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GameStop’s stock is acting strangely, still. It’s gone even higher after last week’s surge drove GameStop’s value skyrocketing to record levels. And although the week is still young, it shows this unexpected rise is, rather than a result of anything the company’s done,  a savvy bit of investing, at least in the short-term.

The interest in GameStop’s irregular stock activity has thrust the Reddit group seemingly driving the surge into the spotlight. Popularly described as “4chan with a Bloomberg Terminal,” r/WallStreetBets is a wild west of stock investing “advice” and memes. And the pearl-clutching establishment has certainly painted this group as a rogue troll army messing with the established practices of Wall Street.

IGN has reached out and spoken to several r/WallStreetBets day traders to find out more about this group that has thrust the struggling video game retailer into the spotlight.

What Is Going on with GameStop Stock?

GameStop stock (traded as $GME) is on the up-and-up. Prices for a single piece of stock peaked today at around $145. Compare that to a year ago, when prices for the biggest video game brick-and-mortar retailer hovered around $15 but went as low as $3 a share.

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Some Wall Street investors bet that GameStop would continue to struggle and began short-selling the company, a strategy where an investor borrows stock of that particular company — in this case, GameStop — and sells it in the hopes that prices for the stock will continue to drop. If that happens, they can buy back the stock for even cheaper and keep the difference as a profit.

But instead of going down, prices are going up, and this is bad for short sellers who have to buy back the stock they borrowed. Redditors on r/WallStreetBets saw the short early and moved in to buy GameStop stock early and cheap, creating a short squeeze.

Short sellers rushing to buy while minimizing losses created a rush to buy GameStop stock, which in turn drove up prices. A vicious cycle, if you will.

Who Is Squeezing Wall Street?

In speaking with traders on r/WallStreetBets, it’s evident that these traders are not wolves of Wall Street, but hobbyists who trade on the side and have either a clear-eyed or irreverent view of the stock market.

Three traders from r/WallStreetBets IGN spoke to say that they are not full-time traders, while a fourth says they’re still relatively new to trading. And all three also joined the community fairly recently with the longest member following the subreddit about a year ago.

“I had seen the subreddit in some YouTube video after I got into trading but was only doing my own thing until this GME stuff really started to pop off and I bought in,” one trader, who asked to go by Ike for privacy reasons, tells IGN.

Ike bought GME stock when it was around $30 and says he spent about $600 on his position. He says his option is now worth around five times that value but is still waiting before selling.

When asked why they went in on GME, Ike says that it took “some convincing” and due diligence but that it was “mostly FOMO [or, Fear of Missing Out].”

Another trader named Tj says they invest “on the side for fun,” while working as a full-time engineer at a major tech company. Their option is worth six-figures after going in at a buying price of around $18 per stock.

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In keeping with their 4chan with a Bloomberg Terminal mantra, these traders prefer memeing their way through Wall Street, using terms like FOMO or YOLO [You Only Live Once] to explain away their investment decisions.

One investor named Sage says they’ve only been following r/WallStreetBets for “around two months” and that investing is a “side hustle.” For “about five minutes” Sage’s GME options were worth $33,000, based on an initial investment of $1000. Though they chose not to sell.

The biggest success story is someone who goes by u/DeepFu*kingValue on WallStreetBets who regularly updates the subreddit on the price of their option which is currently valued at $13 million.

The energy the subreddit brings into trading can only be described as chaotic. One thread by user u/dumbledoreRothIRA is titled, “I’M NOT SELLING THIS UNTIL AT LEAST $1000+ GME” with an additional expletive and some rocket ship emojis for good measure.

The subreddit is also claiming a “victory” against hedge fund Melvin Capital Management, a short-seller that the Wall Street Journal reports is getting an outside investment to help stabilize the fund after a variety of short bets fell through. One of which was Melvin’s bet against GameStop.

GameStop, a Meme?

One reason why the GameStop stock situation is so absurd is that for the past three years, GameStop has been struggling as a business. A brick-and-mortar video game retailer, GameStop has not been able to compete with digital retailers like Amazon as well as the growing trend of customers buying primarily digital versions of games through portals like Steam, PSN, or Xbox Live.

When IGN spoke with GameStop’s chief customer officer Frank Hamlin back in 2019, he explained that “As a specialty retailer, we are linked at the hip to this category of video games. We compete with a bunch of generalist retailers who don’t have the same seasonality as we do because they sell paper towels and loaves of bread and they can use video games as a loss leader to sell a loaf of bread.”

