vbetts:

The big issue is EA has micro transactions to where you actually pay to win in a game that minimum costs $59.99. Games like Halo 5 have micro transactions, but they also give no advantage in MP. Just cosmetic effects. I think if they did it to where you grind in game only instead to get advantages, it would be different. Black Ops 3 suffered the same issue big time, which is why player base kind of dwindled down.

The biggest problem is with starfighters, there you literally get SIGNIFICANT stats advantage from the epic starcards, it's pay to win by the book. Not to mention that newbies who still need to learn to fly have an even harder time because of it. With the trooper/heroes starcards it's not that bad, I mean they still get an advantage, but it's manageable.

Buy the game or do not, nobody is forced to make ingame purchases. Why do punters continue to expect game producers to act like a charity, i charge my clients for absolutely everything "Can we have this or do this?" "Yes you can but im billing you for it".

Why do punters have an issue with a multi million dollar company such as EA nickel and diming fun game play and balanced game design in a game that costs $60 and has the Star Wars IP attached to it... well f*ck me I can't possibly work that one out. Oh and I loved this quote 'The micro transactions scare easily, but they'll be back and in greater numbers!'

fOrTy_7:

I hope EU commision will kick their a$$es for that. 😀 Gambling law violation - oh yes it is 😉

Or, EA bribes the EC members to push for legalisation of online gambling, effectively overruling Dutch National law.

pegasus1:

Buy the game or do not, nobody is forced to make ingame purchases. Why do punters continue to expect game producers to act like a charity, i charge my clients for absolutely everything "Can we have this or do this?" "Yes you can but im billing you for it".

When it gives people who are willing to invest real money a significant advantage over those that aren't, it is a serious problem, not to mention the fact that it is gambling and gambling in all it's other forms is legislated and controlled. Your analogy has no bearing on this discussion either because it is common practice to charge customers for the goods and services that they request from you. Nobody wants this 'loot crate' bollocks, that is why there was such a backlash. The punters already laid out their money to play BF II, why should they have to lay out even more to 'unlock' stuff that ships with the game that they already bought? Nobody forces you to buy loot crates, that is true, but nobody wants this crap in the first place and since it preys directly on those with low impulse control and more importantly children, if it is going to exist at all, it absolutely must be subject to legislation. Finally, as others have said, one of these clown companies was bound to 'kill the goose'. If they had just stuck to cosmetic items, I doubt anyone would have batted an eyelid but because of this incident, this garbage practice is going to be investigated and no doubt reigned in.

This is the deal.. We all know gaming is just big business now. We pay $59.99 for games now, but these companies really want us to pay $100 +. How are these exec's supposed to fund their golden parachutes.. The only way to really combat this BS, is.. Tell Nvidia and AMD your not buying anymore stuff from them until these game companies stop their BS business practices. I know this is a stretch, but that would immediately prompt Nvidia and AMD to put pressure on these corrupt game companies to stop their BS.. I'm sure a savvy lawyer could come up with a class action lawsuit to go after them also. A 5 hour campaign for $59.. Really? Maybe these companies should take a look at what Gearbox did with Borderlands. A game well worth its price!

ps3/xbox360 era lead to digital content and "addon" that where paided extra that would hidden secrerts other wise and that lead to "expansion" that digital only cause I dont remeber the last time physical copies of "expansion" where sold, this lead cash shops in game and that lead to loot/crates with in game we payed 60$ for and the loot/crates are setup in way that they are gambling. very few states allow online gambling last i check same for countries. which exactly what this game publishers are trying to pull now with cash shops with loot/crates with chance to win . If i payed 60$ for game i dont want to see cash shop or crate bs in them, it sorta kinda makes sense for mmo too point even then most use in such way it becomes pay to win. but I refuse to be nickled and dimmed for game i payed 60$ in first place., there is reason why i no long buy game in when first come out, I now for most part dont even buy them till there "version" of it with all it stuff included. Nioh was only exception to that rule of mine that i have had for last 10 years. and now that there is pc version of with all of stuff included for less then payed for ps4 game i thought would stay exclusive i aggravated by that. EA has been milking starwars while and what they done to swtor after it went f2p is perfect example of that.

