Backlash on ‘Star Wars’ game grows

Pay-to-win ‘loot boxes’ feature likened to gambling

San FranciSco: A new Star Wars video game is drawing fire for a feature that essentially allowed money instead of skill to determine who wins.

Game giant Electronic Arts has been criticised over its use of “loot boxes”, a money-making tactic for game makers which typically offer digital items such as stylish outfits for characters or decorations for in-game abodes.

Until recently, game makers had been careful to require players to rely on skills for weapons or abilities that could help beat challenges or adversaries.

But the spin EA put on “loot boxes” while readying Star Wars Battlefront II for launch was skewered by gamers as violating the credo of fair play and likened by some critics to gambling aimed at an audience that included children.

The controversy centres on prompting players to chance money on loot boxes that hold unknown assortments of in-game goods such as devastating weapons, powerful abilities, or items needed to purchase coveted characters like Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader.

EA was accused of going too far by forcing players to bet on loot boxes to advance or be forever matched up against better-armed adversaries.

As twitter user @TmarTn lamented, “I miss having cheat codes in video games. Now it’s just your credit card number.”

While loot boxes can be earned through many hours of play, a widely circulated post on “Star Wars Gaming” estimated that it would require 4,525 hours, ver-

I miss having cheat codes in video games. Now it’s just your credit card number. TmarTn

sus US$2,100 (RM8,590), to unlock everything in the game.

Jim Sterling, a British reviewer and noted critic of the big budget games industry, called the experience a “gruelling slog for those unwilling to pay more money” than the US$60-US$80 (RM245RM327) box price of the game.

Fans weren’t the only source of pressure for EA.

The Wall Street Journal reported that a high-level executive at Disney-Lucasfilm sent word to Electronic Arts that the film giant was unhappy with how the backlash was marring the image of its beloved Star Wars franchise.

On the eve of the release of

Battlefront II, EA turned off the ability to spend money in-game, saying in a statement that “we will now spend more time listening, adjusting, balancing and tuning” before reinstating the ability to purchase loot boxes.

Oddly enough, loot boxes remain the only way to obtain most items in the Star Wars game.

That relegates players to earning loot boxes through countless hours of play, or putting the game aside until EA introduces a modified way to get goods.