I miss LucasArts. X-Wing vs Tie Fighter, Dark Forces, Jedi Outcast, Galactic Battlegrounds, Pod Racer, Republic Commando, KOTOR, and the original Battlefront games were my childhood, even more so than the movies. EA doesn't make games, they make money pits.
Great video guys. I think you covered this exceptionally well. The loot boxes and pay to play issue has been a concern for me for a very long time. I have found the practice of this option to be very negative and I agree that it is in fact a form of gambling. It's a shoddy way for companies to make money off of consumers. I feel it's one of the big negatives in gaming today. If this is not ended, it'll kill the gaming industry. People will get fed up and stop gaming altogether.
The problem is that the whales out there that make up 1% to 5% of the player base is what these companies are more concerned with. If it wasn't for the backlash from the entire community causing all the media attention then I have a feeling EA would have told us to suck it up. I remember one video I saw where Activision said "We need to figure out how to make these $60 gamers into $250 gamers". We are seeing a shift back to the days of old arcades where you pay a $0.25 every time you wanted to play.
Disney choosing to license Star wars to only one game company was a colossal mistake. EA has had Star Wars going on 5 years now!!! And so far we have only seen TWO lousy games in half a decade. And just like Disney, EA is NOT listening to its fan base. No GALACTIC CONQUEST which fans have been asking for since they made the first battlefront. This is what happens when there is no competition. No reason to try, to innovate, to think outside the box. The movies aren't saving the brand, and the games aren't saving the brand. Why the hell would I want to buy toys of movies I don't like and games I don't like.
There's the whole debacle about them defending microtransactions, saying things like skins would break the "universe". "A Pink Vader would be too silly". And what did EA add after the whole microtransactions debacle? Skins.
I did not buy Battlefield II for my son specifically because all of the BS with the loot crates. Not to mention I didn't care for the COMPLETE lack of any kind of story or questline in Battlefield I. BTW, would REALLY like to see you guys do some live streams. Have been a fan for a while and now a Patreon subscriber as well.
In hindsight I was a moron. I remembered when I called those people "doomsayers" who claimed how Disney buying Star Wars was a bad idea, nuts. I thought because of what they had done with Marvel that they were a company that can benefit Star Wars. I was wrong. Between Solo and the EA!Battlefront series as well as cancelling Star Wars 1313 as well as other fans being not satisfied with The Last Jedi, Star Wars under Disney is turning out to be as disastrous as The DCEU. Kennedy needs to resign and Disney needs to bring back LucasArts and those who made the original battlefront games.
It's tragic because the game itself is pretty fun. The campaign sucked, but it launched with a lot of worthwhile content on the multiplayer side. Only if they could stick with the skins microtransactions and have the current progression system, we can very well have the most content rich and somewhat deep online Star Wars game to date. Man, those publishers just don't have self restraint sometimes.
I thought the campaign was alright up to the point before the timeskip, the whole ordeal on Jakku was boring and lifeless compared to the previous levels, which although repetitive, were more story based and felt more important in the grand scheme of things. I thought the main character's transition away from the First Order's extremist views felt a bit abrupt but entirely workable, with some extra dialogue. But yeah, overall the game is a pretty clear improvement over its predecessor, it's a shame that EA games once again blew it, by introducing the most badly planned and most greedy loot box system in the history of the industry.
Fuck that why have micro transaction on a 60$ game if it was free to play like world of tanks I be fine with skin being to pay for but a 60$ game hell no
If you guys want to start discussing gaming topics on Midnight’s Edge, too, I wholeheartedly support it. You guys did very well discussing Battlefront’s controversy.
_"Star Wars has always been about the Fans"_ What Big and Utter Bull Crap with what their saying. So far what they done with the Franchise has NOT been about the Fans.
Finally, Midnight's Edge is back on track. The only minor gripe with the video was the omission of the games X-Wing, Tie Fighter, Rebel Assualt, KOTOR and Dark Forces, but their exclusion did not really hurt the narrative. I was *very* critical of the last few Star Wars videos, it's nice to see you back in form.
It won't die, but maybe it will be forced to largely decrease new releases for a while due to oversturation. It's quite likely that the "every year a tripple A game and a movie" phase will end very soon. Well, personally I still play SWTOR every now and then, but aside from that I haven't had any contact to Star Wars any more since I was dragget to Force Awakens (which was an inferior copy to A New Hope that failed to re-ignite any interest in post Old Republic Star Wars in me).
Kaefer1973 I say that the franchise needs a rest after the mess they've put it through so far. I know Star Wars means something to a lot of people but it's oversaturating the market with cholesterol and needs to go on a hiatus for awhile.
If you guys do more videos centered around video games, be sure to make one about the Marvel VS Capcom series. There's plenty of controversies and legal disputes to talk about there.
Say whatever you want about G.Lucas, but the guy could make and interesting and bast universe with cool characters. None of the new games and movies have done anything like that....
They have been doing this to a greater extent and extremely successfully with the sports games. Especially FIFA for years. EA is a horrible place to work it was well known among industry workers 15 years ago.
I fuckin love y'all's content. Always well informed, researched and delivered with the utmost clarity. Even when a subject comes up, that y'all are fans of, we as an audience are given an honest opinion weather you liked or love it. I get genuinely excited getting notifications. Cheers!
THAT is the problem.. LucasFilm in 1 Million years should never licensed StarWars to EA.. I dont know the terms of their contract, of course..but LucasFilm should buy back the licensing rights and never release anything under that publisher
Whether you like The Last Jedi or Solo or not the facts are pretty clear this brand is going through some serious trouble and it has nothing to do with a bunch of disgruntled fans it has to do with the complete and utter mismanagement by Kathleen Kennedy.. ... I think it's pretty telling that for a Star Wars fan like myself who's pretty much read and immersed himself and everything there is about Star Wars doesn't care anymore about what's coming out I have no interest at all to see episode 9 and if what I have put together is true nor would anyone else.
xxakulaxx Strikes Agreed one hundred percent. I was a legends fan and loved this franchise. But the ST is crap; the new canon outside a handful of stuff sucks and battlefront 2 was disappointing. Kennedy needs to be removed and some new leadership is needed. Someone who can get the brand back into gear. Because with all of this plus Roseanne; shareholders are not happy.
Person who liked TLJ here, I agree. The production of Solo was a catastrophe, regardless of its end result. I have no way to prove this, but to me it feels like they had some grand plan for the Sequel Trilogy, but it was too similar to the original trilogy, after TFA got some criticisms for its similarities to the OT, they just had Ryan Johnson veer as far away from the plan as possible, which was a tad excessive, and it led to mixed results. It is pretty clear to me that they are on a reactionary path, they had plans, the investors were not confident in those plans, so LucasFilm just tried to take every criticisms each movie got on face value and that may have done more damage than simply following that predictable path.
Bought The Force Awakens on Blu-ray, but haven't seen the other Disney Star Wars movies. I know enough about them to not bother. I'd rather stick to the Original Trilogy and the Expanded Universe.