Brasky:

That's not the issue. Let's say your an architect and you design a house for someone, then you deliberately hold back the dining room until the person who hired you "unlocks" it by paying an extra 25%.

great layman's terms analogy Brasky^.....love it!....:p I payed $100 for the jet ski add-on.... http://cdn.playbuzz.com/cdn/9bd9090f-1f45-4303-890a-f0504de491ed/f083edae-69ac-4e3b-8573-69122a48110f.gif :D

Oh dear , pay to win is a no go in my book 😏. This situation has gone viral and is all over the news even on cnn giving EA and Disney a very bad name: http://money.cnn.com/2017/11/16/technology/battlefront-ii-star-wars-game-ea-costs/index.html

pegasus1:

Buy the game or do not, nobody is forced to make ingame purchases. Why do punters continue to expect game producers to act like a charity, i charge my clients for absolutely everything "Can we have this or do this?" "Yes you can but im billing you for it".

I played 1000+ hours in Mass Effect 3, most of the time i played silver matches, yet i didnt have any problems to get everything in the game, because the rewards were bigger, weekend challenges where you got the ultrarare weapons (yeah crazy something rare for free). Now in Andromeda, rewards are smaller, you get some challenge every few months, and the inventory is diluted with absurd amounth of weapon variations, and the weapons itself feel like peashooters. So sure, nobody is forcing you to buy anything (even the game itself), but they sure are steer you in to that on every single ocasion with tweaking the game to be a freaking grindfest. And sorry, but paying money, to skip THE ACTUAL GAMEPLAY is incomprehensible stupid to me.

It's pretty much written in stone that EA will bring it back for SWBF3 in 2019.

Prince Valiant:

Vain attempt to avoid the gambling investigation? I hope they get slammed and it sets precedent to force loot box garbage out of all games. Stunning revelation every time 🙄. No one is forced to do anything but it's always designed to encourage purchases and kids are involved. Trying to funnel children into gambling to squeeze out a few more pennies is disgusting.

Then all cosmetics go behind a paywall and you can no longer unlock free lootboxes by playing... don't think that's cool either. Now i don't give a rats ass about BF2. I'm mainly concerned for Heroes of the Storm, as it has a flawless lootbox system.

TheDeeGee:

Then all cosmetics go behind a paywall and you can no longer unlock free lootboxes by playing... don't think that's cool either.

I'd rather have no loot boxes. They're shit. At the end of the day, wtf is a loot box? Only three of the games I ever played have loot boxes. Three. And I probably played a couple hundred games in my life. They don't have loot boxes, and they are perfectly fine. Remember the loot boxes in Half Life, Quake, Final Fantasy, Halo, Dark Souls, Witcher 3, etc? No? Exactly.

Why would achievements need to go behind a paywall in the first place if it is a full price game where you unlock things by playing the game? "lootboxes" just doesn't make sense to me. It's only this year that I even learned about the term "lootbox".....

Sad, hope EA wake up. Pay to win in any form, especially loot boxes is game breaking. Also those crystals should either never come back or back when the game is several years old.

I had a long rant typed up about EA/DICE, but I decided it best to simply say; I hope idiots finally realize where the entire gaming community is headed if we don't stop supporting these trash companies taking advantage of it's play base. Seriously to hell with EA, they have been trash for a long time. They want your money without providing quality goods in return.

TheDeeGee:

Then all cosmetics go behind a paywall and you can no longer unlock free lootboxes by playing... don't think that's cool either. Now i don't give a rats ass about BF2. I'm mainly concerned for Heroes of the Storm, as it has a flawless lootbox system.

This post sums up my thoughts nicely:

RealNC:

I'd rather have no loot boxes. They're crap. At the end of the day, wtf is a loot box? Only three of the games I ever played have loot boxes. Three. And I probably played a couple hundred games in my life. They don't have loot boxes, and they are perfectly fine. Remember the loot boxes in Half Life, Quake, Final Fantasy, Halo, Dark Souls, Witcher 3, etc? No? Exactly.

Agreed. A good game will stand up fine on good game design alone.

Sadly, I suspect this is only temporary and more than likely because Disney did not want the negative press so close to the launch of EP8. I hope that it is reintroduced as 'cosmetic items' only but I doubt it somehow.

Do you think we could get EA to drop DICE and then get DICE to finally finish their Desert Combat mod for Battlefield 1942? They left it in an unfinished beta state so they could go off and get rich. In fact, let's all pledge not to buy any DICE games until they finish it!