Over the past decade, video games have elevated to a new position of cultural importance to people old and young alike.

  While the industry has grown exponentially, the success and profit of making video games has inspired developers to take advantage of their consumer base.

   EA’s recent installment Star Wars: Battlefront II was met with a furious backlash after it was revealed that the only way to unlock everything in the game was to pay for in-game credits.

  Battlefront II is in stores with a price tag of $60. EA insist players spend more than quadruple to scrape the surface of the content in Battlefront II.

  Soeren Kamper of starwarsgaming.net took the chance of card drops, the credit given for duplicate cards and the parts given per loot crate to calculate how long it would take to unlock everything without making any additional payments. 4,528 hours was his estimation. Kamper also predicted it would cost you $2,100’s worth of the in-game currency to unlock all the content in Battlefront II.

  EA has experienced a $3 billion dollar decrease in stock value due to the backlash from the consumer base.

Representative employees of EA responded to the gaming communitys’ outrage with a reddit post:

  “The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking new heroes.” EA’s community team promised to make adjustments to the loot crate system. These promises that have yet to change the price tag on unlocking everything in the game. The post concluded with  “Our team will continue to make changes and monitor community feedback and update everyone as soon and as often as we can.”

  The response posted on Battlefront II’s reddit page is now the most downvoted comment in the history of reddit. Amassing over 673,000 downvotes from reddit users.

  Senior Russell Murzenski, an avid gamer who got access to the Battlefront II beta expressed disappointment in the direction of the game as well as the industry as a whole. When asked if he planned to buy the game after playing the beta, Russell stated he wouldn’t because of the game’s loot crate system.

  He also gave some personal insight on how he feels about microtransactions all together. “They’re bad because why should I have to make additional payments for what should already be in the game?”

  Russell fully supports the boycott against EA’s Battlefront II and has no sympathy for EA due to their track record of disappointing consumers. He insist gamers buy more games that do not exploit their consumer base to encourage developers to stay clear of additional in-game purchases.

  Battlefront II is not the only triple A title to utilize microtransactions. Activision’s Call of Duty was one of the first of the big titles to utilize a loot crate system that enticed players to spend more money for an advantage over other players.

  The floodgates are now open for game publishers and developers to grab at more money from their consumers. The actions taken by gamers in  response to this new trend will decide the fate of the biggest titles releasing in years to come.