One of the main arguments that defend these practices is that it’s necessaey because game development has become so expensive. While I get the sentiment (hell I even used the argument myself in some cases), the fact that this is EA aka the biggest game publisher in the world besides maybe Activision, and the fact that this is Star Wars nullifies this argument.
It’s Star Wars. It’s going to sell, microtransactions or not. The addition of these pay to win elements can’t be excused by the need to make back development costs or salaries, because they would 100% make their money back with a title like this. No, it’s just here so they can make more money.
I think Jim Steeling said it nicely in his Year of the Loot Box video, that this all comes down to shareholders. If EA makes a ton of profit then their shareholders will be happy, people who couldn’t care less about the consumers of Battlefront 2 because they themselves probably don’t care at all about video games. This ‘turning players into payers’ practice is just stupid and at this point it’s pretty clear that they care more about money than whether the consumers like it or not. That just feels so machine-like to me, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some EA executive is thinking “Oh man I almost forgot, our consumers are human beings.”