For example, after the recent finding that it took dozens of hours to unlock a hero, the game makers lowered the unlock requirements but also lowered the amount of credits earned. Then, they removed the microtransactions but said they'll be back later. It seems as though there's no concrete plan to balance the game and at this moment gamers are as confused as ever.
The Wall Street Journal has been following the controversy for a while and said that Disney contacted EA to discuss the outrage over the game. Star Wars is owned by Disney and given the fact that it's a valuable property, they didn't want negative press before the release of "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" in December.
The Wall Street Journal reporter Ben Fritz is familiar with the game and wrote an article about it. On his Twitter page he said that Jimmy Pitaro, Disney's Head of Consumer Products and Interactive Media, contacted EA detailing Disney and CEO Bob Iger's take on the issue. Most of the stories in the press have been about how Star Wars: Battlefront 2 was like gambling based on the loot crate system. Disney didn't want their franchise to be associated with gambling or public outrage in this manner. There were even stories on news sources like CNN and the BBC about the pay-to-win situation.
It's unclear if Disney's intervention resulted in EA pulling the microtransactions, but last night they said that the removal was only temporary. There are also rumors floating around that Lucasfilm wanted the current system in place while EA just wanted cosmetic microtransactions. However, take this with a grain of salt because there was no proof provided aside from an unknown source's testimony. All we know for sure is that Lucasfilm met frequently with EA during the development of the game. The microtransactions will return in another form in the future.
LucasFilm also issued a statement on the controversy due to its scale. Speaking with The Washington Post, the studio's spokesperson said the following.
Star Wars has always been about the fans and whether it's Battlefront or any other Star Wars experience, they come first. That's why we support EA's decision to temporarily remove in-game payments to address fan concerns. It's unclear if this was EA's decision or Disney's because Disney contacted the game publisher right before they pulled all of the micropayments from the Xbox Store and other platforms.
We may never know whose decision it was to begin with and who pressured the other to pull them. All we can do it wait for a solution. Hopefully EA can have a better plan this time around because the situation has been very poorly managed from the start.
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