PR to English Translation for Selected Portions of EA’s Response to Backlash Over ‘Star Wars Battlefront II’ Microtransactions
“An Update on Star Wars Battlefront II”, from the desk of Oskar Gabrielson, GM, DICE.
Thank you to everyone in our community for being the passionate fans that you are.
And a special thank you to Twitter, who last week decided to let you dweebs have twice the number of characters to yell at us with.
Our goal has always been to create the best possible game for all of you – devoted Star Wars fans and game players alike.
Our goal has always been to cash in hard on “Star Wars” before it inevitably becomes so diluted with spinoffs that you find yourself with reservations about buying that second BB-8 coffee mug.
But as we approach the worldwide launch, it’s clear that many of you feel there are still challenges in the design.
It’s clear to us that many of you are having trouble finding your wallets. Maybe you left them by your $800 phone or next to your monthly meal kit subscription box. Did you check by the TV, where I can clearly see you pay for Hulu, Netflix, and YouTube Red. Seriously, why do you need all three?
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.
We can’t believe our Reddit comments didn’t calm the storm. We never wanted microtransactions to overshadow; we wanted them to be in the shadows. We’re all upset we didn’t get this right.
We hear 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.
Microtransactions are gone until we can figure out where that magic price point is to avoid public backlash while still selling you an Ewok.
The ability to purchase crystals in-game will become available at a later date, only after we’ve made changes to the game.
The ability to purchase crystals will be back immediately following the mass amnesia you’ll all experience five minutes into piloting the Millennium Falcon over Hoth.
We’ll share more details as we work through this.
I can’t believe we had to write this post.
Star Wars Battlefront II is three times the size of the previous game, bringing to life a brand new Star Wars story, space battles, epic new multiplayer experiences across all three Star Wars eras, with more free content to come.
Star Wars Battlefront II is three times the size of the previous game, which was one fourth the size of a reasonable game, which means Star Wars Battlefront II is now point seven five hundredths of what you’d expect in a game this price. Plus, space battles.
We want you to enjoy it, so please keep your thoughts coming. And we will keep you updated on our progress.
We want to enjoy our holidays, and you want to maniacally wave around Darth Vader’s lightsaber. Fair enough. Enjoy our stopgap, shut-you-up solution while it lasts — nobody escapes the Empire forever.