The past few weeks have not deterred EA from pursuing the “notion of microtransactions”, although the company’s clearly been humbled by the controversy surrounding Star Wars Battlefront 2 – a scandal which it has described as a “great learning experience”. For those of you who’ve been living under a rock, so strong was the response to the release’s loot boxes that the publisher was forced to remove all in-app purchases from the title prior to release. An unprecedented move.
“For us it's a great learning experience,” said EA CFO Blake Jorgensen at a conference this week. “We are trying to run the company with an ear to the consumer at all times, not only in the testing phase but when the game is up and running. We're trying to build games that last for years, not for months... If we're not making mistakes along the way and learning from them, that's when you should worry about us. But our view is these are great opportunities for us to continue to tune the game.”
We suppose that’s a fair comment, but fans will be less impressed to learn that EA is not “giving up on the notion of microtransactions”. And while he admitted that the organisation hasn’t “decided yet” when they will return to Battlefront 2, it’s clear they are still on the agenda. Many are hoping that the publisher will simply remove the Star Cards progression system, which is at the heart of the title’s problems. But as Jorgensen explained, it’d need to be replaced by another economic model, as the title has no traditional DLC planned.
One solution proposed by fans is that EA could instead offer cosmetic items, similar to those found in titles like Overwatch. “The one thing we're very focused on – and [LucasFilm is] extremely focused on – is not violating the canon of Star Wars,” explained Jorgensen. “It's an amazing brand that's been built over many years. If you did a bunch of cosmetic things, you might start to violate the canon. Darth Vader in white probably doesn't make sense versus in black, not to mention you probably don't want Darth Vader in pink - no offence to pink but I don't think that's right in the canon.”
But what about less obvious cosmetic changes – like perhaps different lightsaber colours? “You may see something like that,” he admitted. Ultimately, all this really tells us is that EA has got its work cut out: it needs to find an appropriate solution to the microtransaction model that pleases LucasFilm, fans, and its own bottom line. It then needs to essentially re-launch the title, and the window of time it has to do all of this effectively is shrinking by the day.
Good luck!
[source investor.ea.com, via eurogamer.net]
Comments 54
EA doesn't want to "violate the canon" as characters from across the Star Wars timeline sprint around maps at the speed of light before flailing wildly at each other.
They really know how to suck the fun out of games.
The whole not messing with the cannon stuff was thrown off the window with the star wars galactic dance off game for the kinect.
"We are trying to run the company with an ear to the consumer at all times.." LOL
"But as Jorgensen explained, it’d need to be replaced by another economic model, as the title has no traditional DLC planned."
Here's a radical solution EA - why don't you just simply make a great game?? Make a great game and sales will come flooding in, no need to screw over gamers. Trouble is, EA is rotten to the core.
@JaxxDuffer apparently when visceral showed the soulless demon spawn- sorry, execs- their progress on the now cancelled star wars game they had, the first thing that was said was "FIFA ultimate team made 800 million last year, where's your version of that?".
EA top brass are scum, and I hope that this hurts them big time. Andrew Wilson in particular is probably the biggest peanut in the turd in this case. He has to go, and EA need to either change or die.
If you're not in this to make quality product, then you don't deserve the license to balls it up.
wouldnt be quite so bad if Battlefront was a good game at the moment its just a laggy mess
I'm sure Disney is really happy about legislators across the world calling this game a "casino" and considering laws to protect consumers from its excesses. Great look for one of its brands.
"You don't want Darth Vader in pink"
Ok, now he's just trying to anger people. He might as well have said -
"We don't want girls playing our games, our games are meant for boys." smh Maybe he can get Matt Lauer a job?
Just remembered I haven't seen any women working here in awhile, or posting on here, so that comment is sure to go over well. ducks and hides
An ear to the consumer? And a middle finger to the consumer too?
They can do cosmetic if they want. Dagobah Luke, Hoth Luke, Tatooine Luke, you get the idea. Those were all canon so that's BS too.
We're trying to build games that last for years, not for months... If we're not making mistakes along the way and learning from them, that's when you should worry about us.
Obviously havent learnt that we dont want to play the same game for years. We arent the same demographic as the candy crush crowd.
What a bunch of crap " if we are not making mistakes and learning from them then you should be worried " oh OK but this statement's true intention is revealed when you consider that the "mistake" this dumb is talking about is purely for the sake of luck based limitless monetization and means that they simply got caught about how blatant and hamfisted they were about it.
How about a no helmet Vader! An Anakin Vader! Just be creative and also watch the movies again, you can do lot's of cosmetics from a universe that big...
@themcnoisy precisely as gamers we like to play games as and when we want, we might revisit games or perhaps we might just play them once and that's it but we don't want to play the same game for years on end
You know a company is extremely predatory when the idea of making a game that doesn't rely on micro-transactions crosses their minds and they have no idea how that could ever be possible.
