, the Battlefront II forum is not even listed on EA's "All forums" page at the time of writing.

The worrisome part is that this sort of thing has purposely been happening for a long time. According to several users who spoke to GameWatcher, EA did a similar crackdown of Battlefront I forums when the DLC controversy started, and that practice in turn originated in the days of Battlefield 3. Unfortunately, that arbitrary ban line is still in effect, as we know of at least one case where the poster -- while not exactly flattering and polite-- was far from vitriolic, either.

With EA enforcing their moderator rights in order to control the narrative, players have taken to Reddit as ways of venting their frustration at both the game and the way EA has been handling feedback. Some users have taken to compiling the now-standard list of game problems, while others have taken the more civil approach and respectfully reached out to developers.

One of the latter claimed to have had success in reaching a member of the team, and the conversation he shared stated that the reason for the lack of communication comes down to policies being enforced upon the team. According to screenshots of a conversation with producer Ali Hassoon, there are policies in place preventing him from talking to fans in either voice or written form like he used to do. The nature of those policies or their source is not disclosed, and I've reached out to Hassoon for comment but did not receive a reply by the time of publishing.

While Battlefront and EA are both no strangers to controversy, this may shed a light in a so-far under the radar attitude which sadly appears to have become common practice by part of the publisher. Enforcing a crack down of their official forums and shunning any voice that does not agree with the company's spin on the product can have dire consequences, especially since the developers encourage players to report to the forums for feedback and have all but withdrew from Reddit and other social media sites. If these claims are true, let's hope the company starts to treat its community more like consumers, and less like enemies.
This happens in ALL games forums. Try to do a smackdown on a Stardock game in the Stardock forums and see what happens. Or any of the app or Flash game sites. It has been happening for at least 20 years at least as far back as the old Utopia (online browser game) game forums.
 

Cael

Arcane
Joined
Nov 1, 2017
Messages
20,287
^ Reason we made this place.

And now people complain that developers don't post here. :lol:
One does. That Stardock guy who is ripping off the Star Control IP with his only-in-name trash. He blocked me pretty darned quick :D:D:D
 

Matalarata

Arcane
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Joined
May 8, 2013
Messages
2,646
Location
The threshold line
That Stardock guy

You mean the C.E.O of Stardock? Brad Wardell? He's a decent guy actually. His account's name, Frogboy, is the same across all forums and socials that I know of. You can argue about ripping off all you want but he has enough balls to post here and take criticism, that's much more than what 99% of developers do. I respect the man. I think he blocked you because of your manners, more than your messages...
Also, Stardock owns the IP but it's still allowing the original devs to develop their game and stated they don't intend to touch the original characters, afaik. That ought to mean something, no?

Not that I want to portrait them as saints and, frankly, I'm not even one that enjoys their games (the only one I bought being Elemental :lol: ) but I think their business methods are legit...
 
Last edited:

Cael

Arcane
Joined
Nov 1, 2017
Messages
20,287
That Stardock guy

You mean the C.E.O of Stardock? Brad Wardell? He's a decent guy actually. His account's name, Frogboy, is the same across all forums and socials that I know of. You can argue about ripping off all you want but he has enough balls to post here and take criticism, that's much more than what 99% of developers do. I respect the man. I think he blocked you because of your manners, more than your messages...
Also, Stardock owns the IP but it's still allowing the original devs to develop their game and stated they don't intend to touch the original characters, afaik. That ought to mean something, no?

Not that I want to portrait them as saints and, frankly, I'm not even one that enjoys their games (the only one I bought being Elemental :lol: ) but I think their business methods are legit...
Nah. He got huffy because I called him out on his passive-aggressive nonsense (after pointing out that his in-name only crap is fraudulent and he went a p-a about that, so in a way, I did start it, I must admit) and he wanted to be able to get in the last barb without consequence. When I pointblank told him he lost me as a customer due to his behaviour, he flipped.

Pity. Galactic Civ 2 has a place in my computer.