If you see anything on Twitter or Facebook regarding Kennedy the top comments usually are by people claiming that she's only getting hate because she's a woman
Creepy Closet and that's done intentionally is one of the oldest tricks in the book to try and win an argument when you know you have nothing to support yourself you label somebody something negative
Yeah. It was the one two punch of this game and the Last Jedi that gave me fatigue and made me concern where Star Wars is going. Star Wars video games from the late 90s to the mid late 2000s were great. When EA got the license I was scared because of the past controversies whether its with DLC, or Dungeon Keeper, Mass Effect 3, etc but was optimistic hoping that EA would not get greedy. I was also hopeful as EA between them, Activision, and Ubisoft they had the game developers to have some variety; Battlefront revived and made by the makers of Battlefield, a cool third person game under Visercal and the writer and director of the first 3 Uncharted games, BioWare getting the oppertunity to make another game, a podracer game from the Burnout developers. After the head of EA admitted that Battlefront 1 was rushed out the door to take advantage of the hype of the Force Awakens made me made, but made me hopeful that Battlefront 2 would be better as Star Wars is already in the mainstream(I was even in that panel in Orlando sitting with the audience praying that nothing would go wrong.) After this I'm not buying not just another Star Wars game, but another EA game. They fucked it up too much already. Honestly if there's ever going to be more Star Wars games either Disney/Lucasfilm revitalize Lucasarts and make that a publisher and license out the IP to other developers similar to how Marvel is doing with Insomanic with Spiderman and Square Enix doing whatever they're doing with the Avengers or just make the games themselves. This year's E3 will be very interesting to see; I expect the audience will boo on EA's stage. I'm curious to see how Anthem will perform because my prediction is Anthem will crash, EA will shut down Bioware, and that will be the final straw.
Holy crap I wrote a lot, but needless to say I'm a big Star Wars fan, I love the games back in the day, and I'm sad that EA ruined any hope for a comeback.
Thanks God for Jim! Also, Ubisoft still going on "Games as service" road. Also, they patched out lootboxes almost after a year after they suspended sells of lootboxes.
While a lot of this is old news to me, I'm glad to see you guys are venturing into video games territory, Battlefront 2 seems like a good place to start and you've done really well. I'm not sure how much more video game related stuff you have planned but I'm looking forward to more, also have you ever considered doing more coverage on video game movies? Like the Mario animated film by Illuminations, the Five Nights at Freddy's movie by Blumhouse or the long in development Uncharted movie at Sony?
EA is notorious for making you pay for basic features like in SWTOR you must pay to unify gear colors. This is super annoying because most people want their outfit to match and look good.
A decent video, but paid lootboxes are not neutral whether they are cosmetic or not. Halo, for example, used to have a great cosmetic Customization system for a player spartans with it all being unlocked in game. Now those cosmetics are locked behind a paid lootbox system. ANY kind of paid lootbox fucking blows and they need to go the fuck away.
Why did Disney give EA the Star Wars game license? Heck, why did Disney even shut down LucasArts in the first place? Seems like a huge entertainment enterprise like Disney would want to keep this stuff in house
They were and still are one of the biggest video game publishers in the industry, who have a lot of in house studios they could turn to and develop games for them.
Disney makes shitty games and just like EA buys and ruins game companies. just because their big doesn’t mean their good at it. Disney should stay far from games
Awesome video. That is some of the exact same problems that I had with battlefront 2. Personally I prefer when some maps can be purchased. My favorite monetization is how GTA Online did it.
The problem of the lootboxes in this game was not well understood: in a nutshell, players were unfamiliar with it, and such systems are generally controversial. But the chief reason was that it was poorly designed. You could level fairly well by playing in the live version, and get what you want by “crafting”. So what went wrong? First, the loot items made you believe that, naturally, the loot items you get are the important part, when in practice, the crafting parts (a currency to unlock and upgrade) were more important. If that was communicated better, players knew how to advance in a good pace. Second, the loot you got was distributed over too many categories. Suppose there were three classes and you get a few random items: you’d always get something useful. But when you have 50 different classes, then the few items you get will likely upgrade all kinds of classes you aren’t interested in. This shouldn’t have been a problem, since this game’s class system is also a bit misleading, because you switch and play different things anyway, but you see the lack of clarity made it seem as you would never get what you want. Third, a few characters (aforementioned “classes”) were additionally locked and had to be unlocked by spending credits, which you would use to get more lootboxes. The prices where not excessive, about 4.5 trooper boxes. Even quite fair, this wrinkle had the additional effect that you would collect items (see point 2) for classes you could not actually play right away. So if you’d spent money (which was disabled) you could get upgrades for stuff you‘d have to spent money on to unlock first. I leave out some more aspects that play into this. If this sounds complicated, then because it was. Bottom line: mixing money with systems that are convoluted (even if quite moderate in practice) will anger players.
In what way? Kathleen Kennedy, who was with Lucasfilm even before it was sold, is the one calling the shots. If anything, they should remove her and strip away more and more of Lucasfilm's management and replace it with some fresh minds.
I really don't think that's the case. It call comes down (PHRASING) to management, and Kevin Feige is currently better at what he does, than Kathleen Kennedy is at what she does.
Thanks guys! I’m not a gamer so I heard all about this loot box stuff second hand, it was very confusing but you did a great job of explaining it. Since you seem to be covering the current issues with the Star Wars brand are you planning to discuss the toy issue at some point?
EA has effectively abandoned Battlefront II despite their promises to fix the glaring issues with the game. The worst part about all of this is that EA has the exclusive rights to make Star Wars games, and what have they done with it? Made two Battlefront games that pale in comparison to the 2005's Battlefront II, made a bunch of mobile freemium games, and canceled their single player story focused game because they felt that they couldn't profit enough from it. We can't really blame EA for this as a scorpion will always sting you, it is in their nature. The true blame goes to the people at Lucasfilms that thought it was a good idea to give exclusive rights to Star Wars games to EA. And they did that despite the numerous examples of franchises that EA has run into the ground though mismanagement and greedy practices.
I was literally GIVEN a brand new sealed PS4 copy of Bf2 when I bought my PS4 Pro before Christmas. They had so many unsold copies GameStop was LITERALLY giving them away. I played the single player after the microtransactions were removed, thought it was nothing special, and deleted it after the microtransactions were restored. I wanted to make space for more deserving games like Dot Hack GU
Very good video, I think you should have focused a bit more on the whole gambling aspect of the lootboxes. This game meticulously designed a system that is designed to make you impatient due to a lack of satisfying rewards THUS pressuring you to pull the lever and spin the slot machine
the video game industry is at a strange point in its history. it's stronger than ever, but online play and online updates have changed how things are done. when i was a kid I would buy a copy of the game I wanted and there were no downloadable extras or updates. some pc games had add on expansions, but that was about it. and it was a simple thing. the fact that you can keep updating your game is a nice thing, but having to continue spending money ona game you bought can be a little annoying. however the servers cost money to be mantained and such, etc. I wonder what this will eventually evolve into.
I understand where you're coming from, but at the same time take a look at how advanced many games are. You have online play, updates, big name voice actors, motion capture, etc. And things like servers need security, bandwidth electricity, and people to make them all run. We didn't have all those long term costs back in the 80's, and when you factor in for inflation games are actually cheaper now than they were then.
I'm just absolutely amazed it's taken most people, the media, politicians this long to bother considering (and actually do something to stop it) that pay-to-win games can potentially encourage children to essentially gamble. And now I wonder what'll happen to some of the games that I used to play that later implemented in-game store purchases with items necessary to progress thru the game. This'll be an interesting year or two for the gaming industry, maybe.
Loot boxes are a gambling mechanic that exploit the same pleasure centers in the human brain as slot machines. They are a manipulative mechanic designed to milk costumers of their money.
Overwatch loot box items are cosmetic only. The items can be purchased with ingame credits earned from playing. The boxes can be purchased with real money or earned from just playing. They're fine but it's the bells and whistles when you open them, the aforementioned gambling mechanic, that's gotten them into trouble with Belgium.
That's just it, it doesn't matter if it's just cosmetic or not, it's still a gambling mechanic that exploits the weak willed. It's still gambling and should be regulated as such.
With the Star Wars franchise's recent failings, the best thing for Disney to do would be to let Star Wars go dormant after episode IX, do absolutely nothing with it for a few years and have Lucasfilm make other things in the mean time. If they just keep going and going with the one film a year approach, things will only get worse.