@ShogunRok That was my first thought, too. One round of Heroes Vs. Villains is enough to settle that argument (despite being a huge prequel fan, I actually respect the first EA Battlefront for keeping it within the same timeframe... sure, Leia clobbering Vader upside the helmet in Mos Eisley was odd, but it wasn't surreal in the context of the franchise).
@Johnnycide Good recall of that article; that quote plays on my mind quite a lot whenever I'm thinking / reading about this situation. There was also the wonderful "But when do you get to play as Chewbacca?" which is why we have those bizarre, contrived levels in the Campaign where you're suddenly playing twenty minutes of whack-a-bug with Luke. Executives with focus-testing spreadsheets should never, EVER be in the creative room.
if EA was less worried about filling their already overstuffed bank accounts and more about the kind of things games actually wanted, things like DLC wouldn't be an issue or even micro transactions for that matter
they don't have to be in EVERY game you do you know
Here is the core issue. If you want to maximise revenue from micro transactions you need to force the player to want them. You can only really do that with unbalancing the game in favour of those that purchase. That is the service model. It cannot be got around.
Now when people go on about cosmetic items, that's great but they only bring in revenue if the game is very popular and gets a good community (e.g. Overwatch, Rocket League). They aren't a guaranteed revenue stream that BF2's microtransactions would be.
That is the simple fact here and it is largely incompatible with what core gamers, like us, want. Why BF2 got singled out is that this one went further then any game before to force players to spend money on top of their $60. They'll scale them back, repackage it and release it in the next Fifa.
..they'd rather violate the customer than the canon... HAVING SAID THAT... a) having played it now for a good while... yes I've noticed it's laggy... b) it's shocking how few people are online - I couldn't start a heroes vs villains game several times (it only needs 8 people and there's only 5 online modes) c) levelling up classes requires cards that you could have purchased with real money (I didn't quite get that until recently) - so it was SO pay to win it hurt... IN ANY CASE, $3billion off their shares or whatever it was surely is a lesson learned - don't mess with gamers! It's still super fun though... just the worst progression system I've ever witnessed (in the history of man / woman / child / animal)
@themcnoisy We don't but the average person who buys 2-3 games a year? That is who EA targets - it is their core audience.
caution contains bad language but pretty much covers this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJNbXmIXUOo
If they were listening to consumers, this would've had a reasonably priced season pass with meaningful DLC for both story and multiplayer. People hate season passes, but not when they have something meaningful to tell or play.
EA has their "ear to the consumer at all times" so they could find ways to loophole crowds into a sales funnel. That's why they need big names like NBA/NFL/FIFA/Disney completely controlling their development slate while Mass Effect and everything else slowly withers away.
@themcnoisy exactly!!! most of us don't play the same game constantly for years and I wouldn't mind but they give us so little content compared with other games in the first place.
If I buy a single player game I want it all available to me now, not releasing in parts so I'm playing over and over for some time. Take Skyrim the game is huge and its all there, then they make some extra bits called dlc and if you want you can buy them but they're extra and not part of the gane that's cut out.
The problem is EA trying to amalgamte all types of gamers and it simply doesn't work, why not just go back to the dlc model? I don't buy this nonsense of splitting the community, those that won't buy the dlc aren't going to buy micro transactions and stick around for years anyway. EA basically want a group of people playing the same football game over and over, while others shoot each other in Star Wars and the rest drive aimlessly in another online Need for Speed and that sounds like my idea of hell.
So no thanks EA I'll be taking my business elsewhere and the irony is most of the games I play for years have no dlc, no microtransactions, no grinding, aren't very big, are complete games that are focused and were never designed to be played for years in the first place
@rjejr That comment peeved me a little too. I always thought it was counter-intuitive for filmography to continue making white "good" and black "bad."
@carlos82 Im beginning to believe games publishers are listening to the wrong people and getting bad advice. I totally understand the success of microtransactions on mobile is making publishers sit up and look at them, but that was all new 5-6 years ago to a demographic of gamer who arent used to playing games. My wifes one of them and to this day plays candy crush. And thats it!
Why do games companies want to accomodate her? Shes a filthy casual who would never play star wars or destiny. Grrrr.
EA want to sell $60 AAA games with free to play in-game economics (MTX), yeah good luck with that.
If they did cosmetic changes, they wouldn't need to do them for the heroes, just so you could customize the regular troopers and starfighters.
It's the only way EA can save any tiny piece of face in this whole embarassment (the shame being the game itself is actually a bit of a laugh).
Just had a thought whilst chatting to a friend about this...
Why do cosmetic additions to Star Wars characters ultimately have to mean breaking canon? There have been multiple versions of each major character over the franchise's history (even Vader had red eyes in A New Hope and Rogue One). EA themselves have proven this, because Rey and Kylo Ren have two different skins in Battlefront II, and there's a bearded Han Solo available for anybody willing to grind the Arcade mode.
