Opinion: EA Is Learning From Their Mistakes

EA for nearly a decade has earned a reputation for using several different business practices on their games to earn or even extort money from titles they already sold at full price. But as of recently with the announcement of Battlefield V, I took a look around and realized that the publisher is trying to undo the damage.
As early as 2010 with titles like Medal of Honor, Mass Effect 2, and Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, EA introduced an Online Pass for players who purchased the game new would have access to play the multiplayer portion of their titles. For those who might borrow the game or buy it pre-owned, would have to purchase the pass, making it irritating for those who also payed for the game and the online service on their platform.

Since then, Electronic Arts has been on a roller coaster of gained and lost trust from their consumers. In 2013, the publisher has announced that they will be dropping the Online Pass for all games that required it to play online. But even with that being one less issue, there were still Season Passes, or Premium Passes as they would call it for some games. At the time and still now, many games follow the same structure to release the base game and later release content for players to purchase. As most titles sold their DLC separately, EA had a different way of doing it.
Similar to the Rockstar Pass for LA Noire, EA gave players the option to pay at launch on top of already purchasing the game for the upcoming content. Along with including exclusive content and opportunities to give players a reason to purchase it like profile cosmetics and early access. And to an extent this is good, but for what gave season passes the notoriety we all know was that we already payed for the game, isn’t this the full package?
Following later after with the introduction of microtransactions, giving players the ability to purchase their way to victory. Instead of those who prefer not to play the game now had to option to buy boosters and buffs to reach the same position as those who put hours into the game. Which later caused more harm than profit as seen with some of the recent titles EA has released like Star Wars: Battlefront 2 and Need for Speed: Payback.

Reaching to why EA has been known for this anti-consumer character they have, leaving many fans angry as these payment options flood the market and show no remorse to what they’ve done. But after the backlash of complaints towards their titles, EA have slowly been changing how they sell their games.
First with the release of Titanfall 2, announcing that they will be releasing all upcoming content without any extra cost. Coming as a major surprise from the publisher’s part, saying this to someone would be unheard of or a very bad joke. This being the first of EA’s attempt to bringing trust back to the fans.
Later following with the announcement of Hazelight’s A Way Out, revealing that the co-op only title will only require one player to purchase the game. It was assumed that the game would need both to purchase the game to play it, yet again another surprise from the publisher to let this slide as this is something that left many baffled and excited.

Now recently with the announcement of DICE’s Battlefield V, making sure everyone knew that this Battlefield will not be shipped with an premium pass. Along with Anthem getting a similar treatment as the only microtransactions present will be cosmetics, Electronic Arts is slowly showing that they hear the complaints and that they can try to change what’s been done before. Although it seems crazy to freak out about games launching without charging for extra content looking back at previous generations, this is a good start for EA’s long road ahead.
Many may have not noticed the attempt in progress from publisher EA, but the sooner you see the pattern forming from them, the better you’ll see them take the consumer’s word into consideration with their actions. More changes like this is expected from EA in the future as seeing how much was already done to resolve their previous problems.