The fallout from the Star Wars Battlefront II loot box fiasco has had a big impact within EA, according to the company’s new Chief Designer Officer, Patrick Söderlund. “I’d be lying to you if I said that what’s happened with Battlefront and what’s happened with everything surrounding loot boxes and these things haven’t had an effect on EA as a company and an effect on us as management,” he told The Verge.
Patrick went on to explain the reasons for the Battlefront microtransactions, admitting “we got it wrong, and as a result, we had to take very quick and drastic actions,” but took steps to assure gamers that they won’t be repeating their mistakes.
“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,” said Patrick. “For games that come next, for Battlefield or for Anthem, [players have] made it very clear that we can’t afford to make similar mistakes. And we won’t.”
Anthem was recently delayed until early 2019, although EA’s Blake Jorgensen was very clear “It’s not a delay,” despite the game being originally announced with a release date this year. Microtransactions are set to return to Star Wars Battlefront II on April 18th but will only be for cosmetic items.
Source: The Verge
Lieutenant Fatman
Nice to see the gaming community put their foot down and said no to loot boxes and EA were forced to listen. These are just words though, we’ll see what EA actually do when their next games release.
Tuffcub
Well it hurt the sales of the game and forced them to remove microtransaction for a long time, and if there’s one thing they are interested in it’s money, so this has had a significant impact including a restructuring of EA management.