Star Wars Battlefront II has a big loot box problem right now

EA says it is looking at the average per-player credit earnings, and that the team will “be making constant adjustments to ensure that players have challenges that are compelling, rewarding, and of course attainable via gameplay.”

EA says the current earn-rate for credits is based on data pulled in during Battlefront II‘s open beta. That suggests to me that either the beta’s earnings were way out of whack, or that EA wanted badly to push players toward dropping a few real dollars to earn some more space bux and hoped we wouldn’t notice.

As Kotaku notes, the biggest problem here is how iconic each of the series’ big characters are. For a game with its own lore, not being able to unlock every character might not be perfect, but it won’t be a problem for most players. Most players are going to unlock the characters they like best and leave the others without a thought. With these beloved characters, it feels like our love for the Star Wars series is being held hostage.

Battlefront has a complicated history both among fans and just with Electronic Arts and developer dice. The original series on Xbox and PlayStation 2 was a beloved series, and the third entry was canned mid-stream. EA revived the name once it acquired the Star Wars video game license, melding the idea of Battlefront with its own Battlefield formula. The original game was lauded for its fidelity, but fans were unhappy with the lack of a campaign, lack of multiplayer depth, and the high cost of new DLC, which fragmented the audience further with each new release.

Battlefront II seemed to be addressing concerns right from its unveiling. At the center of the game is a big campaign written by well-liked writers and starring a character fans have latched onto pretty quickly. EA promised, too, that all future content would be free of charge.

The compromise to that is these loot boxes, which gives EA a way to collect money from players after release and delay gratification long enough to keep stringing people along, rather than letting players have everything at once.

If EA is good about listening to the community and pricing things at attainable rates, then there might be a fun game in there yet, but right now it seems like EA is putting potential profits ahead of getting people simply playing in the first place.

We’ll find out more when Star Wars Battlefront II hits shelves on November 17, 2017.

Article source: https://www.technobuffalo.com/2017/11/13/star-wars-battlefront-2-loot-box-problem/