I have to take issue with your description of Star Trek Online. I have been play since before FTP. I purchased a lifetime membership at a time when it was on sale at a discount. The advantage is, Gold Members get a monthly stipend of zen, one of the in game currencies. You use zen to buy ships, gear or other services, if you want. However you don't need to do this in order to trick out you character or ship. There are also in game means to acquire zen without spending any real money. STO isn't perfect but it's my favorite and they're model for in game currency works really well.
You know...with the current state of Star Wars? I am really concerned for the future of the Indiana Jones series as well. They are working on a new one already. I hope to god that Kathleen Kennedy is gone by the time they enter production in earnest. I read it was supposed to start filming next year.
She was relatively fresh in the industry at that point as she had previously been an assistant to Steven Spielberg. Note if you look at her filmography on wikipedia? She is listed as associate producer of the original 3 Indiana Jones films. She has produced good movies. But after seeing her manage Star Wars? I am not so sure if it's in Star Wars or Indiana Jone's best interest keeping her on. She is listed as the producer for Indiana Jones 2020.
Rumor has it that Shia that played Indiana`s son in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, is back in the next one, he has turned evil and Joined the Nazi`s and kills Harrison Ford in the end of the movie by running a sword trough him, Indianas Jones best female student who everybody loves watches this happen, she runs up to Indiana While he`s dying, with hes last energy Indiana Jones gives her his hat and whip and says "continue my legacy... and dont let any white males like me get in your way....uuuurgh!!" She put the hat on turns to the camera and says "Its time for Indiana...JANE"
Solid coverage of the issue as a whole, but I feel it might be a bit pre-mature to say that Loot Boxes are anywhere near done. While Battlefront 2 and Shadow of War did eventually scale those features back, they were the primary bad apples of the industry. Everyone criticized them and generally agreed that they were the point that the system was being taken too far. As for the legislation against them; its safe to say that most politicians will gradually quiet down on the issue, and those who have forced through legislation will slowly reverse it as more research comes up and the potential flaws of any legislation are brought to their attention if they try to; Namely the Base Ball card issue. But it'll be an interesting issue to see with time. Frankly the system doesn't seem likely to go away any time soon, but massive failures like this will serve as a reminder as to how far the consumer base will tolerate this money making strategy.
I really loved watching the story mode of the game. Not in a hurry to spend every penny in my pocket to play the entire thing. Playing Lego Star Wars games was the funnest time of my childhood and early teen years. Battlefront 2 could've been a fantastic game and EA pooped the bed.
You should do a video about how hard it is to work for LucasFilms in producing video games. There's some amazing information out there about how difficult making a video game for LucasFilms actually is.
Oh, I Soooooo wanted a copy of that Parker Brothers Star Wars game, but I (or more rightly, my family) just couldn't afford an Atari 2600; sure it was only $100 then, but that's over $500 today (yeah, I can afford that now of course, but not when I was still in Junior High ^_^).
I found the last Jedi pretty good tbh. Solo was decent but not great. The toys are over priced, but if you can get them for cheap they're cool as of late. Comics are pretty great actually right now. But good fucking god. Battlefront. Kill me now. That was a train wreck of godly proportions. They'd have been better off making that mess a download only free to play game to have even considered implementing such an outrageous and downright insulting loot box and progression system. I will never throw money at Star Wars when EA is on the box of the product i'm looking at ever again. Disney need's to get that licence off EA's hands ASAP. It's already damaged the Star Wars brand. This shit will just happen again in a year or two if action is not taken now. And this has damaged EA's brand too. Visceral games, well known for the Dead space series of game was tasked by EA to produce a star wars game. And when they chose to make a story driven single player adventure with the IP, EA responded in kind by shutting down the studio operations and leaving many developers suddenly jobless. The gaming public at large saw this as an insult to not only their talented employee's, but the many works that studio had produced, as well as too star wars. As their title had the makings of a potentially great single player star wars experience, in the vein of the Force Unleashed several years back. The sad fact is that EA is a company that is so bad it doesn't even try to hide that it's basically evil, and wishes to make money, and accomplish nothing else. And they've had this reputation since 2012 with gamers and the release of the hotly anticipated, Mass Effect 3. A single player game which still found itself at them mercy of copious amounts of micro transactions. As well as an ending to a trilogy so rushed and poorly thought out that it was bordering on an insult to fans that had followed the property till then, all because EA insisted on rushing the game out, much to the dismay of developer Bioware. Honestly the controversy with Battlefront 2 runs far deeper then just that game alone. EA has been a publicly despised company for a number of years now. With them actually standing as the fifth most hated company in America, according to polls and research and such conducted by the wall street journal and USA today. This stuff is so far out of hand that I think EA's greed and blatant disrespect for their customers is going to severely damage their company before all too long yet. I honestly consider lucasfilm giving them the game license a massive and destructive mistake.
Appropriate that you used takes from the _South Park_ episode "Freemium isn't Free" when you were talking about microtransactions and "free to play" games. It was meant as a parody but it really did lay bare the truth.
I remember the original Battlefront series. It was fun and the new series doesn't seem that way if I can't even play the game that I bought in all its glory. EA sucks.
Back in the day i loved EA from the call of duty games to the 007 games from the gamecube. After the battlefront 2 gambling with microtransactions & mocking totalbiscuits passing im essentially an anti EA fan.
A little late to the game. The video is great, but doesn't talk about the horrible single player game/story. I do see later videos they get into more detailed reviews. So no worries.
I got Battlefront 2 from a sale and regret it. It's a step down from the last game of content and modes. I play it every once in a while whenever they release new content. Dice put more effort into Battlefield 1 than Battlefront 2...
I think devs should do the right thing and deliver a well crafted and fun core game. Consumers are willing to pay for this, and this is the way games were done for many years. It feels like these companies have see the success of micro-transactions seen in free to play mobile games and basically want their cake and eat it too. Nothing pisses people off more that paying 60.00 for a game, then paying another 20 - 30 for DLC and then ponying up additional cash for in game micro-transactions. Fuck these greedy assholes. PS the new Star Wars films also have pissed people off, this franchise needs a rest in general.
Already back when it was announced that EA will be in charge of the Star Wars game until 2023, many people knew they would find a way to fuck it up. This was no surprise to anyone who had knowledge of EA's history. These people have been known for killing decent games series and devs for years. That the movies would suck so hard was my biggest fear when Lucas sold it to Disney. But after the prequels, I thought "heck, Disney can't be worse". I was wrong of course. Kathleen Kenndy feminist logic + Disney's forced "diversity" is THE WORST that has to happen to Star Wars.
I have to wonder what the point of this video was? All the information you covered here has been covered many times over by other channels when this situation was actually going on about 2 or 3 months ago. Not only that you failed to mention some major components of the situation like EA caiming they could not do cosmetic items because they where forced maintain canon by Disney and no one wanted a pink Darth Vader. Yet when the game was data mined some one actually found a hidden character customizer and EA just added cosmetic items in later anyways despite their earlier claims. You also did not mention that when people complained about the amount cost of heroes EA lowered their crystal cost but only to lower how much crystals you earned from completing the story mode. Effectively appearing to do something but actually doing nothing. When asked why they did this EA claimed that the crystals you get from the story mode was only designed to get you the main character from the story mode. Yet when then asked " if that is the case then why did just not make her unlockable after story mode completetion?" they had no answer making it obvious that they just wanted you to blow the crystals on some thing else in hopes a player would just shell out cash for the higher priced heroes. There are other things you missed as well like the amount of credits you could earn through multiplayer was throttled and you could only earn so much per day. Or the fact that you could drop $99.99 on loot crates (for a game that retailed for $60) and still get fuck all.
