EA’s new chief design officer has pledged to learn from the errors the company made with loot boxes in Star Wars Battlefront 2, and has assured gamers that they will do better in future games.
Patrick Söderlund, who was the head of worldwide studios at EA until an executive reshuffle this week, told The Verge that the controversy around the decision to include lootboxes in the game has had a direct impact on EA as a company and an effect on the management, and that it’s determined to prevent similar mistakes in upcoming open-world shooter Anthem along with the Battlefield series.
[quote style=’1′ cite=” title=”]It’s clear to us that players see the company differently than we do. And in that situation, as a member of the executive team, as the guy who runs all of the studios, I have to take that seriously. And we have to continue to listen and understand what’s triggering that. We have to be very cautious of what we do.[/quote]
EA removed premium currency out of Battlefront 2 before launch due to player anger over the progression system, which forced you to grind or pay additional for unlockable extras after you had already paid a hefty $60 for the base game.
[quote style=’1′ cite=” title=”]We have to take action and show people that we’re serious about building the best possible products, that we’re serious about treating the players fair, and we’re here to make the best possible entertainment that we can, he says. And in the cases where we don’t get it right, we just have to listen and learn from it and be better.[/quote]
He added that the purpose of loot boxes in Battlefront 2 was to have more people play for a long time after launch. And Like many other games available on the market, to be able to afford to do that when they had an idea of getting returns from that.
Battlefront 2 enabled the microtransactions back in a patch released and it is now limited to only cosmetic items, and DICE removed the randomised loot box elements, meaning you’ll only be paying for what you want.
