This article originally ran under a different banner/website in June of 2019 and is now being here re-uploaded for purposes of convenience and consolidation. Please enjoy.
Do you hear that? The sounds coming from the horizon. The sounds of locomotives and parents confused over credit card charges. It could only be one thing: THE EA CIRCUS!!! How we could forget that the EA circus comes to town directly after E3 wraps up. What is the EA circus you say? It is the most amusing time of year. Clowns working for EA come to town to say some utterly hilarious things on EA’s behalf. Even after I stepped down from being the Ringleader of the EA circus, I would still go to the show just to have my sides split. So come with me. We will laugh, we will cry, and of course, we will walk away wanting to burn EA’s tent to the ground.
Oh look, here comes our first clown now. Tell me Miss Clown, my friends from the British Parliament and I were wondering if you find loot boxes ethical? What do you think?
“That is what we look at as ‘surprise mechanics.’ It is important to look at this. If you go to—I don’t know what your version of Target is—a store that sells a lot of toys and you do a search for surprise toys, you will find that this is something people enjoy. They enjoy surprises. It is something that has been part of toys for years, whether it is Kinder eggs or Hatchimals or LOL Surprise! We do think the way that we have implemented these kinds of mechanics in FIFA—[which] of course is our big one, our FIFA Ultimate Team and our packs—is actually quite ethical and quite fun. Enjoyable to people.”
-EA Legal and Government Affairs VP Kerry Hopkins
Oh really, Miss EA Clown, you don’t call them loot boxes anymore. So if I punch you in the face, will it all be ok if I call it a “Friendship Love Tap.” You can call it what you like EA, but we all know what they are. Loot boxes are a microtransaction where you pay money to have a small chance to get the item you want, not because it is fun or ethical, but because it forces players to spend extra on items they want. They are not a blind box that you can pick up in a store, because blind boxes are one-time purchases that don’t constantly tug your arm begging for more cash. Someone who purchases Madden 20 for sixty dollars, shouldn’t have to spend more to get the five-star version of Patrick Mahomes.
Look who it is everyone! It is head clown Andrew. You can always count on Andrew to say something so clownish to turn a frown into a smile and then into a scowl. Hey Andrew, there is a lot of talk about streaming and subscriptions following E3, any comment on that:
“The notion that our behavior as players wouldn’t change at the advent of a fundamental cloud disruption—what has been a demonstrated human behavior orientation move from ownership to access and the rise of subscriptions and the best business model to fulfill that—the notion that wouldn’t happen in our industry I think is naïve, and I say that humbly, I think it’s naïve.”
-EA CEO Andrew Wilson
I would be careful about calling other people naive Andrew. I would say it is naive for Electronic Arts to think their rebranding of loot boxes will work, but they certainly seem committed to it seeing as they continue to profit off of them. However, I don’t think Andrew’s statement is that farfetched. With how successful the Netflix model has been, I think it is quite reasonable to suspect a subscription service like Netflix could work for games. I must ask though, do you want Electronic Arts in charge of such services? Do you want Electronic Arts to be able to dictate how or when you play? Even before Star Wars: Battlefront II, I would have said no, but with how unapologetically greedy EA got with Star Wars Battlefront II, I would actively oppose the concept. I would stand atop my soapbox every day and shout down any attempt by Electronic Arts for them to try to get EA Access as popular as Netflix.
Ok, Andrew, that’s definitely not the most outlandish comment you have made. Certainly, you have a more ludicrous statement looking to slip out of your gapping clown-liked mouth. I know. How do you feel Anthem stacks up against other titles:
“IP lives for generations and runs in these seven to ten-year cycles. So, if I think about Anthem on a seven to ten-year cycle, it may not have had the start that many of us wanted, including our players. I feel like that team is really going to get there with something special and something great because they’ve demonstrated that they can.”
-EA CEO Andrew Wilson
Anyone else getting flashbacks to that Todd Howard interview where he said it not how you launch, it is what you become. A phrase used to justify the obscene patch culture that publishers have adopted to get their in-game store in front of people. No doubt EA would be promising Anthem would be supported for seven to ten years after deleting the Anthem roadmap.
So Andrew, what do you think was the biggest contributor to Anthem’s disastrous launch? Was it the poor leadership, the Frostbite engine, or the absurd amount of crunch that Bioware went through:
“Making fun is hard […] We brought together these two groups of players who were making this emotional value calculation on two different vectors. One was traditional BioWare story-driven content, and the other was this action-adventure type content. About the 30 or 40 hour mark, they really had to come together and start working in on the elder game. At that point everyone kind of went, ‘Oh, hang a minute.’ Now the calculation is off. It’s off because I’ve got a friend who sits in this other category of player. They want to play the game a certain way. I want to play the game a certain way. The promise was we can play together, and that’s not working very well. Oh, by the way, I’m used to 100 hours of BioWare story, and that’s not what I got.’ Or, ‘I expected that this game would have meaningfully advanced the action component that we’d seen in games like Destiny before, and I don’t feel like it has.’”
-EA CEO Andrew Wilson
So rather than admit Anthem has many flaws that need to be addressed, you rather paint Bioware fans as entitled children. Most criticism I have seen has not come from the lack of Bioware-level story, but from the lackluster quest and loot. One look at your subreddit could tell you nobody wanted Anthem to be another Mass Effect. Players are crying out for a more engaging gameplay loop. Hey, keep painting your players as entitled brats who don’t know what they want, I am sure that has never backfired on your before. Cough, cough, Battlefield V, cough.
It is starting to become routine now. Whether it is fixing their games or addressing the ethical quandary of loot boxes, EA rather bury their head in the sand to ignore criticism. Only daring to poke their head out when a new monetary strategy emerges. Well EA enjoy your little circus act because people are starting to realize your game. When you have politicians scoffing when you try to rebrand loot boxes, I can only say I hope you’re prepared for your reckoning. We have all warned you, but your ignorance will be your undoing. The only other thing I could say to EA is your end is nigh.
Sources:
Futter, Mike. “EXCLUSIVE: A Candid Conversation with EA’s Andrew Wilson at E3 2019.” GameDaily.biz, GameDaily.biz, 22 June 2019, gamedaily.biz/article/969/exclusive-a-candid-conversation-with-eas-andrew-wilson-at-e3-2019.
Grayson, Nathan. “EA: Our Loot Boxes Are Actually ‘Surprise Mechanics’ That Are ‘Quite Ethical’.” Kotaku, Kotaku, 19 June 2019, kotaku.com/ea-our-loot-boxes-are-actually-surprise-mechanics-that-1835662012.