You lost me at "talentless bastards at Dice". Dice is a very talented developer, and ignoring the predatory microtransactions (which I'm fairly confident was EA's decision, not Dice's), Battlefront 2 is a good game.

I actually agree with you. The most basic thing the ESRB could have done is give games that have lootboxes a M rating to avoid potential issues like publishers offering minors a way to gamble. But since no one really gave a damn till this exploded in EA's face, it's no surprise that now the authorities are getting involved.

You can't say "vote with your wallet" after the fact, it's too late now.

Overwatch lootboxes contain only cosmetic items like skins, not characters/items that affect gameplay unlike battlefront 2.

Because some games, mostly notably and recently Star Wars Battlefront 2, take it way too far so it gives the perception that you have to pay more otherwise the gameplay penalises you. I've played many games with microtransactions/loot boxes, such as Mass Effect and Assassins Creed, without ever buying them. However, I avoid Battlefront as it seemed to be a really struggle to advance in the game without using the loot boxes.

That was never the job of ESRB. I mean the ESRB was around before online play on consoles was really a thing and their on it was basically online experiences could vary.

Also, loot boxes tend to be time savers. Hence, you can unlock stuff usually by earning in game currency as well. The problem with Battlefront 2 is people are upset how long it takes. Street Fighter V has a similar problem. Both suffered a backlash from it.

So again, developers/publishers are paying a price already when consumers get upset.

It is the job of the ESRB which is why they released a statement on the matter and why wouldn't it be? What's the point of a self-regulator that doesn't regulate?

The problem with this is that companies will always want you to buy lootboxes and they'll pressure you into doing this by making unlocks in game so time consuming and grindy to force you into forking over cash. Time is money anyways so unless you have all day to play video games then chances are you're going to have to buy their "time savers", which is basically the politically correct way of saying "pay to win".

Unless there's action then this will just blow over, everyone's already forgotten about the gambling scandal with CS GO from last year.

Thats subjective for many people. For many people a nice looking skin is more important than boosters that upgrade your charcaters stats,  the Microtransactions in SW BF2 also arent effecting the singleplayer.

It didnt change the fact that we had an explosion of lootboxes in recent times, there is only so much you can boycott and rage if all developers do it. SFV suffered a backcklash because of luckluster content during launch not because of its way how you unlock new characters.

I don't need to play Trucks Over the Road Racing to know it's bad. It's bad. Garbage. Pure shit. Same goes for this. It's inferior in every way to the PS2/XB version of the game sharing the same name. It's bad. It's from a bad dev from an even worse company

They're a bad dev team. They should've been shut down like every other studio that EA has

Yaassss loot boxes must be stopped.
enough.gif