The increased competition has forced GameStop to close around 400 and 450 stores in 2020, and the COVID-19 pandemic has not helped physical retailers like GameStop in the least.

But GameStop is a mainstay in the public gaming consciousness, and the brand recognition has driven WallStreetBets to embrace the struggling brand. Whereas investors on Wall Street proper saw a struggling retailer, WallStreetBets saw an underdog and piece of gaming childhood.

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Sage says that while “Reddit Hype” factored into their decision to go in on GME, so did “childhood memories.” Meanwhile, Tj tells IGN that their non-retirement investing is done with additional income. “So I figured might as well throw it into the latest meme and let it ride,” they said.

Another trader who spoke with IGN named Branyan said that knowing GameStop helped them go in on their own position.

“I’ve done my fair share of shopping there,” says Branyan. “It definitely did make a difference that I knew the business opposed to going in blind. I’ve trusted them with my business so I should be able to trust them with my trades.”

Ike says they were very aware of GameStop both from their childhood and recent news. “Like most my age [GameStop] used to be a place I’d go often for games as a kid, and I knew about its decline as I’ve watched the closure of one [of the stores] close to me.”

However, Ike cites the addition of pet retail giant Chewy’s co-founder Ryan Cohen to GameStop’s board and the company’s attempts to remodel some of its stores into experiential event spaces as signs of positive change.

What Happens Next?

One side-effect of the GameStop Stock squeeze is the increased scrutiny on r/WallStreetBets. Mainstream and finance-focused publications are covering the subreddit in recent days — and not in a way the community finds helpful.

“News coverage has been unfair and misleading, often referring to WSB as a single entity that makes decisions for millions of people,” says Ike. “But take only a glance at the sub and you’ll see just how wrong that is, [it’s] full of people taking all sides [on an investment] and people posting random sh*t half the time.”

Tj says they’re worried that the media coverage could harm inexperienced investors “jumping into stocks without researching.” They believe that “a lot of people will lose more than they can afford to,” because of the notoriety.

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“Well to tell you the truth [the media coverage] is very worrisome,” Branyan adds. “Many subreddits have been shut down in the past and wiped out due to getting negative media coverage. The coverage we’re getting now seems to want to suggest that we are attempting to manipulate the market as a collective single organism. This isn’t the case. We are just a bunch of investors who like to chat about what we do.”

“People make huge YOLOs and succeed sometimes and people like to see that. That is what you’ll find at the base of WSB. People making it big or losing it all trying. We aren’t trying to manipulate the market, we’re trying to go big or die trying. Each and every one of us.”

As for their GME options, the investors say they’ll eventually sell and hopefully make a profit.

“I’ll sell when u/deepfu*kingvalue sells,” Sage says.

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Matt T.M. Kim is a reporter for IGN.

In an era where the streaming wars are only growing more cutthroat all the time, big franchises matter. WarnerMedia is bringing one of its biggest weapons to bear on HBO Max, as we’ve learned the company is in the very early stages of developing a Harry Potter series for its flagship streaming service. We don’t yet know what the series is about or when in the Potter timeline it’ll be set, but at long last, Harry Potter is headed to TV. And that’s exactly what the franchise needs at this point.

Much like how Star Wars has thrived thanks to shows like The Mandalorian and The Clone Wars, the Harry Potter franchise could easily find its second wind on the small screen. Read on to find out why streaming TV, not theatrical blockbusters, is the way forward for Harry Potter.

Fantastic Beasts: Time For a Change

Despite the original Harry Potter series having concluded ten years ago in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Warner Bros. is still keeping the franchise alive on the big screen. So far, two films in the Fantastic Beasts prequel series have been released, with a third currently in production and creator JK Rowling hinting at a five-film series overall. Plus, many fans are assuming it’s only a matter of time before Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, a stage play that continues the saga several decades down the road, will eventually be adapted as a feature film.

Still, it’s hard to argue the franchise hasn’t seen some of the wind go out of its magical sails in recent years. The Fantastic Beasts movies are neither the critical nor commercial smashes the core Potter movies were. 2018’s Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald currently ranks as the lowest-grossing Harry Potter movies to date, as well as being the only one to earn a “rotten” rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It doesn’t help that the franchise is so strongly associated with behind-the-scenes controversy nowadays, whether it’s Johnny Depp’s legal troubles or Rowling’s unfortunate history of transphobic writing.

