‘Star Wars Battlefront II:’ EA’s Band-Aid Solution Might Not Be Enough To Save The Game
EA’s work on Star Wars Battlefront II is still plagued with bad news. The American video game company has attempted to address the game’s issue with microtransactions and loot boxes, but its efforts appeared half-hearted to players. As a result, Electronic Arts continues to disappoint gamers with Battlefront II.
According to Fortune, Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter believes the nostalgia from Star Wars: The Last Jedi will encourage gamers and Star Wars fans to buy Battlefront II over the holiday season.
However, Forbes contributor Paul Tassi disagrees with Pachter’s prediction. Tassi states that The Last Jedi will not help boost the game’s sales because EA did not address the central issues gamers had with the title. Electronic Arts, essentially, just put a band-aid solution on the game’s main issue.
Chaim Gartenberg from The Verge seems to agree with Tassi. Gartenberg stated that there is a definite disconnect between gameplay and progress in SWBII because EA built the game to nudge players into buying loot crates.
Based on Gartenberg’s analysis, gamers will have a difficult time progressing in the game if they rely purely on their skill and performance. SWBII seems to reward players for the amount of time they grind through the game rather than how well they play it.
SWBII was expected to be one of the top-grossing games this year, but all hopes fell when gamers rebelled against EA’s monetization plan. Based on a Reddit post by u/TheMadPuma, many players decided to boycott the game and encouraged others to do the same. Reddit alone was filled with posts dissuading gamers and parents from buying Battlefront II because of EA’s loot crate system.
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The NPD Group—a market research company—reported that the game’s sales in its first month drastically missed its predicted mark of 1.7 million units. EA only sold around 882,000 units, and the game’s sales don’t seem like it will improve in the future.
EA has a lot to do before it can escape the dark cloud Star Wars Battlefront II has placed on its head. All eyes are on the American video game company to see if it will flow with the tide or continue to swim against it.
