Never forget that at the end of the day the consumers hold the power. Complain loudly enough and you just might get somebody to listen. That is certainly true of Electronic Arts and Star Wars Battlefront II. The executive producer of the game has just announced that the costs to unlock popular characters within the game will be reduced by 75%.
Star Wars Battlefront II was playable on EA Access several days ago and gamers have discovered controversial aspects about the game. One of them is the fact that popular characters such as Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker required hefty payments of in-game currency to unlock. Either one could take as much as 40 hours of game time to unlock and accessing the entire roster could take hundreds of hours.
EA’s response was that they wanted the player to feel a sense of accomplishment when unlocking these characters. The reaction from players was what you might expect. The response from EA quickly became the most downvoted comment in the entire history of Reddit. As of this writing, the comment has over 467,000 downvotes.
The backlash against EA is immense. “[…] we’re reducing the amount of credits needed to unlock the top heroes by 75%. Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader will now be available for 15,000 credits; Emperor Palpatine, Chewbacca, and Leia Organa for 10,000 credits; and Iden at 5,000 credits. Based on what we’ve seen in the trial, this amount will make earning these heroes an achievement, but one that will be accessible for all players,” said John Wasilczyk, Executive Producer of DICE. “we’re reducing the amount of credits needed to unlock the top heroes by 75%. Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader will now be available for 15,000 credits; Emperor Palpatine, Chewbacca, and Leia Organa for 10,000 credits; and Iden at 5,000 credits. Based on what we’ve seen in the trial, this amount will make earning these heroes an achievement, but one that will be accessible for all players.”
Note that this does not fix all of the controversies surrounding Star Wars Battlefront II. The game is still besieged with criticisms about pay-to-win mechanics.
Does this news change your mind about the game? Let us know.
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