Warners is still moving forward with the third Fantastic Beasts movie, even going so far as to replace Depp with Mads Mikkelsen as the villainous Grindelwald. Production finally began on the untitled third movie in September 2020, with a planned release date of July 15, 2022. But as for whether the fourth and fifth movies will still materialize, that remains to be seen. Given the bad mojo surrounding the series and the diminishing box office returns, Warner Bros. may opt to cut their losses and give the Potter franchise a fresh, clean slate. And what better way to do that than pivot from film to television?

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It’s a pivot that’s certainly worked in the Star Wars franchise’s favor. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is generally regarded as an underwhelming conclusion to Disney’s sequel trilogy. Nor was Solo: A Star Wars Story a major critical or commercial success. By comparison, The Mandalorian is the first Star Wars project of the Disney era that’s managed to cross party lines and please the vast majority of fans. While it’s tougher to gauge the success of streaming projects without hard figures, the widespread critical acclaim and the massive popularity of Mandalorian-themed merchandise both suggest the series has been a big hit for Lucasfilm and Disney. And with spinoffs like Rangers of the New Republic, Ahsoka and The Book of Boba Fett in the works, it’s clear Disney is going all-in with Star Wars TV projects even while the next movie is years away.

It’s not hard to imagine the Potter franchise finding similar success shifting away from the big screen and toward streaming TV. Both the Fantastic Beasts movies and the Cursed Child play have their detractors. A TV series offers Warner Bros. a chance to wipe the slate and start fresh without all of the baggage of those other projects. Handled properly, the first Harry Potter series could inspire a whole wave of spinoffs just as The Mandalorian has. This isn’t to suggest the franchise can immediately shed the various controversies surrounding it, but it would be a start.

A Wide Open Timeline

There are many reasons the Harry Potter books struck such a chord with readers, but the massive, fully realized fantasy world they reveal is certainly among them. The seven books take place roughly over the course of seven years, as Harry becomes inducted into the Wizarding World and makes his way through Hogwarts. Even though the series ends on a definitive note, as Harry conquers his nemesis Voldemort and frees the world from magical tyranny, it’s clear we’ve only seen a small piece of a much larger tapestry. The magical community existed for centuries before Harry came along, and it will continue to exist long after he’s become nothing more than a snoozing painting on a castle wall.

There’s so much of the Wizarding World left to cover, and even the Fantastic Beasts movies are barely scratching the surface in that regard. Many fans would love to see a Marauders series – a show that covers the youthful exploits of James Potter, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin and shows a very different side of Severus Snape. That premise alone justifies a streaming series – one where each season could chronicle another year at Hogwarts. In the process, fans would find out what it was like to live during Voldemort’s original rise to power. Perhaps even more importantly, the series could transform Harry’s parents from ghostly mentor figures to actual, fully realized characters.

That’s just one option on the table. The series could also be set after the Potter movies but before the events of Cursed Child, chronicling Harry’s journey toward becoming an Auror and his role in rebuilding a government brought to its knees by the Death Eaters. That would also provide an opportunity to introduce new threats and villains who aren’t members of the Voldemort or Grindelwald clans.

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The series could even take the opportunity to veer far away from the characters and locales of the movies. The Fantastic Beasts movies have taken a more multicultural approach, with the first taking place largely in New York, the second in Paris and the third reportedly in Rio de Janeiro. Even so, these films only have so much room to showcase these new locations amid all the emphasis on Newt Scamander and friends. There would be a real novelty in a series that sheds light on what it’s like to attend wizarding school in the US or Japan or Kenya.

In short, there’s a reason they call it the “Wizarding World,” and there’s only so much Warners can do to capitalize on that world with one theatrical movie released every few years.

Characters Over Spectacle

If there’s one reason for the Potter series to pivot to a TV series over movies, it’s the characters. Fans need well-rounded heroes they can identify with, or else all the wand-waving and beast-catching is just empty spectacle. That’s arguably the greatest flaw weighing down the Fantastic Beasts series compared to its predecessor. It’s difficult to connect with bumbling collector Newt Scamander and his friends in the same way it was so easy with Harry, Ron and Hermione. It doesn’t really help that the Fantastic Beasts movies are based on what’s basically an in-universe zoology book. The source material has no real narrative or cast of characters to adapt, so it’s the titular beasts themselves who tend to steal the show.

A Harry Potter series would have a valuable opportunity to really dig in with these characters in a way none of the movies have been able to do. As faithful as the core Harry Potter movies are, there’s inevitably wide swaths of material that gets cut when you try to condense the story of an entire school year into a two or three-hour film. Even in the books, supporting characters like Cho Chang, Dean Thomas, the Patil sisters and the extended Weasley family aren’t terribly well developed. But in the movies, they’re often little more than background cameo roles.

