EA has caved, again, over the lockbox situation in SW:BF2. This time by removing the entire cash shop. Non-sheep rejoice, we won! Sheep people, enjoy your improved game despite your complicit sheep actions.
Of course even in their ‘we are trying to do the right thing’ announcement, EA couldn’t help themselves and said the cash shop would be back later, in some form.
The ultra-cynical (read: correct) take on this is that EA wants to grab the money from pre-orders and initial sales again, avoid lower review scores because of the previous garbage cash shop progression system, and will just bring basically the same pay-4-power lootbox cash shop back once the dust has settled and it’s too late for refunds.
The optimistic (read: very likely wrong) view is that after review, the cash shop will come back as a fluff-only shop, and any power progression will remain in-game only, as is the case in ‘good’ cash shop games.
The smart thing to do here is take a ‘wait and see’ approach with the game. Don’t buy it, and if/when the cash shop is back and doesn’t sell power, jump in. The obvious problem is not only did a ton of sheep not cancel pre-orders, but more are likely to get duped by EA here and buy the game thinking it’s not going to revert into garbage once their money is firmly in EA’s pockets.
This entire fiasco has been interesting to watch, especially because it drew a clear line between words and actions for some people. Saying you don’t like lootboxes or pay-4-power games rings very hollow when once a game with your flavor of lightsaber comes up, you dive right in regardless of how many systems you supposedly don’t support it contains, because ‘hey its fun’.
The ultra-extreme but still accurate example of this is saying you are against rape, but then at a party when you spot a ‘fun’ girl, you rape her anyway, because while you are generally against rape, this particular case you choose fun over the values you claim to have. Retaining your SW:BF2 pre-order when it was clear the cash shop was selling power lootboxes was raping gamers that don’t want that junk in our games. At least for now, in this situation, enough people said “Regardless of how fun that girl looks, lets not rape her”. And knowing EA, the ‘eh, rape her’ option is coming back. Don’t support that, even if it means missing out on this particular a fun time.
Hardcore Casual 
There is still one difference in nature between rape and loot box – not taking into account the ibvious exageration – the loot box is not bad by itself whereas the rape is. The loot box have often bad consequences but in principle we can imagine a non damaging one. There is no rape without bad consequence.
Little bit like driving fast and drunk vs killing someone.
Which is why I didn’t say that all lootboxes or cash shops = rape. It was specific to SW:BF2, because in that game the whole power lootbox system IS the gaming equivalent to rape, as it’s the worst and most harmful implementation of the system.
I’m perfectly fine with 100% fluff cash shops in some cases (LoL being the best example). I’m also fine with lootboxes (PUBG), when again its fluff and the game isn’t designed around or harmed by their inclusion. Developers can and have used both systems well to benefit themselves AND gamers. SW:BF2 isn’t an example of that however.
Excellent analogy but you really need to throw in Nazi and/or Hitler references. That makes all analogies totally level-headed and fair.
You didn’t know? EA finally passed Hitler/the Nazis with BF2, Godwin’s Law now refers to comparing someone to EA in an internet argument.
Someone else shares your theory. A Producer at a ‘AAA’ studio.
https://np.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/comments/7dhacr/eastarwars_on_twitter/dpxsirl/?context=3
They should receive shitstorms periodically, like one massive shitstorm every week until they get shy to start new projects. Electronic Arts is one cancer cell of many in the gaming industry. This industry is so infested by greed, they just can’t get their mouth full. It might sound harsh, but only bankruptcy of the large mainstream publishers would get us back to clean and real games where developers are allowed to be creatives instead of profit maximizers. But this is wishful thinking.
This time the gaming community showed unity and courage but soon enough the whole issue will be forgotten since the sheep will just accept to be pushed to the slaughtering block. Most people can’t even grasp anymore what a game is, all they see are pixels, they simply can’t grasp how much worse games became over time because modern games are more beautiful dressed.
I have absolutely zero hope that we can change something. The mass needs to boycott the games, that’s the only way to win this war. But even if I have zero hope that there will be a change, I absolutey feel Schadenfreude when large publishers are at the receiving end of a shitstorm. I totally enjoy it when they get into trouble with the gaming community. It’s pure entertainment.
Were the lootboxes in the COD:WWII game just as bad? I haven’t been following that game closely but it doesn’t seem to have generated the level of uproar that the assholes at EA/Dice have created.
Gonna guess the call from Disney probably helped the initial suspension along too, but yeah I’m sure it’ll be back soon enough as is once Last Jedi has come and gone.
Seems now even investors aren’t too happy with EA on all of this either: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/17/wall-street-is-freaking-out-as-ea-caves-again-to-social-media-outrage-over-its-star-wars-game.html
Even though this takes the game off the immediate “pay-to-win bullshit” list (and I agree it’s temporary and absolutely coming back in the same form it existed, so nobody should act like it’s fine now), it should have and should still be on everyone’s don’t buy list because it’s an EA game.
And don’t buy Hugo Boss because they dressed the Nazis.