10 Ingenious Ways Players Beat Video Game Microtransactions

Star Wars Battlefront II's launch will forever be remembered as one of the most disastrous in video game history, so catastrophically did it dent EA's already uneasy relationship with players.

Shortly before the game's release, critics playing review copies of Battlefront II noted that it was loaded with loot boxes and pay-to-win mechanics intended to heavily encourage players to spend real money and speed progression up.

By grinding it out the old fashioned way, it was estimated to take around 40 hours to unlock a single hero, as received enormous blowback from customers online.

When an EA rep retorted that this was an attempt to let players feel a "sense of pride and accomplishment" at unlocking the heroes, it rightly became the most downvoted comment in Reddit history.

The player response was vitriolic enough that EA ended up removing all microtransactions from the game before launch, reportedly at the additional behest of an incensed Disney.

While the slow progression remained an issue until EA simply unlocked all the heroes for all players a few months later, the whole debacle was a major shot across the bow at EA and the AAA games industry in general.

With EA shedding $3 billion in stock value following the controversy and lawmakers around the globe consequently investigating the legality of loot box mechanics, it was certainly a win for gamers and a loss for EA on the balance of circumstances.