So, as lootboxes have become a bigger and bigger part of industry revenue (Ubisoft admitted they make more than half of their income from microtransactions), gamers have been getting less and less happy with how integrated these systems have become with AAA games.

Star Wars Battlefront 2 features lootboxes as the primary means of progression in the game, and EA wound up pushing the envelope a little too far. After a massive backlash originating on Reddit, they've had to backtrack quite a bit.

Initially, they reduced the credit cost of crates by 75% after the assessments that it would take 40 hours of grinding per hero. However, the community on Reddit had already expected a reduction, and had concluded that EA had priced things higher so that they could "listen to their customers" and reduce prices...while forcing people to accept the lootbox basis of progression. And the community was having none of it.

Concerted efforts began to appeal to various higher authorities. There is a petition to get the ESRB to classify lootboxes as gambling. Notes were sent to Disney to make them aware that EA was using their IP to push gambling to children. And contact was made with the media to push the same perspective. Which earned several articles on mainstream news sites, including Fortune and Forbes.

What's more, regulators are starting to look at the lootbox scenario. Dutch regulators and the Belgian Gaming Commission, which could have serious legal implications across the EU.

EA has removed the ability to purchase credits to buy lootboxes as of now. But the progression system is still tied to lootboxes, and the ability to purchase them as microtransactions is due to return once they've "rebalanced" it.