Potato, Hotter. “r/StarWarsBattlefront - It Takes 40 Hours to Unlock a Hero. Spreadsheet and Galactic Assault Statistics.” Reddit, 2018, www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/comments/7c6bjm/it_takes_40_hours_to_unlock_a_hero_spreadsheet/. -(Reddit post)
In the spirit of the idea that microtranscations are a central feature and not just a side option like said by the commenter's quote in my last post, we look back at the beginning of this mess. The only reason microtranscations began to get media attention and the governments intervention is because of one specific game and just how hideous its micotranscations were. It all began with Star Wars Battlefront 2, the company that made it are the ones we know and love EA (Electronic Arts). But why did this game get national attention and not say the sport games that came before as they also had microtranscations? Well that because of just how insidious they were implemented. They were the central feature of the whole progression system, they dictated how a player got their items and equipment (new characters like Darth Vader too) in the game. This academic article that I found in the Auraria Library's database describes perfectly how this system was seen by the gamers,"An EA developer's response on Reddit became the most down-voted comment in the history of the website. But it doesn't end there. It was reported that EA lost nearly $3 billion in stock value after the backlash." A $3 billion stock drop was the result of this system, in short a lot of money lost. This system stalled the progress of the entire game, paywalls behind every turn. Credits (the systems currency) was given out in small doses, nowhere near enough to pay for the all the lack luster cosmetic items let alone the ironic characters of the Star Wars name. A Reddit user by the name of HotterPotato calculated it would take a dedicated 40 hours straight to unlock a hero that was 60,000 credits. The progression system put it had the intention of slowing everything else down in order to encourage people to spend microtranscations. After all why play for 40 hours when you can just give them 5 bucks, a devious way to try and get even more money. Luckily the game tanked and did damage to EA as whole as well as spreading the message that microtranscations are a real problem. But what other games have problems like this? Recently as in today (April 23rd) a game released called Mortal Kombat 11, it is kicking up a serious storm because of its microtranscations.
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