After this week’s outrage at Star Wars Battlefront II microtransactions, it has now been confirmed that EA has pulled this feature out of the game until ‘a later date’. But according to the Wall Street Journal, Disney were the ones behind this change.
The Wall Street Journal claims that Chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Company, Robert Iger, said to be “alarmed” by the bad publicity of Star Wars Battlefront II and that the company is unhappy with how the controversy was reflecting poorly on the Star Wars brand. This concern from Disney caused EA to pull out the transaction completely.
EA posted on their website a statement discussing the microtransactions. Oskar Gabrielson wrote the statement and thanked many fans for their support. Oskar Gabrielson, GM, Dice, carried on saying:
“We hear you loud and clear, so we’re turning off all in-game purchases. We will now spend more time listening, adjusting, balancing and tuning. This means that the option to purchase crystals in the game is now offline, and all progression will be earned through gameplay. The ability to purchase crystals in-game will become available at a later date, only after we’ve made changes to the game. We’ll share more details as we work through this.”
Star Wars Battlefront II has been in the news all week and it was only two days ago that the Belgian Gambling Commission announced that they will be specifically investigating Star Wars Battlefront II and Overwatch.
The director of the Belgian Gambling Commission, Peter Naessens, stated that “if there is a game of chance, it is not possible without a permit from the Gaming Commission” (translated via Google Translate – original quote “Als er sprake is van een kansspel, dan kan dat niet zonder vergunning van de Kansspelcommissie”). But this would not affect the laws in the United Kingdom or the United States as the authorities are not looking into this currently.