Following the extensive amounts of backlash EA was getting, the company has announced that they have removed the use of micro-transactions from Star Wars Battlefront II.
The game, which launched on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One today, was being heavily criticized amongst fans for forcing users to pay extra money (or complete unnecessarily long challenges) to unlock certain characters to play as like Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker.
The micro-transactions have now been revoked, in an unprecedented move from EA, apologizing for creating a pay-to-play like environment.
“As we approach the worldwide launch,” DICE General Manager said in a statement via USA Today, “it’s clear that many of you feel there are still challenges in the design. We’ve heard the concerns about potentially giving players unfair advantages. And we’ve heard that this is overshadowing an otherwise great game. This was never our intention. Sorry we didn’t get this right.”
He went on: “We heard you loud and clear, so we’re turning off all in-game purchases. We will now spend more time listening, adjusting, balancing and tuning. This means that the option to purchase crystals in the game is now offline, and all progression will be earned through gameplay. The ability to purchase crystals in-game will become available at a later date, only after we’ve made changes to the game. We’ll share more details as we work through this.”
While this is technically a victory for the fans, most still aren’t happy about the whole situation. The backlash originated from a Reddit thread called “Seriously? I paid 80$ to have Vader locked?,” followed by many more complaints on Twitter:
Following the thread, EA originally announced they would lower the cost by 75 percent. Fans still weren’t satisfied, however, hence the reason the payment has now been withdrawn.
Forbes is speculating that Disney also has something to do with the price removal. They reported that EA CEO Andrew Wilson took a call from Disney CEO Bob Iger at some point yesterday, likely discussing action that needed to be taken for the game. Disney, they say, won’t license out their property just for cash, they demand a certain amount of quality and fan satisfaction which EA wasn’t delivering on the Star Wars Battlefront II launch.
The game is now available for purchase, should you so chose to. Or, do what we’re going to do, and play the classic PS2 version of Battlefront II instead.