Source: https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/13/17230874/ea-star-wars-battlefront-2-loot-box-patrick-soderlund-interview Electronic Arts has promised to learn lessons and not repeat mistakes after the Star Wars Battlefront II fiasco. If that sounds familiar, it’s because EA promises this after EVERY fiasco.
In 2017, the “AAA” game industry went all-in on loot boxes – microtransactions that emulate gambling to maximize ill-gotten gains. In 2018, new games aren’t using them and old games are scrubbing them. Are they done in the mainstream business, or are companies just biding their time?
Everybody loves lists, especially people who say they don’t. The Jimquisition this week roots through history’s garbage to find the ten worst types of DLC in videogame history. At least until we think of ten more, then we can do another list. Lists are great!
Let’s talk about collector’s editions, specifically the ones that aren’t really collector’s editions. You shouldn’t be able to call a box of garbage an “edition” of anything, but welcome to the game industry, where Bethesda, EA, and Microsoft have been doing just that.
EA DICE has announced that paid loot boxes are being relegated to in-game rewards while more traditional microtransactions replace them. This is in spite of EA claiming they couldn’t do it this way because of Star Wars canon.
Source article: https://www.polygon.com/2018/2/27/17057978/esrb-loot-crate-box-in-game-purchases-label The ESRB, paying lip service to the controversy surrounding loot boxes, is going to apply an incredibly broad “in-game purchases” label to games that offer additional content for cash. So… that’ll be most of them, right?
Once again the “AAA” industry thinks it has a golden goose, and once again it’s primed to bang that goose until the eggs come out filled with nothing but decaying spunk.
On Monday morning I said publishers were going to embrace “live services” as their new flavor in 2018. That afternoon, Ubisoft told its investors how “live services” are their new flavor in 2018. In fact, they seem disinterested in games entirely… at least as we know them. Like clockwork, folks….
There is a constant problem plaguing the game industry, if its spokespeople are to be believed. Games cost $60, and that price doesn’t work anymore! Weirdly enough, The Jimquisition agrees with this assessment. “AAA” games should indeed not cost $60 anymore, and they most certainly have outgrown it.
In Sweden, loot boxes are starting to get mainstream – and political – attention. Will it lead anywhere? Who knows? Anything that keeps the pressure on the publishers, however, is good news.
Games cost a lot of money to make. You need to pay developers, you need to license engines, you need do a lot. Extra Credits pointed out all of these costs in a recent video, and I’m certainly not going the claim the expenses aren’t expensive. But is it just…
[UPDATE: Apparently the originally reported figures were incorrect. Battlefront II supposedly shipped 7 million, not 9 million, which is still a fuckton and obviously even more sad for poor Electronic Arts. Haha.] Electronic Arts expected Star Wars Battlefront II to have shipped ten million copies by now, and fell short…
