EA Developer That Received Death Threats Over Star Wars Is A Fake
Post: Over the past week, much controversy has spread about the newly released Star Wars game published by Electronic Arts (EA). The uproar was generated by the fanbase of the Star Wars gaming community because of the “pay-to-win” mechanics that were introduced into the game. In other words, fans were upset that certain powerful items that were expected to be implemented into the base $60 game needed to be purchased with an in game currency earned through playtime. Although, this wasn’t an issue to the fanbase because the more hefty a price tag is on an item, the more time it takes to acquire, which shows dedication and allows players to distinguish themselves online by displaying their ownership of such items or characters. The problem, however, was that such items could also be purchased with real currency (United States Dollars). This made players angry because they felt no reason to spend hours on end to try to distinguish themselves if anyone could attain such items by entering their credit card number and forking over hundreds of dollars for a chance to attain such items.
As a matter of fact, some items gave players an advantage in game. This means that when facing an opponent that has forked over extra cash, you are already at a disadvantage. Systems similar to this have been implemented in almost every online multiplayer game over the last year because the revenue generated off of these microtransactions is too good for large corporations to pass up. People online see others with items that are powerful and think they need to spend extra money in order to compete. In fact, the last Activision (a game development company) earnings report contained a patent on a system that would match players of low skill levels to players of high skill levels that own items derived from microtransactions so the lower skilled players would feel more inclined to purchase them since they keep losing to them over and over again.
From a business perspective, this patented matchmaking system and the microtransaction market are phenomenal ways of generating revenue. However, from a consumer’s perspective, it isn’t so enticing. As a result of the implementation of such systems in EA’s latest release, fans finally decided that they have had enough and boycotted the game. EA put out a response on Reddit to the boycott saying the effort needed to earn items through playtime should result in the sense of pride and accomplishment. However, there is no effort, pride, or accomplishment in entering your credit card number. As a result, fans and other Reddit users had downvoted the response into Oblivion (over 675,000 downvotes), leaving the comment as the most hated in Reddit history.
The uproar only continued as the week progressed, and a twitter account with the bio “Game dev @EA” tweeted that he had received 7 death threats since the community outbreak. Within minutes, a Reddit user had screenshotted the tweet and posted it on Reddit. Since many people were caught up with the heat of the topic, they immediately believed the post and upvoted it. As a result, the post made the front page and others had followed suit by upvoting it as well. This post eventually got so much support that it surpassed 100,000 upvotes in just a few hours. However, when EA was questioned about the safety of the employee, they replied saying that there was no information proving the twitter user was associated with them. The twitter user then locked their account and the community soon realized that the user never worked for EA and the threats were fake all along.
This scenario directly links to the concept of Information Cascades. Since the controversial topic had recently popped up, it was very believable that employees of this company were receiving death threats, as it has previously happened with other games. Since the first few people who saw the post believed it based on their own information/belief, the following users who saw the post automatically upvoted it without verifying its validity. With the first few people “verifying” the post as true, an information cascade had formed. The massive community that later saw the post ended up doing so as well, regardless of their own information. This led to the promotion of an event that did not really occur, or in other words, fake news had spread rapidly since it was “supported” by many individuals, leaving people related to the incident misinformed.
EA’s decisions have seriously hurt their market shares over the course of the last week, with their stock price dropping 7% since the game’s release. As a result, they have finally given into their fanbase and removed all microtransactions from the game until the system has been modified to administer items that do not give players an advantage when playing online against others. Unfortunately, the damage is already done. No matter how good the game is, people have already chosen not to purchase this title in order to show major corporations that these practices aren’t acceptable, and rightfully so.