Partnerships between two companies are not uncommon in entertainment. A company will often allow a franchise to be used by a development studio, animation house, or publisher, coming to some sort of deal in the process. Usually, this works out well for everyone. The franchise gets to expand to new markets and demographics and the people working on it get to labor on a beloved franchise that many of them have followed for years.

It only took Star Wars Battlefront 2 a mere few days to go from one of the most anticipated titles of last year, to, quite possibily, its most infamous. The controversy surrounding its pay-to-win loot box progression not only made reddit history, with the most downvoted comment of all time, but also spurred state institutions into investigating loot boxes themselves.

BioWare will make an announcement regarding the Dragon Age franchise in the coming month, according to studio general manager Casey Hudson. In the BioWare November update post, Hudson said, “If you’ve been following these blogs, or myself and Mark Darrah on Twitter, you know we’re also working on some secret Dragon Age stuff. Dragon Age is an incredibly important franchise in our studio, and we’re excited to continue its legacy. Look for more on this in the coming month (though I won’t tell you where to look…)”

Some of the hype around Battlefield V is starting to turn sour. In a note to investors (as The Wall Street Journal spotted), analyst Doug Creutz of investment firm Cowen & Co. said that the game’s preorder numbers were looking weak compared to Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 and Red Dead Redemption 2. Then on August 14, former DICE boss and long-time Electronic Arts executive Patrick Söderlund left the publisher. This has caused a lot of speculation among the fan community on forums and YouTube.

EA's most important nonsports game for this holiday season is struggling, according to Cowen. The firm reiterated its market perform rating for Electronic Arts shares, citing weak preorders for the publisher's "Battlefield V" title. "EA's Battlefield V currently appears to potentially be headed for serious disappointment," analyst Doug Creutz said in a note on Monday. It is lagging far behind "Call of Duty," "Red Dead Redemption 2" and "Assassin's Creed," he added, and by slightly more than it was two weeks ago in the case of the first two.

EA at their EA Play conference at E3 2018, announced Sea Of Solitude as part of their EA Originals indie project. You can check out the trailer below: It is developed by Cornelia Geppert and her passionate team at Jo-Mei Games in Berlin, Germany. We follow Kay, on her journey as she finds out that her biggest enemies...

A new blog post published by EA details efforts to create capable AI-agents to play Battlefield 1 multiplayer. The blog post takes the form of an interview with EA SEED (Search for Extraordinary Experiences Division) Technical Director Magnus Nordin. For some background, Nordin joined SEED when it was founded two years ago. He has been working as a computer scientist for 20 years but most recently has been inspired by Google DeepMind achievements in getting computer AIs to teach themselves to play and beat old Atari games.

A job listing at EA’s Vancouver Studio was recently spotted, which indicates that the studio is already hiring for a Star Wars open-world project that will include online features. GameSpot discovered the listing via EA Vancouver’s career page. The job opening is for a lead online engineer, who will “lead a team to deliver online features for a Star Wars open-world project.”

Electronic Arts has just unlocked all of the heroes in the game, meaning you will no longer have to go through Battlefront 2's awful progression system to play as Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader -- beloved characters who were available for FREE and without all of the extra work (or cash) in the first Battlefront. This doesn't excuse Electronic Arts for its initial plan to drain players of every last penny with its predatory microtransactions, but it's something.

Electronic Arts unveiled its plans for sweeping changes to Star Wars: Battlefront 2 last week, including an overhaul to the progression system that removes Star Cards from crates, a return of the Crystals currency, and limits on what you can buy with them—which is to say, cosmetic items only. The update went live today, revealing that it's also unlocked all hero characters and ships: No more having to grind your face off for credits before you can start chopping people to bits as Darth Vader.

EA and DICE have detailed the changes being made to Star Wars: Battlefront II's progression system after hastily turning off the ability to buy virtual currency at the game's launch last year. The most fundamental change is that progression is now linear, meaning that star cards and all gameplay-impacting items are now earned as set rewards for leveling up. Experience points are doled out for characters, classes, and ships that give you skill points at level ups to unlock or upgrade star cards.

In May 2013, Disney licensed the rights to make Star Wars video games to Electronic Arts, and the company immediately assigned projects based on the franchise to some of its top studios. However, rumors are circulating that Disney is not happy with how Electronic Arts has handled the Star Wars license, and may license the brand out to some of the company’s competitors, particularly Activision and Ubisoft.

Though EA hasn't announced definitive plans for the future of its Star Wars games and their releases, the company's executives offered some idea of when players might expect Respawn's upcoming action game, as well as the next Star Wars Battlefront sequel.

If true, you can file this under "u" for "unsurprising." According to a report (via GameIndustry.biz) sources from within EA's BioWare studio have claimed that Anthem has been pushed back to 2019, after being announced as a fall 2018 title. The same report claims that BioWare is feeling intense pressure due to events revolving around Mass Effect Andromeda and Star Wars Battlefront II, both of which were notorious for disappointment.

Star Wars Battlefront II’s controversial lootbox implementation and the broken progression system has been a hot topic ever since the open beta dropped, and it seems that it has resulted in the sales dropping down considerably. A perfect example of what gamers can achieve when we vote with our wallet. Star Wars Battlefront II has gotten such a negative perception that even the casuals are now starting to avoid it. Baby steps , but definitely ones in the right direction.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch lowers its price target and profit forecasts for Electronic Arts due to poor sales of its "Star Wars" title.

Petition to Remove EA’s Star Wars License Reaches 80K Signatures Early last week, a petition surfaced with the intent of requesting that LucasFilm parent company Disney remove the Star Wars license from Electronic Arts. As can be expected, Star Wars fans were frustrated with the studio’s handling of the franchise for Battlefront 2, especially as it pertains to microtransactions and loot boxes. When we first reported on the petition, it was gaining steam and had about 19,000 signatures, but now it has exploded. It’s only a few days later, and now the petition is up to 82,000 signatures and climbing.

At the height of the controversy surrounding microtransactions in Star Wars Battlefront II, a Reddit user who goes by the name Kensgold posted an open letter to publisher EA and other developers in the video game industry. “I am 19 and addicted to gambling,” he wrote. Kensgold wasn’t talking about roulette tables or online poker. He was talking about spending over £10,000 on in-game purchases over the last several years.

It's easy to think that Star Wars: Battlefront II is the sole result of Electronic Arts' work. That publisher taken the lead on developing and promoting the sci-fi shooter, which is available now on PC and consoles. But Lucasfilm is involved with everything.

So over the past week the big story has been the massive backlash against EA for the loot box mechanics on Star Wars: Battlefront II. According to some very conservative estimates, it would take 40 hours of continuous play to unlock Darth Vader as a playable character. This is assuming you save every single point of in-game currency and don’t spend any of them on other things. Then you’d need another 40 hours to unlock Luke Skywalker. Even if you’re just going to save up for a simple loot box, it will take three hours of play.