It’s not just Disney and consumers who have a reason to be angry at Electronic Arts. Following a consumer revolt over its aggressive microtransaction strategies in Star Wars Battlefront 2, and despite Electronic Arts showing major growth over the past year up 52% year over year, its shares took a tumble after news that the December quarterly sales forecast would be lower than expected due to the performance of Star Wars. Shares of Electronic Arts were down 8.5% through Tuesday, knocking out $3.1 billion in shareholder value.
Physical sales of Battlefront II in the UK dropped at least 50% in the first week, while none of the versions of the title have hit the Amazon top 100 for 2017, which happens to be populated by titles including Mass Effect Andromeda, Splatoon 2, and Horizon Zero Dawn. Analysts are not happy, both with physical sales of Battlefront II as well as
“We were underwhelmed by sell-through for Star Wars: Battlefront II (EA) over the Black Friday weekend, which follows a controversial launch for the game,” Stifel analyst Drew Crum wrote in a note to clients Sunday.
Electronic Arts CFO Blake Jorgensen stated in a speech at the Credit Suisse 21st Annual Technology, Media & Telecom Conference that EA avoided cosmetic microtransactions due to limitations on the franchise canon.
“The one thing we’re very focused on and they’re extremely focused on is not violating the canon of Star Wars,” Jorgensen said. “It’s an amazing brand that’s been built over many, many years. So if you did a bunch of cosmetic things, you might start to violate the canon. Darth Vader in white probably doesn’t make sense, versus in black. Not to mention you probably don’t want Darth Vader in pink. No offense to pink, but I don’t think that’s right in the canon.”
EA’s microtransaction strategy has been incredibly successful in its sports titles from Madden to NBA and Fifa, however the recent expansion of said practice to titles like Battlefront and Need for Speed resulted in a large push back from consumers that executives may not have expected.
(Source; CNBC)
MMO Fallout 
If it wasn’t a mainstream issue before (it was getting there), it is now.