Helmut Klaue The point of the video was that a lot of this is new information for the non-gamer but Star Wars inclined segment of the ME audience. Yeah, gaming channels might have covered this before, and angles of interest to gamers in greater detail, but to many, this is still new information.
Stop with the doom and gloom of the toy sales. It's an over-exaggeration As explained in Deadline's analysis of Solo's opening weekend; Toy sales for TLJ were predicted to make Disney 600M. They only made 450M. THIS is why there's reports of toys not selling. Not because they aren't selling, but because Disney did not make as much as they hoped. Star Wars was still the best selling toy brand over the 12 week 2017 holiday period and the second best selling toy brand of 2017. Also, merchandise sales grew for TFA and the sale figures for TLJ match pre-TFA numbers. It also has to be factored in that TLJ did not add many new characters. Most of the toyline was made up of Rey, Finn, Poe, Kylo Ren, BB8, Leia, Chewbacca, General Hux, Captain Phasma and Stormtroopers very few of whom had significant new costumes to make buying all new figures seem "worth it" to non-collectors. Nearly all of these characters bar Rey, Poe and Leia all wear the same costumes from TFA (the only difference for Kylo is a scar and the only difference for Finn is a patch in his jacket). The Captain Phasma and General Hux action figures were pretty much exactly the same as the TFA ones (just with new accessories). The only major new characters for the merchandise in TLJ were Luke, Rose, DJ, Holdo, Snoke, Paige, the Praetorian Guards and the Porgs. Compare this to Rogue One where the entire cast was new characters (bar Vader and a other cameos) and for Attack of the Clones/Revenge of the Sith where everyone had new costumes or new looks; Obi-Wan grew a beard, Anakin got a scar and a mullet, Padme got several new costumes and the films introduced tons of new characters (Dooku, Grievous, Clones etc.). This is why the MCU is killing it in toy sales, because every character has a completely new look and new costume for each film. Do you really think Iron Man has a different suit in every film for story reasons? If Episode 9 gives everyone new looks alongside entirely new costumes then toy sales will improve for Episode 9. Give everyone new costumes, new hairstyles, maybe let Finn or Poe grow a beard or something and introduce more than a handful of new characters. The Star Wars doom and gloom on this channel is overblown. The movies (bar Solo) are killing it with critics and at the box office, toy sales are sustainable, TLJ moved the franchise away from the Skywalker/Solo family which allows the franchise to continue without new protagonists being Luke's secret granddaughter or something. It may be an unpopular move at the moment, but it opens the franchise up creatively and potentially offers us the possibility of an Episode 10, 11 and 12 that don't feature a single Skywalker/Solo. It's an idea some may not like, but it allows the franchise to feel bigger instead of the same family at the centre of everything ALL the time. We've yet to have a Star Wars movie without a Skywalker/Solo at the centre of the story (Rogue One was about a bunch of characters setting up Luke's story, still making Luke the centre of that story even if he wasn't in it). Honestly, I'm excited to see Star Wars without the Skywalkers. It allows the franchise to move on, feel bigger and allow anyone to be a hero in Star Wars regardless of their lineage. This I feel is the important thing that's being forgotten; The Last Jedi made it so you don't have to be Luke's second cousin twice removed to be the hero in a Star Wars movie.
Loot boxes are gambling and beling banned. My favorite game STO puts the best ships of the game in there and give us players a impossible chance to get them. You would pay easy 200 bucks for one and it still might not even be the ship you wanted. That constitutes gambling and the crime of exposing children to gambling and even worse! Criptyc should be sued first that. And it is even a shitty idea. Think about how much more people would regularly spend 30 or more bucks, to buy a t6 toss era ship! Well I myself and thousands of players don't even bother anymore. Loot boxes are only geting collected to keep the inventory free.
It's funny how hard these companies messing up with an established franchise with expanded universe all set up for them but, they say fuck that fan bullshit, let's make these for the fans. Disney already had a proven platform with the marvel movies that picks and translates things from the comics to the screen. Maybe I'll get a reboot of StarWars in 20 years.
I support NIS America by purchasing DLC's, but NIS America is no huge company like EA and the mothercompany NIS was in severe trouble financially. Since EA is only slightly on top of Adolf Hitler on the likability list, I certainly wouldn't support them in any way financially outside of buying the main game (which in case of EA games I also rarely do).
I miss LucasArts. X-Wing vs Tie Fighter, Dark Forces, Jedi Outcast, Galactic Battlegrounds, Pod Racer, Republic Commando, KOTOR, and the original Battlefront games were my childhood, even more so than the movies. EA doesn't make games, they make money pits.
Shadows of The Empire & Rogue Squadron were great too.
Don't forget about Empire at War and the OG Battlefront II that was (and with EAW) is my shit.
It really annoyed me they shut down their studio part way through The Force Unleashed series. We never got that third game.
LucasArts also did Grim Fandango and the first Mercenaries game.
X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter was good, so was X-Wing (1993), but Tie-Fighter (1994) was the best of them.
I'm not sure how many gamers watch your channel but I have to say you explained the lootbox system very well.
We certainly tried to gather all the pertinent information.
I'm early, time to make a Prequel quote.
"I've been looking forward to this"
Coming next: Andre's analysis of "Solo A Star Wars Story"'s boxoffice failings!
Excellent.
Doomcock's trailer spoiled the whole thing!
The only reason why the Last Jedi has a controversy is because Netflix undermined the movie with Sleeper agents to promote their movie Blright.
Ooooooooooooooh! I'm looking forward to that video very much!
Roundtable is around the corner as well!
I miss good single player Star Wars games
DionysusJPower Kotor 😍
The idiot in suit keep say that game as service is the fueture oh did God of war destroy them in sales and they lost to asingle player game
Great video guys. I think you covered this exceptionally well. The loot boxes and pay to play issue has been a concern for me for a very long time. I have found the practice of this option to be very negative and I agree that it is in fact a form of gambling. It's a shoddy way for companies to make money off of consumers. I feel it's one of the big negatives in gaming today. If this is not ended, it'll kill the gaming industry. People will get fed up and stop gaming altogether.
The problem is that the whales out there that make up 1% to 5% of the player base is what these companies are more concerned with. If it wasn't for the backlash from the entire community causing all the media attention then I have a feeling EA would have told us to suck it up. I remember one video I saw where Activision said "We need to figure out how to make these $60 gamers into $250 gamers". We are seeing a shift back to the days of old arcades where you pay a $0.25 every time you wanted to play.
Western gaming, anyways.
Great video guys, I would definitely like to see more of Midnight's Edge videos on gaming controversies.
Uh... The 501st in the game were named after the group not the other way around.
Well, then I got bad information. Sorry about that.
RobotShlomo np i just remember when the game came out getting excited about the 501st getting put in the game
Disney choosing to license Star wars to only one game company was a colossal mistake. EA has had Star Wars going on 5 years now!!! And so far we have only seen TWO lousy games in half a decade. And just like Disney, EA is NOT listening to its fan base. No GALACTIC CONQUEST which fans have been asking for since they made the first battlefront. This is what happens when there is no competition. No reason to try, to innovate, to think outside the box. The movies aren't saving the brand, and the games aren't saving the brand. Why the hell would I want to buy toys of movies I don't like and games I don't like.
Battle front 2=A Star Wars themed casino
Thank you for mentioning the very underrated SW: Bird vs Camel
There's the whole debacle about them defending microtransactions, saying things like skins would break the "universe". "A Pink Vader would be too silly". And what did EA add after the whole microtransactions debacle? Skins.
