The upcoming online shooter Star Wars Battlefront II will probably do without a season pass. Is EA planning a monetization concept like in FIFA 17 instead?
In an interview with Mashable, it is stated that Star Wars Battlefront II will not have a season pass. However, it is still not entirely certain. Developer DICE and publisher EA seem to be at odds.
The first part, Star Wars Battlefront, had a season pass: All 4 DLCs that Star Wars Battlefront received could be secured by players at a discount at release.
It was only a year after the release that all DLCs were available and the game was “complete.”
Probably no season pass for Star Wars Battlefront II
The “post-release” plan for Star Wars Battlefront II is still vague.
In an interview with Bernd Diemer, the creative director of DICE, it is mentioned that there will be no season pass. DICE has decided that a season pass does not work for such a game. Therefore, they want to come up with something “better.”
Season pass divides the community
The season pass is seen as a danger that divides the community by locking content behind paywalls. In the first part, with each new DLC, fewer players had access to everything. This made the community smaller, friends could not play together, and it took longer for matches to happen.
The new solution is supposed to:
Allow players to play longer
Bind them more to the game
And not let the community fragment
DICE and EA are probably not in agreement
However, the plans are not yet set in stone. After the interview with Diemer’s statements was published, publisher EA responded and said: “These statements are not final yet. We are not ready to confirm our plans for the live service.”
The news is not as good as it sounds at first
Mein MMO says: Players should not celebrate the news too early. Just because there is no season pass does not necessarily mean that EA is stepping back from the strict monetization line that the publisher is criticized for.
The statement does NOT mean: All DLCs are canceled, Star Wars Battlefront II is already finished. EA and DICE certainly see Star Wars Battlefront II as a “games as a service” that should also generate revenue over at least a year.
Previously, EA announced their intent to transfer the “FIFA” concept with FIFA coins to Battlefront and Battlefield to achieve exactly what was said in the interview: Greater player engagement with the community.
Surely EA also wants to achieve something that has not been explicitly stated: Higher profit.
It could be that Star Wars Battlefront II will have intensified monetization through booster packs or similar.
In FIFA, players buy “packs” containing game characters and cosmetics. EA made 800 million dollars with this concept in 2016 across its sports games – and intends to apply it to shooter games as well.
Apparently, DICE and EA themselves are still not sure what the final concept will look like.
The multiplayer shooter Star Wars Battlefront aims to give players the feeling of being in the midst of a heated battle between the Empire and the Rebels. Laser...
