EA creates “moral compass” to prevent Battlefront II-like disasters

In a recent interview, EA’s VP of strategic growth, Matt Bilbey, has stated that the publisher has created a “moral compass”, which is designed to ensure that their future “live services” are designed and tested early to ensure the company maintains “pillars of fairness, value, and fun”. 

This “moral compass” comes as a direct result of EA’s Star Wars: Battlefront II controversy, stemming from the game’s original “loot box” system. The system, as designed, promoted a pay-to-win economy, with some item drops allowing players to gain a statistical advantage over others in the title’s online multiplayer modes.

EA removed Battlefront II’s paid loot box option shortly before the game’s launch, leaving these items available through loot crate drops, purchasable only using in-game currency. The downside of this was that experienced players with plenty of items still gave them an advantage over newcomers. Later, the game’s loot system was removed from Star Wars: Battlefront II title entirely, creating a cosmetic only microtransactions system for the game, though even today the game has a negative perception within the gaming community. 

Bilbey says that “We learned a lot from Star Wars: Battlefront”, prompting him to create a team alongside Patrick Söderlund to “redesign our game development framework and testing platforms” to ensure that similar mistakes are not made in the future. This change includes early testing with gamers and greater attention to consumer feedback.