Category: News

According to a report from The NPD Group, the Nintendo Switch was the best-selling game console in the U.S. last month, with the SNES Classic Edition in second place.

This lends a bit more credence to the notion that the Switch is selling quite well for Nintendo, which (according to company chief Tatsumi Kimishima’s recently Q&A with investors) is necessary this holiday season in order for the console to achieve Wii-like momentum. 

Coupled with the strong sales of the SNES Classic mini-console (which sold roughly 2 million in its first month) and continuing sales of the “3DS family of devices”, NPD claims that Nintendo hardware accounts for roughly two-thirds of all video game hardware sold in the U.S. in both September and October.

This was also evidently the first October since 2011 in which the NPD (which gets sales data from most major retail operations) saw over 1 million sales of video game hardware.

Belgian Gaming Commission general director Peter Naessens has told local media outlet VTM that the organization is investigating whether the loot crate systems in Battlefront II and Overwatch qualify as gambling.

While the state of the investigation is still murky (the news comes solely via VTM, which was read with the help of Google Translate), a decision to brand these sorts of monetization mechanics as gambling could have a significant impact on the game industry.

Battlefront II and Overwatch both allow players to pay virtual currency (either earned in-game or paid for with real money) for a loot box/crate containing a (semi-)random assortment of in-game items, and many other games do so as well. The Entertainment Software Ratings Board has already stated that it does not believe these types of monetization systems count as gambling, since a player typically always gets something for their investment. 

But if a government regulator classified a game like Battlefront II as gambling, that might push other gambling regulators and/or the ESRB to take a fresh look at the issue, potentially shifting the landscape of game development. As the game’s publisher, Electronic Arts might also have to pay the price of retooling the game and/or pay a fine to the Belgian authorities.

Blizzard has already faced a similar situation with Overwatch in China, where a new law went into effect in May requiring games with loot box systems to disclose A) what potential rewards a player can receive from a given box and B) what the odds are of them getting each of those rewards.

In response, Blizzard publicly disclosed that data for the Chinese version of Overwatch. Moreover, it reworked the game to adhere to another Chinese law banning the direct sale of loot boxes in games by instead “gifting” loot boxes to Chinese Overwatch players who spent real money to purchase specific amounts of in-game currency.

“I think crates can be a fun addition as long as you don’t feel forced to engage with them in order to progress. I feel that’s where the issue is with our game right now and that’s where we’ll look to solve as quickly as we can.”

– EA DICE’s Dennis Brannvall, answering a comment on Reddit that loot crates in Battlefront II should either be removed or limited to cosmetic items only.

Some of the devs working on Electronic Arts’ Star Wars Battlefront II hung out on Reddit today to take part in an “Ask Me Anything” session with the public, and the results make for interesting reading if you’re a dev who’s been following the kerfuffle surrounding the game’s virtual currency economy.

If nothing else, you may appreciate how relentlessly upbeat and conciliatory the Battlefront II devs’ responses are to pointed questions about why the game’s loot boxes contain gameplay-affecting items, or why the virtual currency cost to unlock characters in game was (until recently) very high.

But what’s especially interesting is that in the face of a lot of criticism, the devs publicly commit to the idea that a “loot box” system can be a good thing in game design; for Battlefront II, it’s the execution that fell short.

“I think crates can be a fun addition as long as you don’t feel forced to engage with them in order to progress. I feel that’s where the issue is with our game right now and that’s where we’ll look to solve as quickly as we can,” wrote EA DICE associate design director Dennis Brannvall in a response to a player complaint. “We’re looking to add additional ways to progress your favorite character or class, while allowing crates to be a fun thing for those who want to engage with them.”

It’s not surprising that the folks working on a game built around players progressing by unlocking rewards with earned (or purchased) virtual currency would stand by that system, but in a year that is seeing so many big-budget games catch criticism for including some sort of loot box analog, it’s notable that the Battlefront II devs are being upfront about the fact that grinding for unlocks is a key piece of their game.

“Everything is still grindable. It’s up to us to make sure that grind is fun and not overwhelming,” Brannvall wrote in another Reddit post. “I realize the popular opinion is to presume creating ‘boring, overwhelming grind’ is the way to get people to spend more money, but in reality it isn’t. Everything wins if players are having fun, that’s the main thing always.”

For more comments from Brannvall, as well as his compatriots Paul Keslin and John Wasilczyk (a producer and executive producer, respectively), check out the full Reddit AMA thread.