The things coming out of the SC saga is painting him to be a not-so-nice guy. I always give people the benefit of the doubt when I first meet them, and I did the same for him, even after his p-a behaviour. The subsequent barbs and innuendos and p-a behaviour in his articles and interviews about the SC saga proved to me that my original estimation of him was correct. Seriously, what kind of asshole says in an interview, "They should have gotten a good lawyer instead of talking on Twitter." of his opponent? That is wrong on so many levels that it is absurd. Arrogant, smarmy, barbed, what the Cantonese calls "has bones" (literally translated), jerkwad behaviour. The guy is a nasty piece of work. Not overtly and in your face, but in a sly, stab you in the back, backhanded sort of way. I certainly wouldn't want him as a friend. If circumstances were different, he would have been another Zuckerberg or Gates.
 

Taka-Haradin puolipeikko

Filthy Kalinite
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Joined
Apr 24, 2015
Messages
19,114
Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Bubbles In Memoria
http://archive.is/Hy8lE

Gamer anger over microtransactions will have consequences for Activision, Electronic Arts: Analyst
  • Cowen reiterates its market perform stock ratings for Activision Blizzard and Electronic Arts, citing increasing game development costs.
  • "This isn't a monopoly business … Angering your customer with bad [microtransactions] does matter," the firm's analyst writes.
The controversy over in-game microtransactions will have a lasting negative impact on game publishers, according to one Wall Street firm.
Cowen reiterated its market perform ratings for Activision Blizzard's and Electronic Arts' shares, citing increasing development costs.
"Game development times are getting longer, and R&D costs are growing faster than they had previously," analyst Doug Creutz wrote in a note to clients Friday. "This isn't a monopoly business … Angering your customer with bad MTX [microtransactions] does matter."
Creutz reaffirmed his $66 price target for Activision Blizzard shares, representing 7 percent downside to Thursday's close. He also reiterated his $104 price target for EA stock, which is 9 percent lower than Thursday's close.
The analyst said research and development spending growth is accelerating for gaming companies. He noted R&D budgets for the four largest publishers grew at roughly a 1 percent annual rate from 2010 to 2015, then rose to more than 8 percent per year the last two years.
Creutz said the outrage over the initial money-making strategy in EA's "Star Wars Battlefront II" likely hurt the title's sales by 3 million to 4 million units versus the company's 14 million guidance. He noted Activision's "Destiny 2" player engagement is waning after the community questioned the game's design decisions.
The "industry plans to further expand live services revenue appear to have run into some roadblocks with gamers sounding off against some recent titles, notably EA's "Star Wars Battlefront II" and Activision's "Destiny 2" (though the issues with the latter go beyond just MTX)," he wrote. "We think writing off angry gamers as largely irrelevant is a mistake."
He added:
"[Star Wars Battlefront II] has pretty clearly significantly underperformed expectations and remains without a live services revenue stream, while Destiny 2 has at the least suffered some unwanted engagement attrition. We suspect that 2018 will see a pullback on industry attempts to aggressively drive MTX growth as a result."
The analyst also warned gaming industry stocks may falter due to high expectations.
"Current valuations are pricing in an awful lot of good news, with an investor base that seems at least somewhat complacent," he wrote. "It's not just that gamers are angry and complaining; there have clearly been performance consequences for the games involved. And in an industry where every company is dependent upon a relatively small number of franchises, this matters."
Electronic Arts and Activision Blizzard did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
 

Infinitron

I post news
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Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
http://www.pcgamer.com/star-wars-ba...g-sales-targets-in-game-sales-returning-soon/

Star Wars: Battlefront 2 isn't hitting sales targets; in-game sales returning soon
EA CFO Blake Jorgensen indicates they'll return in the next few months.

Star Wars: Battlefront 2 publisher Electronic Arts planned to have sold 10 million copies of the sequel during the holiday quarter, but only managed 9 million, according to CFO Blake Jorgensen. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Jorgensen blamed controversy surrounding its loot box system for the missed sales target.

And yet, despite signs that EA and DICE may opt not to reintroduce in-game monetisation, Jorgensen has confirmed that they will indeed return. "We'll do it when we think it's ready," he told WSJ, indicating that they'll come back "in the next few months".

While 9 million units shifted might seem pretty good, the original DICE Battlefront game, released in 2015, had sold 13 million copies during its first quarter on shelves.

