At the very least, this got EA to hard-slam on the brakes, which is a good thing short-term. I hope this leads to the industry self-regulating, but the government is a different beast than it was at the genesis of the ESRB. They might go through with passing regulations this time despite the concessions put forward, which would be bad news for everybody.
@al89lan: I'm pretty sure this is just lifetime sales. Given Switch's explosive sales growth, the Switch will inevitably dwarf these numbers within the next couple of years.
The statements they've made have practically convicted them already. They suddenly found themselves without financial backing, then in order to continue operation of the business, they excised 225 people under the guise of closure. But now they've made it clear they're continuing operations. It doesn't matter what their intentions are; they broke the law by laying off their employees without due warning or severance.
Considering they didn't make a statement until well after employees were out the door, they were certainly attempting to do this quietly.
Legal by technicality unless pressing "I Decline" disallows you from accessing the opt-in/out interface. If that's the case, MoviePass is going to see lawsuits and litigation for a while now.
Here's the thing. Actual legislation is very unlikely to pass, at least how it's presented right now. However, you know what will cause change? Battlefront II's plummeting sales, EA's stock scare, and most importantly, the very real possibility that Disney will cancel EA's Star Wars license to distance themselves from this. That will send a shockwave throughout the entire industry that getting too aggressive with micro-transactions will cause massive repercussions from here on out.
Personally, I think this whole fiasco is the nudge the industry needed to change course.
I think he's taken a fair approach to this, except government shouldn't be involved in regulating this at all. It's ultimately up to the consumer to not fall for the hype and not purchase the game and speak with their wallet. The fact that EA has continued to profit from these practices is a result of people letting them get away with it.
Also, this was sent out before the microtransactions were removed? If a government official is starting to take notice of EA's terrible practices, Disney must be pretty angry at EA right now, which is kinda hilarious.
That's an unfortunate snag to hit, and a really expensive one at that. That's a hardware upgrade at every store nationwide that needs to be rolled out for PowerPass to even function properly. I'm curious to see how this will play out.
If this has boards as well, then the game's marketing is burying the lede by only emphasizing the mini-games. That said, I'm fine with this being a 3DS title, since I see it as the development team going back to the series' roots to re-discover what made the Mario Party series so great in the first place. It bodes well for the future of the series, even if it isn't flashy now.
Considering how things have developed recently, I don't know how this movie will end up not being a complete mess in terms of both quality and production. If we're still receiving conflicting reports on what universe the story takes place in this far into production, that doesn't bode well for everyone involved in the process of making the movie.
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