Battlefront II Underperformance Will Mean Microtransactions Return, Says EA Exec
Star Wars Battlefront II ended up being one of the biggest focal points of conversation in the gaming community during 2017, but not in the way that EA would likely have preferred. Many expressed excitement over the game’s inclusion of content from the prequel and sequel Star Wars trilogies and a single-player campaign, but the title’s planned proliferated use of microtransactions and their connection to a player’s status progression led to huge fan backlash, the most downvoted Reddit comment ever, and a last-minute removal of in-game purchases. Now, an EA exec says that the microtransactions will return due to the Battlefront II underperformance.
— Sarah E. Needleman (@saraheneedleman) January 30, 2018
EA’s finance chief Blake Jorgensen recently spoke with The Wall Street Journal’s Sarah E. Needleman, who shared a bit of Jorgensen’s words on her official Twitter account. According to Jorgensen, Star Wars Battlefront II failed to meet EA’s sales expectations for the game. The sequel was expected to sell 10 million units last year, but only sold 9 million. These sales numbers only further disappoint EA stakeholders in comparison to the sales of the first EA Battlefront game, which sold 14 million units in the same timeframe during its holiday season launch. While this might delight fans who wanted to see the game’s sales falter because of its microtransactions, this does come with a trade-off.
Jorgensen believes that “Electronic Arts will reinstate a monetization feature… ‘in the next few months.'” This means that in-game purchases will return to the game after being rescinded on the eve of the game’s launch last year. There’s no set date for when the microtransactions would return, but given that the game nearly launched with them, one would expect their reinstatement to not require a great amount of development time. Still, those that felt comfortable buying the game but disliked the in-game purchases hopefully found joy in the months enjoying the game without their presence. It seems soon that this will be in the past and EA must let the past die. They will kill it if they have to. What do you guys think about the Battlefront II underperformance leading to the return of microtransactions? Let us know in the comments below!
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Cory Lara2137 Posts
A royally radical and totally tubular 90s kid, Cory has a passion for all things nerdy, particularly gaming and nostalgia. While an accountant by day, he strives to be as creative and humorous as possible in his free time, be it here writing on Don't Feed the Gamers, or making dumb satirical posts on his Twitter, Youtube, Facebook and Instagram accounts.
