SOL #21: How Epic Games Gets Away With What EA Can't (Part 1)

In this first part of the topic, I'll be describing what EA tries to do with the video games they publish and how much their plans backfire. Electronic Arts (EA) is famous in the gaming world for publishing games such as "Plants VS. Zombies," "Star Wars Battlefront," the latest "Battlefield" games, and many more. As of late, the public's trust in EA and EA's reputation have dropped to an all time low. This all started with "Mass Effect Andromeda." The "Mass Effect" series was a huge favorite for many gamers. The latest title in the series let down fans by giving them a rushed game. Rushed video games usually mean bad news. The content, and in this case the facial animations, of the game won't be at its full potential. Rushed games also mean that important pieces of the game's story will be sold as extra downloadable content (DLC). If you pay $60 for a video game for its story, you probably wouldn't want to pay an extra $30 for something that was supposed to be in the game that you payed $60 for already.

This was only the start of EA's downfall. Their next huge mistake, which caused a bigger outburst than the last, was micro-transactions. The series that they picked on this time was "Star Wars Battlefront." The sequel was released and sold for the standard $60. What ticked people off this time was the multiplayer mode. Many people like "Battlefront" because they can use fictional characters from the movies to fight against opposing players. EA however locked these characters behind paywalls. In order to buy them, you could use your real money to buy them or pay a huge amount of in-game currency. The problem with the currency was that you didn't earn much per match and you needed a lot to buy the characters. The in-game currency was of course sold for real money as well. Gamers eventually found a way to tie a rubber band around their controllers so that the game would think someone was behind the wheel but in reality, your character was probably just moving around in circles. Rubber band or not, the currency earned was around the same. Micro-transactions are implemented in many other games which don't get the same hate that EA does. The difference is that EA took it too far.