How A Comment About A 'Star Wars' Game Became The Most Downvoted Post In Reddit's History
THE POWER OF THE DARK SIDE
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Reddit users documenting the site's history keep a close eye on the records for the site's most upvoted and downvoted posts. A few days ago, the most downvoted post in Reddit's history had around 24,000 negative points to its name — and that was just for fun. Now a comment from an Electronic Arts (EA) community manager about "Star Wars Battlefront II" holds the record with over 677,000 downvotes (and counting). The dog-piling on the post has been so overwhelming that a few users have gone out of their way to put all that hate in chart form:

 By Reddit user Lord_Fubar

All the other posts attributed to EA on the above chart are also related to "Battlefront II." The backlash is in response to a "loot crate" system implemented in the game at launch. "Battlefront II" features hero characters from the "Star Wars" movies including Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, but the ability to play as these characters is locked at the start of the game. One estimate of the time it would take to unlock a character like Vader put it at 40 hours of normal play, which could be sped up if a player purchases additional in-game loot crates with real money. 

Two days ago, a user named MBMMaverick posted to r/StarWarsBattlefront calling the system "disgusting." The EA community account responded to the post with an explanation of the design decision and a thank you for the feedback:

 

Redditors responded to the post with the unprecedented avalanche of downvotes. The following chart shows how long it took to go from the time of posting to 400,000+ downvotes:

 By Reddit user SelketDaly

"Battlefront II" doesn't officially launch until this Friday, but EA and the game's developers at DICE have already rushed an update that will lower the amount of time it takes to unlock a hero character. While the hyper-visible downvoting probably would've been enough to force EA's hand here, an unpleasant portion of the gaming community (as they're wont to do) started to harass EA and DICE employees online, flooding them with insults and death threats. One developer lamented that they can't win in situations like these — granted, the system was designed to encourage players to spend more money on loot crates, but unlike the first "Battlefront," no player would have to pay for new maps, game modes and characters added to the game later on. 

Though loot crate systems are largely derided by gamers they still continue to make loads of money. There are games with loot crates that don't promise free content for players later on down the road, so it'd be hard to characterize "Battlefront II" as the worst offender here.

It'd be alright if the discontent stopped at the downvoting, but patching the game so quickly might be seen more as a victory for the people who actively harassed the makers of "Battlefront II" than for the downvoters. Given that EA appears to have taken down their online refund page for the time being (probably due to being flooded with requests), it's likely that the downvotes — and the online abuse — won't stop soon anyway, even if players can unlock Vader quicker.

[r/DataIsBeautiful]

<p>Mathew Olson is an Associate Editor at Digg.</p>

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