EA Admits Star Wars Battlefront 2 ‘Got It Wrong’ And Vows To ‘Be Better’
Patrick Söderlund, Chief Design Officer, explained in an interview that EA had made some mistakes with Star Wars Battlefront 2’s microtransactions.
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Patrick Söderlund, Chief Design Officer for EA, explained in an interview on April 13th that EA has recognized that, “we made some mistakes,” in regards to the release of Star Wars Battlefront II in November of 2017.
As fans prepared for the release of of the game in late 2017, and various aspects of the game were released, consumers became more and more concerned with the state of micro-transactions. Many players saw the game in its current state as encouraging the spending of real money in order to progress in the game, which caused a significant amount of controversy prior to the release date. This controversy caused EA to pull the micro-transactions out of the game at the eleventh hour. More recently, EA has announced some broader changes to Battlefront II and are reintroducing some of the elements that were removed in November.
In the interview with The Verge, Söderlund, went on to explain that, “I’d be lying to you if I said that what’s happened with Battlefront and what’s happened with everything surrounding loot boxes and these things haven’t had an effect on EA as a company and an effect on us as management. We can shy away from it and pretend like it didn’t happen, or we can act responsibly and realize that we made some mistakes, and try to rectify those mistakes and learn from them.”
With EA launching some large titles like Bioware’s Anthem or Dice’s Battlefield, Söderlund is aware of the precarious position that EA finds itself in in the current moment.
He says, “We have taken significant steps as a company to review and understand the mechanics around monetization, loot boxes, and other things in our games before they go to market. For games that come next, for Battlefield or for Anthem, [players have] made it very clear that we can’t afford to make similar mistakes. And we won’t.”
Söderlund also seems to recognize the public perception of EA, especially after this Battlefront II controversy, saying that, “It’s clear to us that players see the company differently than we do,”
Positively, Söderlund also seems dedicated to helping change that perception for the better by working to build trust and create games that listen to the feedback from players and the community alike.
Link Source : https://www.thegamer.com/ea-star-wars-battlefront-got-it-wrong/