I did not buy Battlefield II for my son specifically because all of the BS with the loot crates. Not to mention I didn't care for the COMPLETE lack of any kind of story or questline in Battlefield I. BTW, would REALLY like to see you guys do some live streams. Have been a fan for a while and now a Patreon subscriber as well.
We are working on it :)
I always thought that Disney's closure of Lucas Arts was a stupid move on their part. But to give the game rights to EA!? Idiocy!!
In hindsight I was a moron. I remembered when I called those people "doomsayers" who claimed how Disney buying Star Wars was a bad idea, nuts. I thought because of what they had done with Marvel that they were a company that can benefit Star Wars. I was wrong. Between Solo and the EA!Battlefront series as well as cancelling Star Wars 1313 as well as other fans being not satisfied with The Last Jedi, Star Wars under Disney is turning out to be as disastrous as The DCEU. Kennedy needs to resign and Disney needs to bring back LucasArts and those who made the original battlefront games.
Haha, did that official really just say, “it’s a trap”?? LOL
glad a couple people caught that lol
(it wasn't in the original script but when editing - hearing that - it was going in the mini-doc no matter what) (-Tom)
It's tragic because the game itself is pretty fun. The campaign sucked, but it launched with a lot of worthwhile content on the multiplayer side. Only if they could stick with the skins microtransactions and have the current progression system, we can very well have the most content rich and somewhat deep online Star Wars game to date. Man, those publishers just don't have self restraint sometimes.
倪传历 i prefer the 2005 version
I thought the campaign was alright up to the point before the timeskip, the whole ordeal on Jakku was boring and lifeless compared to the previous levels, which although repetitive, were more story based and felt more important in the grand scheme of things. I thought the main character's transition away from the First Order's extremist views felt a bit abrupt but entirely workable, with some extra dialogue. But yeah, overall the game is a pretty clear improvement over its predecessor, it's a shame that EA games once again blew it, by introducing the most badly planned and most greedy loot box system in the history of the industry.
Fuck that why have micro transaction on a 60$ game if it was free to play like world of tanks I be fine with skin being to pay for but a 60$ game hell no
If you guys want to start discussing gaming topics on Midnight’s Edge, too, I wholeheartedly support it. You guys did very well discussing Battlefront’s controversy.
_"Star Wars has always been about the Fans"_ What Big and Utter Bull Crap with what their saying. So far what they done with the Franchise has NOT been about the Fans.
Finally, Midnight's Edge is back on track. The only minor gripe with the video was the omission of the games X-Wing, Tie Fighter, Rebel Assualt, KOTOR and Dark Forces, but their exclusion did not really hurt the narrative. I was *very* critical of the last few Star Wars videos, it's nice to see you back in form.
The end of Star Wars is near.
Lucasfilm (in name only) may dread it, they may run from it, but destiny will still arrive.
No it'll survive. Star Wars never dies.
Her time as Lucasfilm President very likely has limited time left anyway.
The end of Star Wars is here. FTFA
It won't die, but maybe it will be forced to largely decrease new releases for a while due to oversturation. It's quite likely that the "every year a tripple A game and a movie" phase will end very soon.
Well, personally I still play SWTOR every now and then, but aside from that I haven't had any contact to Star Wars any more since I was dragget to Force Awakens (which was an inferior copy to A New Hope that failed to re-ignite any interest in post Old Republic Star Wars in me).
Kaefer1973
I say that the franchise needs a rest after the mess they've put it through so far.
I know Star Wars means something to a lot of people but it's oversaturating the market with cholesterol and needs to go on a hiatus for awhile.
If you guys do more videos centered around video games, be sure to make one about the Marvel VS Capcom series. There's plenty of controversies and legal disputes to talk about there.
Say whatever you want about G.Lucas, but the guy could make and interesting and bast universe with cool characters. None of the new games and movies have done anything like that....
That man couldn't write a decent character to save his life.
red pitt because a space janitor and a Mary sue is way better....
+red pitt Characters like Luke Skywalker perhaps?
Very few of the good things in star wars can be attributed to George Lucas.
Yes, yes they are.
They have been doing this to a greater extent and extremely successfully with the sports games. Especially FIFA for years. EA is a horrible place to work it was well known among industry workers 15 years ago.
EA pretty much created the loot box.
ua-cam.com/video/PTLFNlu2N_M/v-deo.html
I've despised EA ever since they bought Maxis and started milking The Sims. They're the absolute worst.
I fuckin love y'all's content. Always well informed, researched and delivered with the utmost clarity. Even when a subject comes up, that y'all are fans of, we as an audience are given an honest opinion weather you liked or love it. I get genuinely excited getting notifications. Cheers!
We know why SW: BF2 failed, it's because EA is running the show.
THAT is the problem.. LucasFilm in 1 Million years should never licensed StarWars to EA.. I dont know the terms of their contract, of course..but LucasFilm should buy back the licensing rights and never release anything under that publisher
Lego Star Wars for Xbox 360 was the shit
Humphrey61 That was the first real video game I ever played on a PC.
Battlefront wasn’t on GameCube, or else I would’ve bought that shit.
Oh fudge.
I remember a Star Wars game where you play as a storm trooper on the Gamecube, but I forget the name.
mariokarter13 Clone Wars.
+Miken Ayers Darn, I was gonna comment that exact thing.
the only star wars games for GC were Jedi Outcast, CloneWars, Lego 1 and 2, Bounty Hunter and RogueSquadron 2 and 3
Whether you like The Last Jedi or Solo or not the facts are pretty clear this brand is going through some serious trouble and it has nothing to do with a bunch of disgruntled fans it has to do with the complete and utter mismanagement by Kathleen Kennedy.. ...
I think it's pretty telling that for a Star Wars fan like myself who's pretty much read and immersed himself and everything there is about Star Wars doesn't care anymore about what's coming out I have no interest at all to see episode 9 and if what I have put together is true nor would anyone else.
xxakulaxx Strikes Agreed one hundred percent. I was a legends fan and loved this franchise. But the ST is crap; the new canon outside a handful of stuff sucks and battlefront 2 was disappointing. Kennedy needs to be removed and some new leadership is needed. Someone who can get the brand back into gear. Because with all of this plus Roseanne; shareholders are not happy.
Person who liked TLJ here, I agree. The production of Solo was a catastrophe, regardless of its end result. I have no way to prove this, but to me it feels like they had some grand plan for the Sequel Trilogy, but it was too similar to the original trilogy, after TFA got some criticisms for its similarities to the OT, they just had Ryan Johnson veer as far away from the plan as possible, which was a tad excessive, and it led to mixed results.
It is pretty clear to me that they are on a reactionary path, they had plans, the investors were not confident in those plans, so LucasFilm just tried to take every criticisms each movie got on face value and that may have done more damage than simply following that predictable path.
Bought The Force Awakens on Blu-ray, but haven't seen the other Disney Star Wars movies. I know enough about them to not bother.
I'd rather stick to the Original Trilogy and the Expanded Universe.
