Choose Your Battles

Daniel Wilks is probably going to be blacklisted. Again.

I’m not one to fall for conspiracy theories, not because I’m too smart to fall for them or something self-aggrandising like that, but more because I don’t have enough faith that people can keep secrets well enough to cover up large scale conspiracies. More than any other conspiracy, I hate when people talk about false flags – supposed operations carried out by corporations or governments to justify later political or business moves. Sandy Hook was faked so the US government could take all the guns – you know, that kind of bullshit. By and large this thinking angers me, but in recent days, I’ve really started to turn a corner on this false flag narrative. Not the gun massacres. Those things are real and horrifying and anyone who claims that people who have died or lost loved ones are just actors are monsters who deserve eternal ball kicking. No, I’m looking at one specific instance. I think EA has pulled off a successful PR false flag.

Long story short. When the beta for Star Wars Battlefront II started, there were a few definite problems that proved to be something of a nightmare for PR. Chief amongst these problems was the fact that micro-transactions had a definite, palpable impact on multiplayer performance, essentially making the game pay-to-win. The multiplayer has a card-based powerup system and cards, including special and rare cards, can be purchased with real money transactions. To make matters worse, the overall power level of cards (used for crafting more powerful cards) is based on how many cards the player has, giving even more benefit to players who spend money to buy cards instead of simply playing the game. On top of that the “cost” for unlocking some characters in multiplayer was raised from 10,000 to 60,000. Because the Internet is a thing and Reddit has a sub-Reddit for everything, someone sat down and did some general math to work out how long players would have to grind to get the necessary credit to afford to play Darth Vader. Apparently EA thought around 40 hours of play was a reasonable amount of time to grind to get one of, if not the most iconic character in the Star Wars universe.

Here’s where the false flag comes in. A representative from EA then went on Reddit to explain the move.

“The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes.

“As for cost, we selected initial values based upon data from the Open Beta and other adjustments made to milestone rewards before launch. Among other things, we’re looking at average per-player credit earn rates on a daily basis, and we’ll be making constant adjustments to ensure that players have challenges that are compelling, rewarding, and of course attainable via gameplay.

“We appreciate the candid feedback, and the passion the community has put forth around the current topics here on Reddit, our forums and across numerous social media outlets.

“Our team will continue to make changes and monitor community feedback and update everyone as soon and as often as we can.”

As answers go, it’s a bit of a nothing but isn’t too inflammatory aside from equating time spent grinding with a sense of accomplishment. But, as we’ve seen in the past, any time an official rep of a game makes a nothing statement to justify some rather predatory practices, the Internet is quick to react with scorn. The inevitable happened, Reddit kicked up a stink (that said, the massive downvoting is a little unprecedented), and within 24 hours the cost for unlocking Vader went from 60,000 back to 15,000. EA listened. They’re the good guys. Yay.

Of course, the rollback to a lower value didn’t come without some caveats. The cost of heroes may have been slashed by 75%, but the reward for completing the singleplayer campaign has been dropped by the same percentage, going from 20,000 credits to 5,000. The obvious justification for this is so people don’t have access to premium characters as soon as they start playing, but all it really does is reinforce the grind and ensure that if you want to get some lootboxes with cards as well as prestige characters you’ll either have to grind for dozens of hours or pay some real world money to stay competitive. Add to this that there is a time gate on credit rewards in the Arcade Mode (after reaching the cap you are locked out of any rewards and progression for a number of hours, much like as was featured in the much-maligned mobile version of Dungeon Keeper, also by EA), and you have more impetus to just stump up cash. For progression in a game you just paid for.

For a hot minute the narrative changed, but thanks to the continued efforts of angry consumers and noted gaming personalities like Jim Sterling, the gaming public wasn’t placated for long. The first foray into EA changing the story fell flat, but of course things don’t end there. Now EA has temporarily disabled the microtransactions in Battlefront II and changed the story again, transforming themselves, at least in part, from evil empire to beleaguered champion of the gamer. How long this temporary solution will last remains to be seen – hell, by the time you’re reading this you may be able to buy cards again – but for the short term at least, EA gets to be the hero that listened to gamers and responded accordingly. It’s all great, as long as you ignore the multiple attempts to justify pay-to-win, the fact that people who pre-ordered got an automatic advantage over day one purchasers thanks to early server access and had access to the microtransactions until the day before release, and that the publisher has a history of this kind of behaviour.

EA thought 40 hours of play was a reasonable amount of time to get the most iconic character