The developers of a new Star Wars video game are backing off their controversial business strategy following a storm of criticism on the social media site Reddit.
Fans of 鈥淪tar Wars: Battlefront II鈥� showed their dark side earlier this week when they discovered the game鈥檚 maker, Electronic Arts, was keeping popular characters Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader behind a paywall.
The characters could only be unlocked by in-game purchases, or logging a substantial 40 hours of gameplay.
Gamers upset that the 鈥榤icrotransaction鈥� business model could lead to a 鈥減ay-to-win鈥� advantage for some, took to Reddit to express their displeasure.
EA originally said they intended to give gamers a sense of accomplishment when they unlocked the characters by playing for hours. A ultimately became the most down-voted comment in the history of the site.
The company said it would reduce the cost to unlock the characters by 75 per cent. Then, , EA said in response to 鈥渓oud and clear鈥� messages from gamers, it will be removing in-game purchases for now.
鈥淲e鈥檝e heard the concerns about potentially giving players unfair advantages,鈥� the company said. 鈥淲e鈥檝e heard that this is overshadowing an otherwise great game. This was never our intention. Sorry we didn鈥檛 get this right.鈥�
鈥淲e will now spend more time listening, adjusting, balancing and tuning.鈥�
EA did say the ability to make in-game purchases would return to 鈥淪tar Wars: Battlefront II,鈥� but only after they鈥檝e made changes to the game.