Darth Maul could have his cybernetic legs. Luke could switch between his white karate outfit, his smart Bespin look and his current emo Jedi bodysuit. Obi-Wan (when he finally arrives) could look like Ewan McGregor and Alec Guinness depending on what skin you pick. Boba Fett could become Jango Fett and none of the dialogue would need changing.
In other words, the "pink Vader" comment is yet more corporate nonsense that shows EA either lack the imagination required to make this work, or simply can't be bothered (I'm leaning towards the latter, personally)... and yet, it's also a wonderfully silly soundbite that they were probably hoping would deflect attention away from the real issue.
You know what would make them a shedload of money? An epic, story-driven, single-player game set in the Star Wars universe. Why don't they... oh... wait...
@Grabthar exactly. Injustice 2 does this very, very well. The Flash can be completely re-skinned to be Reverse Flash (complete with hisnown dialogue) Captain Cold can be reskinned to become Mister Freeze, etc etc. EA execs are thick.
@Savino I think you can buy those on certain websites.
Oops, sorry I thought you typed 'pink invader', my bad.
@Rudy_Manchego FIFA, BF, COD or something i that region? Wow no wonder i own almost no EA games 2 this generation.
@BowTiesAreCool I would like them to put trophies with the new DLC though like overwatch.
@ShogunRok
Remember in the Clone Wars cartoon when Rey and Anakin with Clone Troopers fought Darth Vader and Boba Fett in Theed and kept dieing then respawning for 10 mins?
I'd rather pay for a Pink Vader than have the game pay to win but maybe that's just me.
@Grabthar
The pink Vader is a straw man argument trying to deflect attention, it's the conjour up a fantasy silly counter argument nobody has made to justify initial crap behaviour /argument to make it seem reasonable.
@themcnoisy haha my mrs is exactly the same and she has this annoying habit of playing for a couple of hours or so then moans that I'm playing my games too much! When I point it the hypocrisy she says it's not a computer game, so even mobile gamers don't think they're real games 😃. Also she's never spent a penny on it and I think the last console game she's played is Smurfs on the Colecovision, so good luck them getting her money.
@Bingoboyop Watch the language please.
@1ManAndHisDroid ".they'd rather violate the customer than the canon... "
XD XD
jorgensen's as big a part of the problem as andrew wilson.
visceral got shuttered because:
"As we kept reviewing the game, it continued to look like a much more linear game [which] people don’t like as much today as they did five years ago or ten years ago," said Jorgensen.
"For us, trying to move the business to more live services, grow our subscription part of the business, is trying to build a much more steady business. I'm very comfortable with a steady growth rate, and with digital that continues to become a bigger part of our business and continues to expand the profitability of the business."
translation.. we didn't like it because there was no monetisation potential to continue to fleece consumers for valueless content.
uncharted 4's a linear game and sold 9-10m on a single platform. 3 platforms + uncharted director + star wars brand ?? if EA thought they couldn't make money from that, disney should licence the SW brand to a publisher who wont run it into the ground.
@Tasuki Oops sorry man I'll edit it.
@RPE83 Exactly, best part of the show.
@Bliquid
Pink Vader would be fun.
"Luke, I am your mother"
^^ this is not the vader you're looking for.
Why would anyone want to play the same game for years on end?
Remember in the canon when you paid 20K credits and then became darth vader? No? Must be part of the expanded universe.
@Boxmonkey This is the dream (most) of the publishers are chasing now. They no longer want to sell you a $60 game and a few expansions; instead they want you playing a couple of hours every day for a couple of years.
The theory is, the more you stay in their "world", the more money you'll throw at it.
"We're trying to build games that last for years, not for months"
Remembers all the times playing Mario Kart, Smash, Super Mario, and Zelda games and going back to them even years later: yeah, no I don't think you are doing this right EA...
Would it be worth it to ask for this for Christmas?
What a nice picture of Andrew Wilson you guys found!
@optic_efun11 Probably just rent it? The single player story is very short, and the multi-player is really laggy, buggy, and the progression is really slow.
It was a big disappointment for me even for $4 rental... It's probably better to see for yourself if you're going to like it though, yeah?
Why do the cosmetics needs to be on the hero characters? Why can't they just sell cosmetics for the player characters? The Darth Vader in pink excuse just seems very flimsy.
@solcross - you mean like the first game had without having to pay for it? and which is apparently already in BF2 but not accessible to the player (yet) - https://youtu.be/8vj5emIAyk8 — this'll go down well, i'm sure. just when you think EA can't dig the hole any deeper they keep finding a bigger shovel..
@Constable_What I'll probably do that. I enjoyed the beta but with everything going on I'm just not quite sure if it's worth it.
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