Star Wars Battlefront II Becomes Most Down-voted Comment In Reddit History

Electronic Arts (EA) respond to gamer backlash over progression system. 

When EA decided to respond to its player-base’s concerns earlier about Star Wars Battlefront II and its loot boxes, it probably didn’t think that its post would break all records, and then some, for the most down-voted and unpopular comment of all time, on Reddit. But it did…

Gamers and fans had been expressing their angers and concerns toward Battlefront II since Electronic Arts (EA) had revealed that despite having forked over the full retail price of the game, some $60, it was revealed that certain heroes in the game could only be accessed through buying ‘loot boxes,’ with real world money; or by playing for an estimated 4o hours alone, to earn enough ‘credits’ in game to access just one… This meant that to get just five loot boxes, players would have to play for some eight days without a break…Or they could breakout their credit card and pay for the privilege.

May the credit-card be with you.

PR Disaster

The ensuing PR catastrophe for monolithic game company, EA, ensued after they unsuccessfully tried to to explain their reasoning for their pricing and what some on Reddit described as their pay-to-win reward structure.

“The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes,” EA wrote. “As for cost, we selected initial values based upon data from the Open Beta and other adjustments made to milestone rewards before launch. Among other things, we’re looking at average per-player credit earn rates on a daily basis, and we’ll be making constant adjustments to ensure that players have challenges that are compelling, rewarding, and of course attainable via gameplay….

“As for cost, we selected initial values based upon data from the Open Beta and other adjustments made to milestone rewards before launch. Among other things, we’re looking at average per-player credit earn rates on a daily basis, and we’ll be making constant adjustments to ensure that players have challenges that are compelling, rewarding, and of course attainable via gameplay.”

EA told Reddit users it would be ‘making constant adjustments to ensure that players have challenges that are compelling, rewarding, and of course attainable via gameplay.’

People power

EA’s response did not go down well. and the internet stomped on them, forcing EA to reduce the amount of time players would have to spend ‘grinding’ by 75%.

At the time of writing, the post on Reddit had been down-voted some 640,000 times, a new record for Reddit, with some expecting the final total to reach over a million by the end of the week. By comparison, the previously most down-voted post was -24,333.

The Belgians are coming

In recent days as well, the whole notion of loot-boxes in games has come in for scrutiny, with some calling for ‘freemium’ features and pay-2-win pricing structures to be classified as gambling. The argument has started to gain momentum. The Belgian Gaming Commission announced on Thursday that it was to examine if loot-box structures in Battlefront II and another game, Overwatch, constituted gambling.