If you see anything on Twitter or Facebook regarding Kennedy the top comments usually are by people claiming that she's only getting hate because she's a woman
Creepy Closet and that's done intentionally is one of the oldest tricks in the book to try and win an argument when you know you have nothing to support yourself you label somebody something negative
Yeah. It was the one two punch of this game and the Last Jedi that gave me fatigue and made me concern where Star Wars is going. Star Wars video games from the late 90s to the mid late 2000s were great. When EA got the license I was scared because of the past controversies whether its with DLC, or Dungeon Keeper, Mass Effect 3, etc but was optimistic hoping that EA would not get greedy. I was also hopeful as EA between them, Activision, and Ubisoft they had the game developers to have some variety; Battlefront revived and made by the makers of Battlefield, a cool third person game under Visercal and the writer and director of the first 3 Uncharted games, BioWare getting the oppertunity to make another game, a podracer game from the Burnout developers. After the head of EA admitted that Battlefront 1 was rushed out the door to take advantage of the hype of the Force Awakens made me made, but made me hopeful that Battlefront 2 would be better as Star Wars is already in the mainstream(I was even in that panel in Orlando sitting with the audience praying that nothing would go wrong.) After this I'm not buying not just another Star Wars game, but another EA game. They fucked it up too much already. Honestly if there's ever going to be more Star Wars games either Disney/Lucasfilm revitalize Lucasarts and make that a publisher and license out the IP to other developers similar to how Marvel is doing with Insomanic with Spiderman and Square Enix doing whatever they're doing with the Avengers or just make the games themselves. This year's E3 will be very interesting to see; I expect the audience will boo on EA's stage. I'm curious to see how Anthem will perform because my prediction is Anthem will crash, EA will shut down Bioware, and that will be the final straw.
Holy crap I wrote a lot, but needless to say I'm a big Star Wars fan, I love the games back in the day, and I'm sad that EA ruined any hope for a comeback.
Thanks God for Jim!
Also, Ubisoft still going on "Games as service" road.
Also, they patched out lootboxes almost after a year after they suspended sells of lootboxes.
While a lot of this is old news to me, I'm glad to see you guys are venturing into video games territory, Battlefront 2 seems like a good place to start and you've done really well. I'm not sure how much more video game related stuff you have planned but I'm looking forward to more, also have you ever considered doing more coverage on video game movies? Like the Mario animated film by Illuminations, the Five Nights at Freddy's movie by Blumhouse or the long in development Uncharted movie at Sony?
In just a couple of years they have manage to destroy the once powerful brand of Star Wars into a joke.
EA is notorious for making you pay for basic features like in SWTOR you must pay to unify gear colors. This is super annoying because most people want their outfit to match and look good.
A decent video, but paid lootboxes are not neutral whether they are cosmetic or not. Halo, for example, used to have a great cosmetic Customization system for a player spartans with it all being unlocked in game. Now those cosmetics are locked behind a paid lootbox system.
ANY kind of paid lootbox fucking blows and they need to go the fuck away.
Oooo, I saw the title and knew dis was gonna be good
Why did Disney give EA the Star Wars game license? Heck, why did Disney even shut down LucasArts in the first place? Seems like a huge entertainment enterprise like Disney would want to keep this stuff in house
They were and still are one of the biggest video game publishers in the industry, who have a lot of in house studios they could turn to and develop games for them.
Disney makes shitty games and just like EA buys and ruins game companies. just because their big doesn’t mean their good at it. Disney should stay far from games
Money, money, money, money, money, money and did I mention MONEY!!
19:52 Chris Lee quotes Admiral Ackbar. What a guy. The highlight of the upload for me.
Just wanted to say that I really liked this video. It was very informative
Awesome video. That is some of the exact same problems that I had with battlefront 2. Personally I prefer when some maps can be purchased. My favorite monetization is how GTA Online did it.
It's worth noting that while the character cost to purchase was reduced the amount of points gained was reduced by the same %.
The problem of the lootboxes in this game was not well understood: in a nutshell, players were unfamiliar with it, and such systems are generally controversial. But the chief reason was that it was poorly designed. You could level fairly well by playing in the live version, and get what you want by “crafting”. So what went wrong?
First, the loot items made you believe that, naturally, the loot items you get are the important part, when in practice, the crafting parts (a currency to unlock and upgrade) were more important. If that was communicated better, players knew how to advance in a good pace.
Second, the loot you got was distributed over too many categories. Suppose there were three classes and you get a few random items: you’d always get something useful. But when you have 50 different classes, then the few items you get will likely upgrade all kinds of classes you aren’t interested in. This shouldn’t have been a problem, since this game’s class system is also a bit misleading, because you switch and play different things anyway, but you see the lack of clarity made it seem as you would never get what you want.
Third, a few characters (aforementioned “classes”) were additionally locked and had to be unlocked by spending credits, which you would use to get more lootboxes. The prices where not excessive, about 4.5 trooper boxes. Even quite fair, this wrinkle had the additional effect that you would collect items (see point 2) for classes you could not actually play right away. So if you’d spent money (which was disabled) you could get upgrades for stuff you‘d have to spent money on to unlock first.
I leave out some more aspects that play into this. If this sounds complicated, then because it was. Bottom line: mixing money with systems that are convoluted (even if quite moderate in practice) will anger players.
The difference to me is clear. Marvel Studios under Disney has been granted more and more autonomy, while Lucasfilm has had it stripped away.
Stephen Anderson Agree
In what way? Kathleen Kennedy, who was with Lucasfilm even before it was sold, is the one calling the shots. If anything, they should remove her and strip away more and more of Lucasfilm's management and replace it with some fresh minds.
False. Kathleen Kennedy is president of Lucasfilm and behind every bad decision.
+Tyr Ranos wow you must know everything
I really don't think that's the case. It call comes down (PHRASING) to management, and Kevin Feige is currently better at what he does, than Kathleen Kennedy is at what she does.
Thanks guys! I’m not a gamer so I heard all about this loot box stuff second hand, it was very confusing but you did a great job of explaining it.
Since you seem to be covering the current issues with the Star Wars brand are you planning to discuss the toy issue at some point?
EA has effectively abandoned Battlefront II despite their promises to fix the glaring issues with the game. The worst part about all of this is that EA has the exclusive rights to make Star Wars games, and what have they done with it? Made two Battlefront games that pale in comparison to the 2005's Battlefront II, made a bunch of mobile freemium games, and canceled their single player story focused game because they felt that they couldn't profit enough from it.
We can't really blame EA for this as a scorpion will always sting you, it is in their nature. The true blame goes to the people at Lucasfilms that thought it was a good idea to give exclusive rights to Star Wars games to EA. And they did that despite the numerous examples of franchises that EA has run into the ground though mismanagement and greedy practices.
I was literally GIVEN a brand new sealed PS4 copy of Bf2 when I bought my PS4 Pro before Christmas. They had so many unsold copies GameStop was LITERALLY giving them away. I played the single player after the microtransactions were removed, thought it was nothing special, and deleted it after the microtransactions were restored. I wanted to make space for more deserving games like Dot Hack GU
Very good video, I think you should have focused a bit more on the whole gambling aspect of the lootboxes.
This game meticulously designed a system that is designed to make you impatient due to a lack of satisfying rewards THUS pressuring you to pull the lever and spin the slot machine
LateNightGaming
Hello there
Awesome video as always thanks for the amazing work 👍
the video game industry is at a strange point in its history. it's stronger than ever, but online play and online updates have changed how things are done.
when i was a kid I would buy a copy of the game I wanted and there were no downloadable extras or updates. some pc games had add on expansions, but that was about it. and it was a simple thing.
the fact that you can keep updating your game is a nice thing, but having to continue spending money ona game you bought can be a little annoying. however the servers cost money to be mantained and such, etc.
I wonder what this will eventually evolve into.
I understand where you're coming from, but at the same time take a look at how advanced many games are. You have online play, updates, big name voice actors, motion capture, etc. And things like servers need security, bandwidth electricity, and people to make them all run. We didn't have all those long term costs back in the 80's, and when you factor in for inflation games are actually cheaper now than they were then.
i haven't had a video game system since gamecube
You also need to do a video about the State of Star Wars MHO.
