A Chaotic Launch and Dramatic Response

Star Wars: Battlefront II's launch has highlighted many of the economic and design issues with how games are monetized right now. Players feel like they have been lied to to, and that EA has deliberately designed the game out of greed. EA’s response to player outcry only rubbed salt in the wound and became the most down-voted Reddit comment of all time. Battlefront II now has a Metacritic user score of 0.9 out of 10 and there is clear “Us vs. Them” dynamic. As game-makers and players we don't fit into either category, so this is an important chance to bring perspective to this issue. 

Many players have identified Battlefront II as an important battle against predatory  monetization tactics. Loot-boxes and micro-transactions have become a bigger and bigger part of games because of their profitability but they may also be an essential part of funding more and more expensive games.  Before micro-transactions it was clear that paying $60 for a game was paying for the cost to create the game, and developers would try to create a price that could sell enough copies for a profit. This is comparable to most other goods and services we buy, but micro-transactions are completely separate, even when they are used to fund development. It feels like micro-transactions are motivated by greed since they have have become an additional cost onto games and most of us can remember a time before micro-transactions. So are micro-transactions necessary to fund the expensive development costs of modern games?

The Cost of Development

Let's try to create an estimate of how much Battlefront 2 cost to develop. DICE employs about 600 people and since the first Star Wars Battlefront, have released 3 games, so let’s estimate the Battlefront II team at 200 people. However, DICE also collaborated with Criterion Games and Motive Studios who each employ about 100 people each. Now on the publishing side from EA which includes marketing, QA, localization etc. let’s cautiously estimate that 50 additional people worked on Battlefront II. This puts our employee total at 450 people over about 2 and a half years of development time. With an average game developer salary of $60,000. We can say that 450 people working over 2.5 years would cost $67.5 Million in salary; which doesn’t even consider the cost of marketing, voiceover work, office rent and equipment. So let’s optimistically round to $80 Million. This is well in line with the cost of other big games across the AAA Spectrum. Battlefront 1 shipped 12 Million copies at the $60 price tag and since retailers take some money on each sale let’s put the estimated profits at $600 Million ($50 x 12 Million).

That's a huge profit margin for EA and matches the level of growth that EA has experienced over the last few years. And all of these estimates are before even considering the profits from DLC, season passes, etc. These are very, very rough estimates but with a lack of transparency in game budgets it’s the best we can do. The bottom line is that this estimate doesn’t make a compelling case for why Battlefront II would need micro-transactions to meet costs. Instead, micro-transactions are an effective strategy to generate additional revenue. 

Changing Times

There have already been design changes with Battlefront’s micro-transactions being temporarily turned off, and other AAA games have been dealt big blows with George Fan leaving PopCap and Destiny 2’s XP fiasco. While these events are all important, low-sales for Battlefront II would be the only way to bring about significant change.

If Battlefront II's sales do suffer, it may indicate a shift in how we finance big budget games. While high sales appear to be accommodating the high cost of game development, there’s clearly a player frustration with the current cost of playing games. Economists have made the point that games are a relatively cheap hobby, but I don’t expect player frustration to fade away anytime soon, and rightfully so.

AAA games are currently locked into a $60 price tag regardless of the development time, team size, quality or type of content. Would Battlefront II have had more success as a $40 title with paid micro-transactions or an $80 all-inclusive title? Well actually players who purchased the $80 Elite Trooper Deluxe Edition would still need to purchase micro-transactions for some missing content. The design issue here is that there is little flexibility for consumers in how to play the game. The loot box system not only adds an additional cost to the game but also makes the total cost required unclear. Consumers feel cheated because they pre-ordered a game expecting a certain amount of content. While the pricing is a part of the issue, the bigger complaint is of the deception, the smoke and mirrors which has left millions of gamers feeling betrayed and frustrated.

A Lose-Lose Situation

Of course EA loses potential sales, but this also hurts the 450 people who worked on the game, a majority of which had no influence on any of the aforementioned issues. It’s sad to see their hard work not being enjoyed by the fans who were excited to play the game. It’s a losing situation for all of those players who were excited to play the game but feel like they’re being taken advantage of. Hopefully we can reflect on this as a learning experience, but this will be determined by the games that come in the future.