10 Fan Backlashes That SAVED Video Games

Star Wars Battlefront II had perhaps the single most vitriol-filled launch in recent gaming history, as after EA promised that the sequel would offer a more feature-rich platter of content than its initially barren predecessor, they ended up being dragged through the mud before the game had even launched.

In the pre-release period, journalists noted that the game was engineered to make players grind for up to 40 hours to unlock a single hero character, or spend real money on loot boxes to save all that time, as EA was clearly banking on.

The blowback was so catastrophic, including an EA customer support rep posting the most downvoted comment in Reddit history, that EA ended up disabling microtransactions the day before release, all while governments worldwide considered the legal and ethical quagmire of loot boxes.

Within four months of release, all remnants of the pay-to-win mechanics had been removed from the game, and progression was reworked to reward players for their actual performance.

Battlefront II was later given a soft relaunch with 2019's Celebration Edition, which included the base game and all the customisation content, while a tie-in with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was released as a free update to all players.

By this point, Battlefront II had been reworked from a flabbergasting cash grab into a genuinely enjoyable game worthy of the Star Wars license. All it took was millions of players getting very, very pissed off for a sustained period, apparently.