EA and DICE announced last week that it would start talking about its new, revamped, Battlefront 2 progression system in March. This will most likely dovetail with the new in-game monetisation scheme being introduced, though it's anyone's guess whether it'll resemble the controversial system which featured at launch.

Whatever the case, you'd have to be a cave dweller to have missed the recent controversy surrounding loot boxes, mostly prompted by Battlefront 2. Most recently, a Washington state senator has taken the cause under his wings.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...sactions-returning-to-star-wars-battlefront-2

What EA is and isn't saying about microtransactions returning to Star Wars Battlefront 2

Last night was financials night for Electronic Arts and a chance for investors to ask about the sticky situation of suspended microtransactions in Star Wars Battlefront 2.

The most pertinent quote came from a Wall Street Journal report. EA's money man, Blake Jorgensen, told the publication monetisation would be reinstated sometime "in the next few months". "We'll do it when we think it's ready," he reportedly said.

A screenshot of the entire, very short, WSJ article was tweeted by WSJ reporter Sarah E. Needleman. The article itself is available only via the subscription-restricted Dow Jones Newswire.

The publication erroneously said Star Wars Battlefront 2 sold 9 million units during the quarter, but EA actually reported closer to 7m sales. EA's head money man Blake Jorgensen said, during the company's earnings call (recording available via EA's investor site, and transcript on Seeking Alpha), "We had expected the sale of about 8 million units [of SWBF2 during Q3] but we fell short of that by less than 1 million units."

EA boss Andrew Wilson, also speaking in the company's earnings call, said Star Wars Battlefront 2 was "definitely a learning opportunity". "We never intended to build an experience that could be seen as unfair or lacking clear progression," he said.

When asked directly about microtransactions returning to Battlefront 2, Wilson said the team was working on how to fit a "digital economy" into the game, and "over the next coming months we'll have more to share on that front".

Juicily, Wilson was also asked what Disney thought about the whole thing, because remember, amid the loot box controversy - headlined by Star Wars Battlefront 2 - were serious allegations of gambling.

"I would choose my words carefully: you shouldn't believe everything you read in the press," Wilson said. "We have a tremendous relationship with Disney. We have built some amazing games together ... and we have been very proactive in that relationship in service of our players. At a point where we [decide] we have the right model for our players and our global community, I have no doubt we will get the support of Disney.

"Again, as we look forward, the big learning is there is no one-size-fits-all [approach] when it comes event-driven live services, but at the very core we must always build on a foundation of player choice. That might be the choice of whether a player engages in a particular mode or not; that might be whether a player decides to grind for something or not. In all things it's around providing a fair playing field where players feel they have choice.

"You should expect we will continue to drive hard against that and ensure, again, we didn't set out ... to build a feature set that could be perceived to be anything other than fair. It's clear we didn't quite get that balance right, but we are doubling down now to ensure we do it."

On the topic of gambling, Jorgensen quickly added: "I'll just add we do not believe loot boxes and similar mechanics are a form of gambling. There are a plenty of governments around the world that have agreed with us on that - and it's not just us, it is the entire industry. We work very carefully and closely with all our industry partners and the ESA, the industry body, to make sure people understand exactly what loot boxes are, exactly why they're not gambling, and we'll continue to engage in that going forward. We think that's important. There's a lot of consumers who would argue the same thing based on their great experience they've had with fun games with associated live services, which some are maybe misconstruing as a loot box or a gambling mechanism."

Vic Hood investigated for Eurogamer whether boxes were gambling, and later interviewed the UK's Gambling Commission about it. And Wesley rounded up the whole loot box saga in an end of year feature.

Their comments suggest EA intends to return paid loot boxes to Star War Battlefront 2. What will be in the loot boxes, however, remains unclear. There's lots of talk of things being "fair", which presumably means not allowing people with money to buy an advantage, but they also talk about giving the option to "grind" or not, which sounds as though some kind of progress will be up for sale.

Whatever happens, EA is taking its time, and that gives me hope for an overhaul. But will Star Wars Battlefront 2's Star Cards, the game's ability system, ever be removed from loot boxes? Will they ever contain only cosmetic items, as in a game like Overwatch? They'll still be random, still be part of the whole gambling discussion, but at least getting ahead in the game - progressing - would no longer be inseparable from them.
 

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