With the recent controversy over lootboxes, microtransactions and pay-to-win mechanics in EA’s Star Wars: Battlefront 2, there has been an increased awareness among gamers and the community about how predatory these systems can be. EA has since then rolled back a lot of these elements, but one has to wonder if Star Wars: Battlefront 2 was just a simple miscalculation, or has EA been greedy all along, and this is them simply pulling back under massive pressure.
Turns out EA had been pushing for pay-to-win elements in their games for a good long time now, and even firing developers who refused to comply to their demands.
In a recent Round Table Live podcast, a game designer, Edmund McMillen, talked about how EA had pushed to add pay-to win systems in Plants Vs Zombies 2, and then fired the creator, George Fan, when he refused
You guys want to hear an industry story that has to do with EA and an independent developer? This is a semi-unknown story, and I hope I’m not stepping on toes with it, but I know I can…as long as I say it like a “slightly fuzzy on the details.”
It involves a friend of mine, George Fan. So George made a game called “Insaniquarium.” He made it ages ago and it won a lot of awards, and he got headhunted by PopCap. And PopCap hired him, set him off with two more people in a small office, and said, “hey, make the game” and he’s like “okay I’m going to make Plants vs. Zombies.” And he made Plants vs. Zombies, it was hugely successful, and they got acquired by EA, EA made that game even more successful. And they were like, “okay, we’re going to focus on this and we’re going to make a sequel, we’re going to do spinoffs, this and this.” And George was like, “great! I’ve got an idea for a sequel!” And he developed this game independently as well, with an independent mindset with a small team of people. It was personal. Knowing the guy, I can see the characters are personal, every little bit and pieces is something from him. So it was his baby. And they’re like “hey, y’know, let’s make this sequel, start on the sequel, and we’re going to put it on mobile, and we’re going to do this pay-to-win.” And he’s like, “ah, I dunno, it’s not a good idea, and I don’t really want to do that with my game, and they said, “you’re fired.” And he left.
This is truly shocking, and shows how little regard EA has for their customers and the games they are putting out. Their primary goal seems to – Milk your customers, kill the franchise, close the studio, move on to the next one.
George Fan has since then taken to Twitter and confirmed the story.
Regarding recent rumors, it is true I was laid off by EA/PopCap, and also true that I was against making PvZ2 a freemium game. That's all I'll say on the matter for now
— George Fan (@thegeorgefan) November 21, 2017
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Anon
bye bye EA.