Hey, you folks who say complaining about lockboxes never changes anything? You’re demonstrably wrong.
It turns out that EA, which increased its revenues last quarter chiefly thanks to sports games, has now announced plans to rework the lootbox/lockbox system in Star Wars Battlefront II – the game whose controversy pushed the lockbox conversation into the mainstream and even to the ears of national politics. While the company won’t eschew lockboxes entirely, it will essentially make the system less pay-to-win by removing high-end preorder cards and making them craftable instead.
EA isn’t the only company walking back its lockbox/lootbox policy in order to stay on the community’s good side: Phoenix Labs, which is currently building Dauntless, is dumping the model entirely, citing feedback from players and a desire not to be “a company that is known for being able to extract capital, or some other bullshit, out of [players].”
“One of the things that we felt has not been the best of experiences is our loot box-based monetization,” Phoenix Labs’ Chris Cleroux said during a roundtable last week. “We’re going to be moving away from that as our primary monetization to more of a bespoke model like Warframe and Path of Exile, where you’ll be able to choose and pick the things you want to purchase rather than go through the gacha-box method. We feel like it’s a lot more player-first in how it works, and it also reflects a changing interest in the community.”
Keep on complaining. They are listening.
