10 Video Games Where Consumers WON
1. EA Overturned Everything - Star Wars: Battlefront 2
EA mishandled the launch of Star Wars: Battlefront 2 so appallingly, the company is directly responsible for almost killing lootboxes dead.
The DICE-developed sequel to the 2015 Battlefront reboot based progression entirely around earning lootboxes. At launch, it could take hours of time to unlock iconic heroes like Luke Skywalker, with lootcrates rewarding players with everything from Star Cards to cosmetics. The unpredictable nature of the lootcrates - as well as the fact they took a long time to unlock - was a clear funnel to the game's microtransactions. However, because players could only purchase more lootboxes, paying customers could wind up with petty rewards, regardless of how much money they spent.
Rather than fixing the problem immediately, EA doubled down. The company infamously commented on a Redditor thread, explaining how the unfair progression system gave players "a sense of pride and accomplishment" when they unlocked beloved characters of the series. This foolish comment amassed 600,000 downvotes, garnering a Guinness World Record for most downvotes in Reddit history.
EA soon accepted defeat, removing all microtransactions from Battlefront 2 and revamping the progression system entirely. DICE subsequently embarked on one of the all-time great video game comeback stories, turning Star Wars: Battlefront 2 into the game it should have been at launch with a number of free updates.
Fans may have got the Star Wars experience they hoped, but it wasn't easy getting there.