I'm just absolutely amazed it's taken most people, the media, politicians this long to bother considering (and actually do something to stop it) that pay-to-win games can potentially encourage children to essentially gamble. And now I wonder what'll happen to some of the games that I used to play that later implemented in-game store purchases with items necessary to progress thru the game. This'll be an interesting year or two for the gaming industry, maybe.
Ohhhh! And now I'm wondering what'll happen to all those damned Facebook games!
Loot boxes are a gambling mechanic that exploit the same pleasure centers in the human brain as slot machines. They are a manipulative mechanic designed to milk costumers of their money.
Overwatch loot box items are cosmetic only. The items can be purchased with ingame credits earned from playing. The boxes can be purchased with real money or earned from just playing.
They're fine but it's the bells and whistles when you open them, the aforementioned gambling mechanic, that's gotten them into trouble with Belgium.
That's just it, it doesn't matter if it's just cosmetic or not, it's still a gambling mechanic that exploits the weak willed. It's still gambling and should be regulated as such.
With the Star Wars franchise's recent failings, the best thing for Disney to do would be to let Star Wars go dormant after episode IX, do absolutely nothing with it for a few years and have Lucasfilm make other things in the mean time. If they just keep going and going with the one film a year approach, things will only get worse.
19:46 on purpose? if so he's a don
Games like this are a reason why sleeper hits like Warframe are gaining popularity
Prequels love 😍😙
I have to take issue with your description of Star Trek Online. I have been play since before FTP. I purchased a lifetime membership at a time when it was on sale at a discount. The advantage is, Gold Members get a monthly stipend of zen, one of the in game currencies. You use zen to buy ships, gear or other services, if you want. However you don't need to do this in order to trick out you character or ship. There are also in game means to acquire zen without spending any real money. STO isn't perfect but it's my favorite and they're model for in game currency works really well.
You know...with the current state of Star Wars? I am really concerned for the future of the Indiana Jones series as well. They are working on a new one already. I hope to god that Kathleen Kennedy is gone by the time they enter production in earnest. I read it was supposed to start filming next year.
She was relatively fresh in the industry at that point as she had previously been an assistant to Steven Spielberg. Note if you look at her filmography on wikipedia? She is listed as associate producer of the original 3 Indiana Jones films. She has produced good movies. But after seeing her manage Star Wars? I am not so sure if it's in Star Wars or Indiana Jone's best interest keeping her on. She is listed as the producer for Indiana Jones 2020.
Rumor has it that Shia that played Indiana`s son in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, is back in the next one, he has turned evil and Joined the Nazi`s and kills Harrison Ford in the end of the movie by running a sword trough him, Indianas Jones best female student who everybody loves watches this happen, she runs up to Indiana While he`s dying, with hes last energy Indiana Jones gives her his hat and whip and says "continue my legacy... and dont let any white males like me get in your way....uuuurgh!!"
She put the hat on turns to the camera and says "Its time for Indiana...JANE"
Solid coverage of the issue as a whole, but I feel it might be a bit pre-mature to say that Loot Boxes are anywhere near done. While Battlefront 2 and Shadow of War did eventually scale those features back, they were the primary bad apples of the industry. Everyone criticized them and generally agreed that they were the point that the system was being taken too far. As for the legislation against them; its safe to say that most politicians will gradually quiet down on the issue, and those who have forced through legislation will slowly reverse it as more research comes up and the potential flaws of any legislation are brought to their attention if they try to; Namely the Base Ball card issue. But it'll be an interesting issue to see with time.
Frankly the system doesn't seem likely to go away any time soon, but massive failures like this will serve as a reminder as to how far the consumer base will tolerate this money making strategy.
I really loved watching the story mode of the game. Not in a hurry to spend every penny in my pocket to play the entire thing. Playing Lego Star Wars games was the funnest time of my childhood and early teen years. Battlefront 2 could've been a fantastic game and EA pooped the bed.
You should do a video about how hard it is to work for LucasFilms in producing video games.
There's some amazing information out there about how difficult making a video game for LucasFilms actually is.
Good summary
That vector graphic Star Wars arcade game was so fucking sweet!
ok so I did not know how many governments spoke against it, like I knew the EU one but damn
What was the source of that Harlan Ellison quote? I'm not contesting it, I'm just a fan and would be curious to know the context of his vitriolic.
40 hours isn’t that much. Hell, i’ve put more than 800 hours into left 4 dead.
just for some minor shit that's a lot and that game doesn't have a good variety of content (like usual for an EA product)
Will never ever buy a SW game from EA again.
Lucasfilm Spokesperson: "Star Wars has always been about the fans..."
OMG, I think I just pissed myself.
Oh, I Soooooo wanted a copy of that Parker Brothers Star Wars game, but I (or more rightly, my family) just couldn't afford an Atari 2600; sure it was only $100 then, but that's over $500 today (yeah, I can afford that now of course, but not when I was still in Junior High ^_^).
I found the last Jedi pretty good tbh. Solo was decent but not great. The toys are over priced, but if you can get them for cheap they're cool as of late. Comics are pretty great actually right now. But good fucking god. Battlefront. Kill me now. That was a train wreck of godly proportions. They'd have been better off making that mess a download only free to play game to have even considered implementing such an outrageous and downright insulting loot box and progression system. I will never throw money at Star Wars when EA is on the box of the product i'm looking at ever again. Disney need's to get that licence off EA's hands ASAP. It's already damaged the Star Wars brand. This shit will just happen again in a year or two if action is not taken now. And this has damaged EA's brand too. Visceral games, well known for the Dead space series of game was tasked by EA to produce a star wars game. And when they chose to make a story driven single player adventure with the IP, EA responded in kind by shutting down the studio operations and leaving many developers suddenly jobless. The gaming public at large saw this as an insult to not only their talented employee's, but the many works that studio had produced, as well as too star wars. As their title had the makings of a potentially great single player star wars experience, in the vein of the Force Unleashed several years back.
The sad fact is that EA is a company that is so bad it doesn't even try to hide that it's basically evil, and wishes to make money, and accomplish nothing else. And they've had this reputation since 2012 with gamers and the release of the hotly anticipated, Mass Effect 3. A single player game which still found itself at them mercy of copious amounts of micro transactions. As well as an ending to a trilogy so rushed and poorly thought out that it was bordering on an insult to fans that had followed the property till then, all because EA insisted on rushing the game out, much to the dismay of developer Bioware. Honestly the controversy with Battlefront 2 runs far deeper then just that game alone. EA has been a publicly despised company for a number of years now. With them actually standing as the fifth most hated company in America, according to polls and research and such conducted by the wall street journal and USA today. This stuff is so far out of hand that I think EA's greed and blatant disrespect for their customers is going to severely damage their company before all too long yet. I honestly consider lucasfilm giving them the game license a massive and destructive mistake.
Great game despite the crappy microtransactions and unlock system. Really fun
Appropriate that you used takes from the _South Park_ episode "Freemium isn't Free" when you were talking about microtransactions and "free to play" games. It was meant as a parody but it really did lay bare the truth.
You guys forgot that battlefront was inspired by a battlefield1942 star wars mod called Star Wars Galactic Conquest.
I remember the original Battlefront series. It was fun and the new series doesn't seem that way if I can't even play the game that I bought in all its glory. EA sucks.
Back in the day i loved EA from the call of duty games to the 007 games from the gamecube. After the battlefront 2 gambling with microtransactions & mocking totalbiscuits passing im essentially an anti EA fan.
That entire craft card nonsense is so convulted and confusing, what the fuck was Dice smoking when they came up with this.
_Pride and accomplishment_
A little late to the game. The video is great, but doesn't talk about the horrible single player game/story. I do see later videos they get into more detailed reviews. So no worries.
pretty sure they will keep milking it til the box office is 99 cents..comrade.
