I hope I can pay to win a chance to hug Jar Jar Binks.
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The DeanBeat: The tragedy of the Star Wars: Battlefront II loot crates

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 5 min

Electronic Arts made a great game in Star Wars: Battlefront II. But it stepped in a pile of controversy by adding an unpopular monetization system known as loot crates. Those crates appear in a lot of games, mostly free-to-play titles where you pay real money for the crates and a chance to get some good loot. Gamers viewed the loot crate scheme as a money grab. As of last night, EA decided to back off on the controversial microtransactions for the loot crates.

Call it a victory for consumers, but this is going to come at a price for everyone.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.