Winning back trust

It's a long road, when you're own your own.

You've heard of Star Wars Battlefront 2. We all have. The legends. The Curses. Foolishness about it's progression being fueled by a sense of pride and accomplishment. A bright, shiny Star Wars game, leading fans to their doom. Some the fandom's staunchest critics were allured to it's initial promise. This game was meant to be a sign of... hope. The launch was meant be a symbol of the road to a better Star Wars franchise, not just for fans... but for anyone who loved video games. A chance for gamers' relationship with DICE to begin anew. Except, that perfect Star Wars game never arrived. Lootboxes froze it's potential with controversy, like a flashbulb going off. The grand launch, one big ending to an era of consumer/developer relations. It's still out there, on shop shelves, preserved, waiting to be bought and for that case to be cracked open. But maintaining it, that's not the hard part. It's bringing fans back. (Yikes, that bit went on.)

You may remember me expressing how I recently purchased and played the infamous 'Star Wars: Battlefront 2', through my scathing review of the single player campaign. Well, I must admit that since then I haven't stopped playing. It has become my go-to online game for the foreseeable future. Whereas Fallout 76 has somehow managed to slip up on it's desire to bring new content and rendered itself almost unplayable for the time being, I'm stuck with DICE's (And EA's) most recent Star Wars venture. And for the most part, I am not too disappointed with this turn of events.

I was once a huge Star Wars fan, so I have that initial hook into the universe to keep me interested, but the game itself seems solid enough anyway. It is still leagues away from the 'Battlefield 3 in space' concept that a lot of people envisioned when they first heard of this series' development, but it is better than the free-for-all of a game that was the first EA Battlefront. The maps are all beautiful and fun to fight on, (with the exception of Star Killer Base) the game modes provide a welcome dose of variety to your gameplay options, (even including a subtle survival horror mode with Ewok Hunt) and, crucially, the progression is entirely fixed from what it was at launch; No need to buy powerups or Heroes. (You still have to earn a ludicrous amount of credits for skins, however.)

All that being said, I am still far away from forgiving the game for the state that it left the games industry in. On one hand it's despicable greed was so retchingly abhorrent that it ushered in talks that may not have happened, were EA were more subtle in slipping their hands into our wallets. On the otherhand, we are a few legal proceedings away from the US government setting a precedent for altering content in video games, a precedent that is sure to have wide reaching consequences, like I have commented amount in length. But all of this mess did put Battlefront 2 in a peculiar place wherein it's solid gameplay was completely overlooked due to it's practises. DICE have since gone above and beyond to retro fit the game in a desperate bid to win back consumers. (Although the only thing that won me back was that steep discount.) There is an interesting lesson to be learned here about maintaining public relations amidst the heaviest backlash, and recently one EA DICE employee partook in an interview to share what that was like, so I gave it a look

Dennis Brännvall, Design director for Star Wars Battlefront 2, spoke with gamesindustry.biz about much of the aftermath of the great lootbox fiasco of 2017. "Not a week goes by without us thinking, 'Imagine if we hadn't launched with loot boxes the way we did.'" Dennis shares how much of the game's potential was stifled by association and how, ever since, the team have been fighting tooth and nail to win back the respect of the community. They see their struggle as similar to the one that Rainbow Six: Siege went through in the early stages of it's life; initial struggles overshadowed by a meteoric rise to prominence. For my part I do find this equivalence somewhat wanting; Siege is the game for asymmetric tactical shooter fans whilst Battlefront lacks a distinct voice of it's own, but I see where the man is coming from.

He didn't shy away from the consequences of their initial blunder either. Dennis expresses how the team "Hit rock bottom in regards to player sentiment." and says that "the team had to look at itself in the mirror a little bit, pick ourselves up from a really rough Christmas for everyone and then just get back to work." This message does sort of ring familiar to what Respawn (another EA subsidiary) echoed after their own monetisation controversy, but the Battlefront team differ in that they actually backed up these words with action. After the backlash from the beta regarding pay-to-win mechanics, DICE pulled all lootboxes from the game 24 hours before launch (Entirely out of the goodness of their hearts and in no way because Bob Iger called looking a butt to stick his foot up.)

He had promising words for the future too. (Promising depending on where you approach this issue, at least.) Dennis said that the team had no intention on moving onto Battlefront 3 anytime soon. (And that's not just because EA refuses to give them funding for a third game after the mess they made of 2.) He claims that their company has been "on the 'Sequel treadmill' for quite some time now", and how they have the desire to switch direction and start building 'communities' instead of 'customers.' The way he paints things, the traditional model of making games is no longer conductive to a healthy game and they would rather spend their time building on the foundation they established. He highlighted Battlefront 1 as an example of this. During that game's development, they knew the end date of the team's support before they started, and so they felt no incentive to work on fundamental systems that didn't work; they could just fix it in the next game. Nowadays we see updates every month as DICE slowly push this game into a state comparable to 14 year old original. (You'll get there one day guys!)

Pushing past all the crud, I do appreciate what Dennis had to share here regarding the game. He spent time reinforcing the importance of satisfying the community in this day-and-age, over just fleecing them for money; and he's right. Nowadays, gamers are spoilt for choice in just about every genre that they can imagine. If you want a high quality first person shooter you have, COD, Battlefield, Battlefront and Apex Legends. If you want a battle royale you have, Fallout, COD, Fortnite and Apex Legends. If you want a highly competitive tactical multiplayer experience you have, Siege and Overwatch. (I guess.) AAA developers no longer have the power of exclusivity to strong arm players into putting up with their nonsense and must build up their player base in other ways. Just look at the huge drop off that Black Ops 4 had after it's initial release, players want to feel like their game has more staying power, even in market traditionally dominated by one-year life cycle games.

I suppose that, in a way, this signals the death of traditional games, everything from this point forward must have some sort of 'live service' element. I am often rather critical of the 'live-service' model, but seeing as how it's now the future (ugh) I suppose I should try to glean some benefits. (Maybe I'll write a blog to that effect down the line.) The release of, the abominably-named, Rise of the Skywalker, should usher a substantial number of fans back to the game. At that point we will be able to see if DICE really have learnt their lesson, or if they slip back into their money-grubbing ways by paywalling all the cool things behind stupid credit grinds. (Mark my words.) I may have lost most all interest in the struggle of 'light vs dark', but 'consumers vs corperations' ought to be an struggle worth paying attention to this December.