Boy, this video would have been great about 8 months ago.
I got Battlefront 2 from a sale and regret it. It's a step down from the last game of content and modes. I play it every once in a while whenever they release new content. Dice put more effort into Battlefield 1 than Battlefront 2...
I think devs should do the right thing and deliver a well crafted and fun core game. Consumers are willing to pay for this, and this is the way games were done for many years. It feels like these companies have see the success of micro-transactions seen in free to play mobile games and basically want their cake and eat it too. Nothing pisses people off more that paying 60.00 for a game, then paying another 20 - 30 for DLC and then ponying up additional cash for in game micro-transactions. Fuck these greedy assholes. PS the new Star Wars films also have pissed people off, this franchise needs a rest in general.
Already back when it was announced that EA will be in charge of the Star Wars game until 2023, many people knew they would find a way to fuck it up. This was no surprise to anyone who had knowledge of EA's history. These people have been known for killing decent games series and devs for years.
That the movies would suck so hard was my biggest fear when Lucas sold it to Disney. But after the prequels, I thought "heck, Disney can't be worse". I was wrong of course. Kathleen Kenndy feminist logic + Disney's forced "diversity" is THE WORST that has to happen to Star Wars.
The customer strikes back!
20:55 Soooooo they felt unhappy with EA ripping gamers off...so they considered ACTIVISION? The fuck?!
Ooh this show be interesting
November 2017: DISNEY, take EA's Star Wars license away!
December 2017: EA, take DISNEY's Star Wars license away!
It feels like the AAA game industry wants to be the mobile game market
"LucasFilms have been shopping the license to Ubisoft and Activition."
LMAO. THATS THE SAAAAAAAAAAAAAME FUCKING THING AS EA!
Factual clarification: Battlefront never released on the Game Cube.
Sorry, I got bad information.
I get it, it happens. :) That's why I'm not all like, WTF MAN! DONT YOU EVEN KNOW STAR WARS!!!! *RAGE* *FIRE* UNSUB!!!!!!!!!!
I have to wonder what the point of this video was? All the information you covered here has been covered many times over by other channels when this situation was actually going on about 2 or 3 months ago. Not only that you failed to mention some major components of the situation like EA caiming they could not do cosmetic items because they where forced maintain canon by Disney and no one wanted a pink Darth Vader. Yet when the game was data mined some one actually found a hidden character customizer and EA just added cosmetic items in later anyways despite their earlier claims.
You also did not mention that when people complained about the amount cost of heroes EA lowered their crystal cost but only to lower how much crystals you earned from completing the story mode. Effectively appearing to do something but actually doing nothing. When asked why they did this EA claimed that the crystals you get from the story mode was only designed to get you the main character from the story mode. Yet when then asked " if that is the case then why did just not make her unlockable after story mode completetion?" they had no answer making it obvious that they just wanted you to blow the crystals on some thing else in hopes a player would just shell out cash for the higher priced heroes.
There are other things you missed as well like the amount of credits you could earn through multiplayer was throttled and you could only earn so much per day. Or the fact that you could drop $99.99 on loot crates (for a game that retailed for $60) and still get fuck all.
Helmut Klaue The point of the video was that a lot of this is new information for the non-gamer but Star Wars inclined segment of the ME audience. Yeah, gaming channels might have covered this before, and angles of interest to gamers in greater detail, but to many, this is still new information.
Stop with the doom and gloom of the toy sales. It's an over-exaggeration
As explained in Deadline's analysis of Solo's opening weekend; Toy sales for TLJ were predicted to make Disney 600M. They only made 450M. THIS is why there's reports of toys not selling. Not because they aren't selling, but because Disney did not make as much as they hoped. Star Wars was still the best selling toy brand over the 12 week 2017 holiday period and the second best selling toy brand of 2017. Also, merchandise sales grew for TFA and the sale figures for TLJ match pre-TFA numbers. It also has to be factored in that TLJ did not add many new characters. Most of the toyline was made up of Rey, Finn, Poe, Kylo Ren, BB8, Leia, Chewbacca, General Hux, Captain Phasma and Stormtroopers very few of whom had significant new costumes to make buying all new figures seem "worth it" to non-collectors. Nearly all of these characters bar Rey, Poe and Leia all wear the same costumes from TFA (the only difference for Kylo is a scar and the only difference for Finn is a patch in his jacket). The Captain Phasma and General Hux action figures were pretty much exactly the same as the TFA ones (just with new accessories). The only major new characters for the merchandise in TLJ were Luke, Rose, DJ, Holdo, Snoke, Paige, the Praetorian Guards and the Porgs. Compare this to Rogue One where the entire cast was new characters (bar Vader and a other cameos) and for Attack of the Clones/Revenge of the Sith where everyone had new costumes or new looks; Obi-Wan grew a beard, Anakin got a scar and a mullet, Padme got several new costumes and the films introduced tons of new characters (Dooku, Grievous, Clones etc.).
This is why the MCU is killing it in toy sales, because every character has a completely new look and new costume for each film. Do you really think Iron Man has a different suit in every film for story reasons?
If Episode 9 gives everyone new looks alongside entirely new costumes then toy sales will improve for Episode 9. Give everyone new costumes, new hairstyles, maybe let Finn or Poe grow a beard or something and introduce more than a handful of new characters.
The Star Wars doom and gloom on this channel is overblown. The movies (bar Solo) are killing it with critics and at the box office, toy sales are sustainable, TLJ moved the franchise away from the Skywalker/Solo family which allows the franchise to continue without new protagonists being Luke's secret granddaughter or something. It may be an unpopular move at the moment, but it opens the franchise up creatively and potentially offers us the possibility of an Episode 10, 11 and 12 that don't feature a single Skywalker/Solo. It's an idea some may not like, but it allows the franchise to feel bigger instead of the same family at the centre of everything ALL the time. We've yet to have a Star Wars movie without a Skywalker/Solo at the centre of the story (Rogue One was about a bunch of characters setting up Luke's story, still making Luke the centre of that story even if he wasn't in it). Honestly, I'm excited to see Star Wars without the Skywalkers. It allows the franchise to move on, feel bigger and allow anyone to be a hero in Star Wars regardless of their lineage. This I feel is the important thing that's being forgotten; The Last Jedi made it so you don't have to be Luke's second cousin twice removed to be the hero in a Star Wars movie.
The Time Wanderer
Im sorry but that all sounds like excuse
Loot boxes are gambling and beling banned. My favorite game STO puts the best ships of the game in there and give us players a impossible chance to get them. You would pay easy 200 bucks for one and it still might not even be the ship you wanted.
That constitutes gambling and the crime of exposing children to gambling and even worse!
Criptyc should be sued first that.
And it is even a shitty idea. Think about how much more people would regularly spend 30 or more bucks, to buy a t6 toss era ship!
Well I myself and thousands of players don't even bother anymore. Loot boxes
are only geting collected to keep the inventory free.
It's funny how hard these companies messing up with an established franchise with expanded universe all set up for them but, they say fuck that fan bullshit, let's make these for the fans. Disney already had a proven platform with the marvel movies that picks and translates things from the comics to the screen. Maybe I'll get a reboot of StarWars in 20 years.
I support NIS America by purchasing DLC's, but NIS America is no huge company like EA and the mothercompany NIS was in severe trouble financially. Since EA is only slightly on top of Adolf Hitler on the likability list, I certainly wouldn't support them in any way financially outside of buying the main game (which in case of EA games I also rarely do).
Star Wars Ransomware 2: Pay now. pay later, in the end, you will pay!
Seems like Star Wars fans are revolting all over the place.
The cosplayers came first. The unit in the game was a nod to the fans.