EA is not having a good time right now. The Star Wars Battlefront 2 controversy continues to grow bigger, as players are finally speaking out against abusive and egregious microtransactions and monetization, and EA’s half hearted attempts at PR damage control and putting out the fire only seem to be making things worse right now.
It seems like other developers are in the mood to get in on calling EA out right now, too. Take Gaijin Entertainment- the makers of War Thunder posted an image on their Facebook page saying ‘the feel of pride and accomplishment when you can play the bad guys for free’, superimposed over an antagonist from the game, and making fun of EA’s excuse for the ridiculous paywalling characters like Darth Vader had in the game.
Blizzard decided to take a few jabs at EA with some tweets too, comparing the monetization of Starcraft 2 (which recently went free to play) with that of Battlefront 2– although this one rings a bit hollow, since Blizzard is in large part responsible for the popularization of lootboxes in AAA games to begin with (and are known for some of the most insidious monetization schemes).
Still, it’s good to see so much noise and volume around this issue- now if only this would actually have some tangible effect on how loot boxes are done going forward…
