"and an actual progression system"
Why? The Original Battlefront did not have a progression system. Battlefield 1942 didn't either. Battlefront II did not have one in the way we think of it today (it had a few classes you had to unlock, but other than that everyone had access to the same things). Why can't it just be okay for a game to give people access to everything, and then we play the multiplayer because it's fun to play, rather than to unlock...
What's Jinger going to go with here, "Japan is irrelevant to shooter sales" or "well it still outsold a bunch of games that have already been out for weeks/months"?
This is awesome. Giant Bomb is a site people care about; this will hurt Battlefront and EA a lot more than bad reviews from very minor sites.
I love how hard Jinger is still trying to do damage control. Wondering where fellow EA apologist EDMIX is, though.
Please don't pretend to be so simple. The controversy was never going to stop all sales; the point was to make a significant dent, which clearly happened.
I'm sure EA is mad about that even. There are plenty of people who think a game is bad if the Metacritic is below 80%. Normally that frustrates me, because it causes many good games to be written off, but in this case it's a good thing.
Shadow of War is not a multiplayer game (other than some asynchronous modes), so there is no issue of someone else having an advantage by paying more. I agree that all MTs are bad, but it's pretty obvious why this one is receiving more hate.
The difference is fairly obvious. Overwatch lootboxes are not pay to win because they don't affect gameplay at all. BF2's MTs are directly tied to progression. While I agree that MTs are undesirable generally, they aren't going to generate much outrage where they have no impact on gameplay.
I've honestly been really impressed with the games media on this title. I (like many others, I'm sure) figured that the bigger sites would ignore the issues with MTs and give the game high ratings anyway, and only smaller outlets would rate the game accurately. Fortunately, I was wrong, because while EA is often accused of not caring what anyone thinks, they do care about getting bashed by major outlets and taking the resulting Metacritic hits.
Heck, Kotaku even i...
The expectations for this game are astronomical, based both on the success of the first game and the power of the license. Accordingly, this game can sell millions of copies and still be a failure compared to its expected sales.
Also, I think you are underestimating the effect the outcry has had in this instance. Even my casual friends who never read gaming news know about the issues with BF2 and are avoiding it.
Yep. Everyone knows that the person saying "I'm going to kill you over microtransactions" is as serious about killing the person as the person who says "my backpack weighs a ton" is about their back actually weighing 2000 pounds. Nonetheless, it allows the devs/pubs to deflect from the ways they've screwed up the game, and the "journalists" are only too happy to follow suit.
As a PS3-only person last gen, Alan Wake was the only 360 exclusive I was really jealous of. I finally played it later when I got a half decent PC, and it did not disappoint.
What are those games, though? Because if the lootboxes in those games are just different skins for your character/guns, you aren't being put at a disadvantage by not purchasing them. In this case, you will actually be facing people with better weapons/abilities than you simply because they spent more money.
Lol, literally everyone on here agrees with this position.
Yes, this game will sell millions of copies due to the Star Wars name and because many people (the types who buy a few games per year and don't pay attention to sites like N4G) won't have any idea about the issues with the game. However, EA's sales expectations for this game are going to be ridiculously high, so people who are knowledgeable and unwilling to accept pay-to-win can hurt this game and EA if we actually don't buy it. No, we won't be able to make it completely...
Notice how no one is advocating that philosophy. No one defends pay-to-win micro-transactions.
I'd say they're only acceptable when the items have no impact on gameplay (i.e. rocket League, Overwatch).
@Many-hat5
Why is that inevitable? Overwatch uses only cosmetic items in its crate system, and it is wildly successful. Why should I assume that devs will automatically shift to a model that is obviously going to generate a ton of negativity towards their game? In two years, when looking at the success of overwatch versus Battlefront 2, which do you think devs will want to emulate?
I don't think I've ever seen someone defend lootboxes that offer a competitive advantage in multiplayer. What I have seen is people defend lootboxes that only contain cosmetic items, especially if that system replaces paying for maps as DLC.
Someone likes Xbox.