The fact that EA seems to have been genuinely blindsided by how poorly their microtrantastic first attempt at Battlefront was received really speaks to how disconnected from their costumers they actually are.
Also, let's all remember that time when EA told their investors that removing the microtransactions wasn't expected to have any impact on the game's success... They don't NEED them to make the game profitable. They never did. They're just a bunch of greedy pricks.
And has any gamer ever actually said that a game felt BETTER with microtransactions shoved into it? Anybody?
The really gross thing here is what Jorgensen says about Battlefield. A great, well-received shooter, still being played to this day (more than Battlefield: Hardline, and about as much as Battlefield 1 last time I saw)... But because they didn't implement microtransations it was a "missed opportunity?" Holy crap...
Making a lot of money isn't an option for these pricks. They have to make AAAAAAAAALLLLL of the money. But they're too blind to see the real damage they're doing to games as a whole... Or you know, they just don't care.
Anybody else get a little vomit in their mouths when they read phrases like "recurrent consumer spending?" Such gross corporate jargon.
We get it, you love your exploitative microtransactions. But I know I'm not alone in saying that that entire ecosystem stopped me from playing GTA Online years ago. On the other hand, I would have gladly spent money on new single-player DLC. Screw this industry, man...
@zmanbarzel: If you budget properly and set you expectations accordingly, it can work! Ninja Theory's Hellblade proved that it can be done. Just make a great game and don't break the bank on adverts or needless expenses and you can be successful!
Would love to see more games take that route where they can, because EA's mindset and practices are destructive toward gaming as a whole.
@slypher9: I'm aware. I meant something that feels and plays like Dead Space, unlike how EA butchered Dead Space 3 into a microtransaction-filled, co-op action shooter.
A spiritual successor to Dead Space without it actually having the name Dead Space (think Bloodstained to Castlevania).
And so poor Visceral joins the ranks of the other talented studios EA has ruined and then murdered over the years. RIP Bullfrog, Maxis, Pandemic, etc. Screw EA forever over this. Always grabbing promising developers, meddling in their projects, setting them up for failure, and then giving them the shaft when things predictably go poorly for them.
Hopefully the talented folks from Visceral bounce back after this. I'd love to see what they can do after they're unshackled from EA's dungeon. Maybe we'll see a proper follow-up to Dead Space.
No company ever puts microtransactions in a game without hoping you'll use them. This is a pretty shallow excuse on Bungie's part. They deliberately made getting shaders more of a hassle than in the last game because it would encourage you to buy them to speed up the process, plain and simple.
Though I'd bet money that Activision is the one that actually put them up to this. It's usually the publisher when it comes to this anti-consumer BS.
My interest in this game died when the multiplayer-only angle was revealed. And I was really pumped for another Black Flag-style game! Some of us just want to be left alone and experience our own pirate adventure without every other player around them gunning for them. Oh well. Somebody else will like it, but this is a hard pass for me.
But if vanilla Division and For Honor are any indication, those people who like it won't stick around for very long. Such a shame for a cool premise.
This is an injustice. Rockstar has been totally fine with mods over a freaking decade now, and suddenly Take Two decides arbitrarily to shut it all down. If they actually wanted to do this right, and were actually supportive of their creative fans, they would have just asked OpenIV to take a look at the supposed exploit that was being used to affect the multiplayer and shut it down (provided there actually is one and they're not just making excuses).
And to make things worse, this likely won't even do anything to stop hackers in their precious GTA Online. All it's done is make the single player experience less interesting.
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