Microtransactions Temporarily Removed From 'Star Wars Battlefront II'

The saga continues for Star Wars Battlefront II. On the night before its launch, DICE announced that it will temporarily disable the ability to use real-world money as a way to buy crates. For now, the only way to get new abilities and weapons is by participating in matches.

The announcement came through a blog post from DICE general manager Oskar Gabrielson. In addition to acknowledging the fanbase’s anger at the game’s microtransaction and progression mechanics, he wrote that the studio will continue to work and make the appropriate changes to Star Wars Battlefront II. You can read his full statement below.

"Thank you to everyone in our community for being the passionate fans that you are.Our goal has always been to create the best possible game for all of you – devoted Star Wars fans and game players alike. We’ve also had an ongoing commitment to constantly listen, tune and evolve the experience as it grows. You’ve seen this with both the major adjustments, and polish, we have made over the past several weeks.But as we approach the worldwide launch, it's clear that many of you feel there are still challenges in the design. We’ve heard the concerns about potentially giving players unfair advantages. And we’ve heard that this is overshadowing an otherwise great game. This was never our intention. Sorry we didn’t get this right.We hear you loud and clear, so we’re turning off all in-game purchases. We will now spend more time listening, adjusting, balancing and tuning. This means that the option to purchase crystals in the game is now offline, and all progression will be earned through gameplay. The ability to purchase crystals in-game will become available at a later date, only after we’ve made changes to the game. We’ll share more details as we work through this.We have created a game that is built on your input, and it will continue to evolve and grow. Star Wars Battlefront II is three times the size of the previous game, bringing to life a brand new Star Wars story, space battles, epic new multiplayer experiences across all three Star Wars eras, with more free content to come. We want you to enjoy it, so please keep your thoughts coming. And we will keep you updated on our progress."

Fans finally get their wish of a Star Wars title free of any microtransactions, but it will come back. Gabrielson mentioned that the use of real money to buy crystals, which are then used to purchase crates will be available “at a later date.” This future implementation will only happen after DICE makes other changes to the main gameplay experience.

Gabrielson’s post comes days after players discovered the amount of time required to play and earn enough credits to unlock Darth Vader. This caused outrage throughout the community, and then DICE lowered the credits required to purchase the high-end heroes and villains by 75%. In addition, the studio held an Ask Me Anything session on Reddit so players could address their concerns. However, most fans weren’t satisfied with the developers’ responses.

The decision to temporarily remove the crystal system could be seen as DICE’s last-ditch effort to persuade more people to buy the game. Without the microtransactions, everyone should be on even ground when it comes to combat. DICE’s real test comes when it will bring back the crystal currency. Based on the new plans, fans could continue to keep playing even with the option to use real-world money in the game, but many players will still see the return of the dreaded microtransaction mechanics.

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NameStar Wars Battlefront II
TypeShooter
DeveloperDICE, Motive Studios, Criterion Games
PublisherElectronic Arts
PlatformsPC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Where To BuyOriginPlayStation StoreXbox StoreAmazonBest BuyTargetWalmartGameStop
Release DateNovember 17, 2017
  • milkod2001
    WTF is going on with this auto playing stupid video and from the web BS fakes posts. Is toms trying to get into suicide mission to lose all readers?
    Reply
  • WildCard999
    I think if they lower the amount need to unlock characters such as Vader then the community will be happier, maybe drop it down to 20 hours instead of 40 hours and at least some ppl won't mind the grind while others can spend all there money on crates if desired.
    Reply
  • Pnutt79
    They still don't get it. Its not the micro transactions that are the problem you idiots, its the ability for some people to use mommy's and daddy's wallet to jump ahead of everyone else because they dropped a 1000 bucks on crates. People want to test their skills vs other players skill not against other players wallets. To bad I had high hopes for this game, Sadly looks like I will be skipping this one.
    Reply
  • techy1966
    Yea they drop it now because of all the bad publicity they have got over the way they are doing this. They will at a later date just enable it quietly and try to rake in the cash after they figure they sold enough copies of the game. The key word here is SOLD. If you pay for something you should not be expected to be placed in a pay wall system to buy more just to be able to either finish the game or be able to compete on the same level of playing field as some others that spent big bucks for all of the extra perks and crap. Now if the game was a free to play type game then heck yea make that pay wall work for yea.
    Reply
  • berezini
    so basically, here... lick this sugar for free; later on, you will pay dearly for it!
    Reply
  • Giroro
    So they are trying to trick people into buying a product, only to deliver something that will end being up entirely different?

    Aren't bait-and-switch business practices like that illegal?
    Reply
  • Immitem
    I have not bought a single E.A. game since Battlefield 3. Why can't people just boycott their crap already?

    20388755 said:
    WTF is going on with this auto playing stupid video and from the web BS fakes posts. Is toms trying to get into suicide mission to lose all readers?

    PREACH!
    Reply
  • bigpinkdragon286
    This is marketing speak for: "People aren't going to buy the product because it has micro-transactions. Okay, we removed the micro-transactions, now buy the product. Once we've sold the projected number of units, we'll put the micro-transactions back in to continue revenue generation for the product beyond it's shelf sales."
    Reply
  • bigpinkdragon286
    Maybe the gaming industry has come to a point where gamers should be given the choice to filter and play with only those who have not paid for extra content or abilities, or perhaps two different versions of the product. One with micro-transactions and one without. I doubt publishers would be overly enthusiastic to do such a thing as it would directly decrease the demand for the micro-transactions in some players mindset, but players not interested in the micro-transactions would have one less reason to complain about them.

    The problem as it stands now is, if you want to play a game with micro-transactions, but don't participate in the micro-transactions yourself, regardless of the reasons, you are still subjected to the in-game consequences of other people participating in the micro-transaction system.

    Of course, I can already see publishers trying to raise the cost of the non-micro-transactional game rather than lowering the cost of a version including it, claiming they need to make up the lost revenue.
    Reply
  • HaB1971
    Instead of admitting they got caught trying to bring genuine pay to win 2 to the game they back pedal and come out with this crap because of the backlash to just wait until the hubub has died down and they will bring it back again... stop giving money to these greedy bean counter developers.. hurt them in the wallet that is all they care about
    Reply