The investors overreacted because the community overreacted. Instead of a measured response, everyone was pulling their hair and gnashing their teeth.
A company makes a bad decision which they quickly worked quickly to rectify (if I read properly because I don't play it personally). However, it's #neveragain type response because this can be a hysterical and unforgiving community.
The jump from pushback on predatory/deceptive monetization to pirating seems a long one.
A certain percentage of folks will always look to pirate unless games become completely free. Not due to any specific reason with any specific game, but because a certain percentage of folks will always, always attempt to cheat the existing system.
The backlash had a very noticeable effect on BF2 sales, but I've not read a single article stating that the title has been targeted for inordinate amount of pirating, much less pirating that could be linked back to "consumers didn't like their shitty monetization system, so they pirated it instead".
It's not a jump to say that piracy affects legit monetization. It's an open fact, not an opinion. Predatory practices from publishers or consumers are both a result of that long standing conflict.
But that doesn't really matter in the bigger picture with regards to EA stock. Investors overreacted to a loud noise, but once they saw their money is safe they continued investment which is why we're seeing the curve continue to trend up.
The pushback only served to keep that rate of increase in check with it's previous curve, which is probably a very good thing for longer term investors in the company. That's why I tend to agree that investors overreacted in this situation.
Players still like the game and EA games in general are very popular so a small dip in expected revenue for a game isn't like to shake a large and diversified company like EA. So it does seem investors were too jumpy.
My comment was specifically centered at the implication of a recent cause-and-effect uptick of any sort that would indicate consumers are pirating as a response to lootboxes/microtransactions specifically. A certain percentage of folks will always, again, attempt to get something for nothing so long as there's means to do so and not so much means by which they can get caught. It's been a constant for, really, humanity. People who can, will, so long as there's a benefit to be had from doing so.
You seem to be implying a correlation between recent monetization trends and pirating, specifically, which also seems to be overstated. Pirating has always existed, and nothing about pirating really changed that would create such an excess as to necessitate such huge shifts in monetization practices prior to the shift.
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A company makes a bad decision which they quickly worked quickly to rectify (if I read properly because I don't play it personally). However, it's #neveragain type response because this can be a hysterical and unforgiving community.
I self identify as a monkey.
A certain percentage of folks will always look to pirate unless games become completely free. Not due to any specific reason with any specific game, but because a certain percentage of folks will always, always attempt to cheat the existing system.
The backlash had a very noticeable effect on BF2 sales, but I've not read a single article stating that the title has been targeted for inordinate amount of pirating, much less pirating that could be linked back to "consumers didn't like their shitty monetization system, so they pirated it instead".
You seem to be implying a correlation between recent monetization trends and pirating, specifically, which also seems to be overstated. Pirating has always existed, and nothing about pirating really changed that would create such an excess as to necessitate such huge shifts in monetization practices prior to the shift.