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My own drop rate was close to 60% Junk Boxes(cubes). Do I feel lied to and scammed? Yea. But I'm not crying about it, nor am I calling my bank or Customer Service. I think that gambling boxes as a general rule are a bad idea as a business model, happy customers spend more than angry customers. As a DEV team your content should inspire your audience, entertain your players and make them content on the worst of days and happy on the best of days. Sadly, EA and BW have taken the opposite stance and have decided the best way to use this game is to trick, smash and grab as much as they can as quickly as they can. Here is a dose of truth from someone on the inside of the gaming industry (Not with EA), Companies like EA are all about the bottom line. They look at a game like SWTOR and see it as an outdated model of gaming, high maintenance, high development cost, with limited upside based on a shrinking player base. They look at companies like King, Gameloft and others who have the ability to spend 3 to 6 months developing a 'free' game with a team of 6 DEVs and then pull in millions a month, and once the player base shrinks they close the game and rinse and repeat. Look at games like Candy Crush and Dragon Mania, CASH COWS compared to SWTOR. EA looks at that and demands more and more money for less and less resources from models like SWTOR because they dont see the difference in the player bases, they see only money and risk vs. reward. The root of SWTORs problems lie in the greed of EA, the pressure from the executives put on the SWTOR team and the total destruction of 2000's style gaming culture.

Par for the course for EA. There was a sports game thing through Origin a few years back that kept charging people who had canceled their sub, so they started submitting charge backs. EA closed all their EA and Origin accounts even though it was their error that caused the charge backs. EA is not a dragon I'd like to poke, they can have my $150. Ill just vote with my wallet and be more careful next time and not be a 'first adopter' of new content.

I agree totally, but in EA's defense it would create a cluster storm. The entire business model of SWTOR is now based off of those gambling boxes and the Cartel Market. If they allow the customer to 'win' in this case they would open the flood gates of other customers because of a set precedence and then set themselves up for a 3 point shot of a class action. What is more than likely to happen, is EA will decline to fight the charge back (TOTALLY different than giving him a refund), the customer will get his money back. Then EA/BW will ban any and all accounts in their system using the same credit card, name, and shipping address as the customer. As I said, EA doesn't like losing.

Not at all and totally false. I am actually amazed that BW/EA hasn't gotten a class action over their 'gambling boxes' yet. If I ran a store front, selling 'mystery boxes' out of my store, I'd be arrested for running a gambling ring. Do you know what is in a crate before you open it? Cause that is one hell of a trick. If not, then you cannot say the customer knows what they are buying. They are buying a CHANCE at a set of listed items on display in the tool tip. They are taking that chance based on the representation of past purchases of a similar product. By changing the rules in such a dramatic way without informing the customer the company is at fault. The analogy is solid.

Wrong again, you aren't very good at this I am afraid good sir. Higher rates and charges are not caused by charge backs, they are caused by high risk debt cancellation and credit negotiation. Visa/MC charge roughly 3% of every purchase to one of their cards from the company, PLUS a rate of interest to the customer through their bank (They both get a cut). There is a reason Visa/MC have such good customer protections, it makes the customer happy and spending. Mad/Upset customers do not spend as much, that cuts into their bottom line MUCH more than a few charge backs.

Its based on the representation of the product over time. If I sell you oranges for 12 months in a row, and on the 13th month I substitute a single orange slice without informing you of a product change, I am at fault as the selling agent, not the customer.

This is probably the truth. They have done this in the past with billing problems through Origin. EA doesn't like losing.

His Bank through Visa/MC would act as the paying authority and refund the money, and then deny/reverse the fund transfer through their computer system. EA could dispute it, but in this case probably wouldn't. $150 isnt worth EAs time unless they saw a bigger threat like a class action coming. The bank Visa/MC on the other hand has a customer to keep happy, and they would fight as they have three of the Aces in the deck. You would be amazed how much power Visa/MC has over companies worldwide.

You are wrong. This is one for the lawyers, but EA has a good team of them. It isn't fraud on his part. Not at all. EA filters your purchases through a company currency as a legal maneuver to limit your legal rights as a customer. They do this because in many municipalities, especially the north east United States and Europe consumer rights are rather strong. Customer bought a product on the basis of a representation given him by the company selling it. Company funneled the purchase through a proprietary currency as a shield to avoid consumer advocacy laws. Customer is not committing fraud by saying he didn't get what he was promised and demanding a refund. Its one for the lawyers. EA spends a fortune on them for a reason, they need them.

I would like to note, that I am not the one seeking a refund. I'd take one if it was offered, but $150 isnt worth even 30 min on the phone with EA or my bank to me. However, in releasing the new packs they advertised 'new content' in those packs on par and consistant with past representations of the same scheme. That scheme was dramatically changed with a 60% drop rate of the cube 'filler content' which completely changed the product in a way not properly represented to the customer. Especially one like me who doesn't (commonly) read forums, only their advertisement emails that are sent to me.

This depends greatly on local laws, a lot of countries and some US states have VERY strong Consumer advocacy laws, and a company lying about a product or service and filtering those lies/scam through a separate currency to hide from those laws isn't smiled upon by the banks or local municipalities.

To be fair, I may only be a sub for a month or two, but I spend several hundred dollars a year on cartel packs (150$ yesterday)... So yea, I am a casual with a lot more money than time. But abusing me with chance cubes and screwed up lottery boxes that are NOT what they are advertised to be isn't a good way to keep me coming back. ESO is also a good game, but since they lied to their player base for a year before going F2P I don't play that one. To me, how a company treats its customers is important. I guarantee, if they treat their customers this way, they treat their employees worse. It is a company culture thing, and not easy to change.

As someone who works in the gaming industry in the 'community' field. This is why I use SWTOR as a graphic novel and not a game. I come in, play the story and leave. I am a subscriber, for MAYBE 2 months out of the year, although this year it looks like it will be 1 month because of all the shenanigans with cubes and how short Chapter X is. EA is pretty notorious for poor/abusive customer service. Not that their phone drones or GMs are really at fault, the game is virtually in maintenance mode (they wont call it that, but it is what it is) and they aren't ALLOWED to really solve problems or do anything at all other than kick the can down the road. They wanted you to email or in game page, so that they could just send you a form response and ignore you and the issue as a whole. It's also why you haven't seen any sort of official response about the cube/pack issues. If you are looking for a new game, you wont find anything compared to the story driven content in SWTOR (The reason I am here), but there are several really solid games out there, EVE Online, Gigantic, Destiny... all have their faults but are solid games and do not have the 'abuse the customer' mindset of any game run by Bioware/EA.

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