Ex Bioware dev Manveer Heir is speaking out about EA, and he's saying some pretty damning stuff. Heir went on the Waypoint podcast and said that his former employer doesn't care about the will of gamers, but rather how they can milk them for the most money. For that reason, Heir claims the company has been deeply invested and pushing for open-world games as he says that's proven to be the easiest way to monetize gaming:
They are generally pushing for more open-world games. And the reason is you can monetise them better. Why do you care about that at EA? The reason you care about that is because microtransactions: buying card packs in the Mass Effect games, the multiplayer. It’s the same reason we added card packs to Mass Effect 3: how do you get people to keep coming back to a thing instead of ‘just’ playing for 60 to 100 hours?”
While some gamers may not fall for the ruse, Manveer Heir says he once saw an individual player spend $15,000 on Mass Effect multiplayer cards. Heir says the investors at EA don't care about the gamers and what they want, but rather how they can make the most money off of individuals willing to buy those microtransactions.
It's disappointing to hear, but at the same time not all that surprising that EA is always looking for a way to make as much money as possible. That's just good business, and to be frank, if it wasn't effective they wouldn't be doing it. If the gaming community really wants micro-transactions to go away, they need to collectively stop buying them.
Of course, that will never happen anytime soon so we'll continue onward to see exactly what it will take for the gaming community to finally put its foot down.
