.I’ve had just about enough of EA and it’s money grabbing, greed making its way into my favourite games.  Brace yourself, I’m about to drop a Need for Speed Payback Rant.

Tell me I’m not the only one seeing a pattern here.  Seriously, let’s take a hard look at the games released by EA this year and tell me you don’t see a pattern.  FIFA, Madden, Need for Speed Payback, Star Wars Battlefront II.  It’s those God-forsaken loot box garbage that’s making its way into every single gaming franchise you’ve ever loved.  Now I’m going to unleash my Need for Speed Payback Rant sponsored by EA loot boxes.  Of cause, they’re not called loot boxes in this game.  No that would be way too “on the nose”.  They’ve sneakily called them Speed Cards as if it makes a damned difference.

Just to get it out in the open, I grew up playing Need for Speed.  All the way back to the first game on PC before PlayStation even existed.  I’ve played pretty much every single release except Pro Street and the attempted online only reboot from a couple of years ago.  My favourite to this day is still the first Most Wanted.  That game still holds up today even running on an Xbox 360.  It’s a masterpiece that was executed perfectly.  Fast forward 10 years and what you get is a piece of garbage dumpster fire that needs to die a painful death.

The focus point of my loathing of this damn game

Effectively what EA has done is found a way to make in-app purchases money in a freakin racing game.  In the worst way possible too.  Remember back in the days when you would race, make a ton of in-game cash and spend it on buying new cars or upgrading the old ones?  You would basically buy new Turbo’s, new suspension and exhaust manifold and fit it to your prized right.  You can kiss that gameplay mechanic goodbye.  Instead, its replaced by upgrading your car with freakin Speed cards.  They have some dumb value attached to it that increases your car’s engine performance by 1+.  Worse yet, they are completely randomized and you could end up getting pretty shitty cards just on the luck of the draw.

But wait, we can make it even worse EA thinks…How about we make the game as “grindy” as possible.  Force the suckers who bought this thing to spend more of their money to buy a “Shit-ment” excuse me “Shipment” (Read Loot Crate) that will have a legendary Speed Card to upgrade your rides quicker.

But the very worst part of this whole ordeal is that should this game fail, we could be looking at Ghost Games getting the infamous EA chopping block.  EA might decide they aren’t getting their money’s worth and close down yet another great development studio.  I feel like EA is mandating its game developers to put in these anti-consumer practices which are ruining our favourite games.  Damnit EA, if I want slot machines I’ll take my ass to Vegas!  Please, guys, don’t encourage EA into thinking this loot box system works.  Your next favourite game series might end up being riddled with them.

Rant Over!  What do you guys think?  Perhaps you also get riled up about loot boxes as much as I do or do you think this whole practice is warranted?  Don’t be shy, please share your anguish with us in the comments section below.