Microtransactions have been a part of gaming culture for decades.
Stretching all the way back to arcades, video games have always tied money into their products. In recent years though, microtransactions have skyrocketed and are now ruining quality video games. For the most pristine example of this, look at Battlefront 2.
Before its release, fans and gamers alike were lambasting Battlefront. Star Wars fans were angry because EA and Dice, the companies making the game, had ruined their beloved franchise; while gamers were angry because of the obvious scam the game morphed into.
Star Wars fans were one of the first groups to express their outrage with Battlefront 2, due to its lack of fan support.
If you are a Star Wars fan, the first few things you want to do when you play a Star Wars game is use a lightsaber, use the force and play as your favorite characters. Most Star Wars games, if possible, find a way fulfill those goals.
Battlefront, on the other hand, laughs at the fans. In order to unlock all the special characters in Battlefront, which include Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and others, it originally took players 4,528 hours, or nearly six months of gameplay, according to Matt Davidson with IGN.
If you do not have six months to kill playing Battlefront, you can instead pay about $2,100 of real money to unlock the characters. What is even more laughable is the this only unlocks the base characters. In order to upgrade those characters to their max levels, even more hours or dollars are needed just to enjoy your game.
In response to the understandable outrage, EA and Dice reduced the in-game price for special characters by 75 percent and completely changed the loot crate system. Of course, this leaves a very good question: after all the outrage, is Battlefront 2 a good game?
Gamers were obviously outraged alongside Star Wars fans regarding the microtransactions in Battlefront 2, but gamers were not surprised by the decision to include them. Gamers are almost numb to microtransactions and come to expect them by this point. What they also expect, though, it is at least a quality game.
Battlefront 2 does not live up to even the lowest of expectations.
While the game is visually stunning, the progression system simply is broken. In order to improve your character in any way, players need to unlock loot boxes, which randomly generate items for players to use. These items can be new weapons, clothes or even characters.
The problem arises when players notice how difficult it is to improve strictly via gameplay. Skilled players, or players with better items, receive boosts to their score at the end of missions while other players receive fewer rewards. This might seem fine and fair at first, but with the loot box system in place, new or unskilled players cannot receive the gear needed to compete adequately. Therefore, they constantly get destroyed in matches.
Battlefront is nearly unplayable until you improve your character. This predicament leaves players with two options: either keep grinding while not enjoying your new game, or pay real money in order to improve and enjoy it.  
Of course, this design is completely intentional.
As Dave Their with Forbes states, “Creating points of friction for new players is bad if you’re trying to design a fun experience, but it’s good if you’re trying to create pressure to cash-in on microtransactions.”
Gamers are practically forced to pay extra money in order to play a $60 game. That is insulting.
At this point, microtransactions in gaming have officially become a nuisance. Players can no longer ignore them. While Battlefront is stealing the headlines and receiving all the anger, other games have used similar tactics for years. Battlefront just took it a step too far.
As a community, all of those who enjoy videos games need to unify to expel microtransactions from our beloved games. Big name companies like EA, Ubisoft and Konami are creating purposely broken games, just to milk a few extra dollars from their customers. This practice is unacceptable.
Luckily, it seems I am not the only one who shares this outrage. Sales for Battlefront 2 underperformed upon release, according to Chris Morris at Fortune, and sales have continued to not meet expectations.
If one good event may have come from the release of Battlefront, maybe it spells the end of microtransactions.