DICE Confirms: No Microtransactions in Star Wars: Battlefront

[Steven Bogos]

DICE Confirms: No Microtransactions in Star Wars: Battlefront

Star Wars: Battlefront will have an in-game currency for buying upgrades, but you won't be able to buy it with real-world money.

Well it looks like today is the day of Star Wars: Battlefront [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/142718-Destiny-Introduces-Microtransactions] will not have any kind of microtransactions.

Battlefront design director Niklas Fegraeus made it clear that while the game will utilize a "two-tiered" currency system (with players accumulating both "points" and "credits") neither of them will be purchasable for real money. "The currency system is based on your game performance. The credits that you use to buy things in the game are earned. You play the game, complete challenges, and that's how you get credits," explained Fegraeus.

When asked directly if there would be any kind of microtransactions in the game, Fegraeus said they were "not part of the core design" and stressed that the progression system was "based on your gameplay performance".

He essentially explained the reasoning for the two separate currencies was that "points" were collected much more frequently for much smaller tasks, while credits are earned for doing bigger stuff like challenges.

So, we can breathe easy for now that Battlefront won't have any $5 "Battlepacks" [http://battlefield.wikia.com/wiki/Battlepack] when it launches next month.

Source: GameSpot [http://www.gamespot.com/articles/no-microtransactions-in-star-wars-battlefront-says/1100-6431154/]

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[WouldYouKindly]

While this is good, it's a shame you HAD to tell us this for us to know it.

60 dollar games should never have microtransactions unless you plan to add ridiculous amounts of content for free, a la Guild Wars 2. Even then, those are pure convenience and cosmetic with minimal mechanical upgrades, like an extra bank or backpack slot.

 

[martyrdrebel27]

good timing on their part, but they've already sinned enough with what I know about this title that it still won't be a day 1 purchase for me.

all they had to do was make Battlefront 2 shiny. you had one job...

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

To be honest I just don't believe them. Or they've found another phrase to use, like "Limited in-game purchases"
Game companies don't just stop practices that make them money, and especially with a game this hyped they could require people to pull their fingernails off before playing each match and it'd still sell like hotcakes!

 

[The Madman]

I believe the interviewer must have missed the part where the director then immediately added *at launch, asterisk and all, which is pretty impressive since I'm not even sure how you'd pronounce an asterisk.

 

[The Enquirer]

It's kinda sad that a company doing something like this is considered good news when not having microtransations in full price games used to be standard industry practice. I'm hoping this isn't a semantics thing either and they follow through on this.

 

[Something Amyss]

To be honest I just don't believe them. Or they've found another phrase to use, like "Limited in-game purchases"
Game companies don't just stop practices that make them money, and especially with a game this hyped they could require people to pull their fingernails off before playing each match and it'd still sell like hotcakes!

Keep in mind, he said "not part of core design." This is a far cry from what's being presented.

Even when asked directly about credits, he uses an odd phrase about what's "in the game."

His diction could easily indicate that what he's not saying is as important here as what he is. Like, a future of DLC and MTs. Or it could be a translation thing.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

As distasteful I find microtransactions to be, they do allow casuals to compete on the same level as the people who dedicate 20 hours a day to playing. Unless there is some way for casuals to only play against casuals, then said casuals won't want to play, then the game will shrink and die.

 

[RicoADF]

The wording has me skeptical but if correct it certainly pushes the game from a nerver buy to maybe after launch. Something tells me microtransactions hasnt made them much and any gain has been overshadowed by the loss in baseline sales.

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

There's no microtransactions, but given how bare the main game is without DLC I think it now relies on the newly discovered MACROtransaction.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

It still doesn't have dedicated servers though, right?

 

[Dark Knifer]

It still doesn't have dedicated servers though, right?

It does apparently.

http://www.pcgamer.com/star-wars-battlefront-will-have-dedicated-servers/

OT: Well that's good, I'm still skeptical about this game but EA may finally claw back some goo dwill at this rate, especially with other publishers recent blunders. Hope this trend continues for them.

 

[Squilookle]

People are still following this game?

That sure is news to me! Now if anyone needs me I'll be off playing a real Battlefront game, or better yet Galactic Conquest in bf1942:

 

[Bobular]

This just in: X-Com 2 will NOT have micro-transactions. And I'm getting reports that Dark Souls 3 will also NOT have micro-transactions.

(I hope I'm right about that or I will be very disappointed.)

It's sad how this is news, it shouldn't be, it should be met with the same response as if they announced that it will have controller support or online multiplayer.

The problem is that it IS news and it DOES actually change my opinion of the game for the better. I just hope that shortly we can go back to a time when this sort of thing isn't news.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

It still doesn't have dedicated servers though, right?

It does apparently.

http://www.pcgamer.com/star-wars-battlefront-will-have-dedicated-servers/

Yet no server browser. Because that's fuckin' difficult to implement.

 

[SecondPrize]

Eh, who am I kidding? There are many other reasons I'm going to pass on this one. I do like seeing this though, I thought we had lost the war when I had read every big review of DA:I and had to learn from Seamus Young here that the game included microtransactions. I figured it was done when the gaming press didn't even think it was worth mentioning any more.

 

[Shdwrnr]

Because I'm gifted with the power of hindsight, I can already read the Kotaku article coming a couple months after release: "Microtransactions Coming To Garden Warfare Star Wars: Battlefront This Week. Thank Goodness."

They're gonna release the game designed around micro-transactions but without them. After reviews are out and the initial release cycle has ended, they'll patch them in.

 

[ron1n]

It still doesn't have dedicated servers though, right?

It does apparently.

http://www.pcgamer.com/star-wars-battlefront-will-have-dedicated-servers/

Yet no server browser. Because that's fuckin' difficult to implement.

Having dedicated servers is pointless if you can't choose what server to join. Just as likely to get pushed onto some 200+ ping server as I am a local one. I was already not enthused by the game but when they announced that console match making crap, that was the final straw.

At least they've been upfront with it though so I can save my money.

 

[TristanBelmont]

Well the rest of the game still looks like ass but hey, at least this little cancerous tumour of gaming is getting excised from this single game.
Granted it is from EA of all companies so DICE must have really had to swing this to get it pure.

 

[Gylukios]

To be honest I just don't believe them. Or they've found another phrase to use, like "Limited in-game purchases"
Game companies don't just stop practices that make them money, and especially with a game this hyped they could require people to pull their fingernails off before playing each match and it'd still sell like hotcakes!

Keep in mind, he said "not part of core design." This is a far cry from what's being presented.

Even when asked directly about credits, he uses an odd phrase about what's "in the game."

His diction could easily indicate that what he's not saying is as important here as what he is. Like, a future of DLC and MTs. Or it could be a translation thing.

Good catch. Despite the titles of this news story and the title of the Gamespot interview, he didn't actually say that there would be no micro-transactions in the game. He just said that they weren't "part of the core design," which basically translates to Battlefront not being designed as a Free-to-Play, which is designed around a player eventually having to spend some money to reasonably progress. But the wording doesn't discount the possibility of micro-transactions in Battlefront.

You could easily say that micro-transactions are "not part of the core design" of other EA titles like Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer, Dragon Age Inquisition Multiplayer, and Battlefront 4. But all three of those games have micro-transactions in them.