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There’s an argument to be made for treating the HBO Max series as a full-fledged Harry Potter reboot and exploring the events of the books in far greater depth. That doesn’t seem the most likely option, given the enduring popularity of the movies and WarnerMedia’s habit of using HBO Max as a platform fr spinoffs of blockbuster movies (Dune: The Sisterhood, Gotham PD, Peacemaker, etc.). Still, it would certainly be an interesting move. Nor is there reason to worry about the series’ ability to replicate the scale and special effects quality of the movies. If The Mandalorian has proven anything, it’s that it’s no longer cost-prohibitive to tackle truly cinematic stories in a small screen format.

A true Harry Potter reboot is likely still much farther down the pipeline for Warners. But whenever and wherever the HBO Max series takes place, the hope is it’ll be able to flesh out its cast to a much greater degree. We’ve gotten more than enough movies about Chosen Ones battling the forces of darkness. What about the other 99% of characters who make their way in the Wizarding World without the benefit of prophecies or the watchful eye of Albus Dumbledore? Who else has magic worth conjuring and a story worth telling? It’s about time we found that out.

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Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.

Capcom’s release of the Resident Evil Village demo, Maiden, is a short slice of what the full release will offer…sort of. Maiden doesn’t even include combat, it’s over in about 15-20 minutes (unless you get stuck on a simple puzzle, like I did), and in one of my favorite demo design choices, it isn’t even a scenario you’ll encounter in Village itself. Instead, it’s a mood piece, designed to give a sense of the atmosphere of one of Village’s main locations, tease some of the characters we can expect to face, and, hopefully, creep the hell out of you with a constant feeling of dread, as it did me.

While they’ve perhaps less ubiquitous than when publishers tucked demo discs into a gaming magazine, Maiden and other recent examples show there are many right ways to execute a demo, reminding us of just how damn effective they can be in selling players on a game in a way no other part of the video game hype machine can.

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How a Demo Can Be So Effective

Regardless of what form a demo takes, a good one should accomplish at least a few things: let a player get a sense for some key aspect of gameplay, whether it’s basic gameplay mechanics or how they’ve changed within an ongoing series (like last year’s Bravely Default II demo), or introduce you to an atmosphere of a new world (like BioShock’s demo did back in 2007), or give you a sense of scale and spectacle, (like Final Fantasy VII Remake’s demo in 2020).

I’ll never forget the BioShock demo specifically, as BioShock was a game I was unsure whether I’d like before launch. That demo, which replicated BioShock’s opening minutes in Rapture, is forever ingrained in my head. I don’t know if I would have ever picked up the full game had I not actually played it; it gave me just enough to want more. No amount of reviews, gameplay teases, or trailers could have properly conveyed everything that hands-on did.

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Maiden does a fantastic job of preserving the twists and turns the developers have in store for the full game while still communicating what it is about. While it’s likely the more rare case, a totally new slice of gameplay can still thematically and mechanically touch on the full experience.

More commonly, a part of the existing game is sectioned off as a demo on its own, either a level a bit into the game to give a full understanding of gameplay, or even just the game’s opening. And thanks to modern advancements, many of these opening mission demos now let players carry progress forward to the full experience. I will always be happy when I can pick up from that spot in the full game without needing to replay anything. Even when progress doesn’t carry over, though, developers have found smart ways to incentivize players to play a demo with content they may or may not have to replay later. Take Monster Hunter Rise’s recent demo, which doesn’t carry over progress to the upcoming Switch game, but playing it does earn an item booster pack for players when the full game is available.

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Risk and Reward

Games by their very nature have to be sold on interactive levels that movies and TV just don’t. Trailers and images are all those entertainment mediums can offer, and while there’s no shortage of both in gaming, they pale in comparison to how much a demo can convey about what playing a game is actually like.

Of course, there’s also the inverse risk – a player can experience a demo, decide a game isn’t for them, and move on without ever buying that game. I can only imagine the risk-cost analysis in releasing a demo. Not every game is for every person, and you can just as easily decide to buy a game after loving a demo as you can decide to never touch it again.

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But when demos work, they really work.

I don’t know if Maiden will necessarily usher in a new era of demos – their popularity seems to come in waves, either from generation to generation or even just on a given console. And plenty of developers have been putting out demos in recent years, so Capcom’s move here isn’t necessarily a new or unexpected one. Tt’s a reminder of the power of a demo. And they’re an enormous player service, allowing for discoverability and understanding of upcoming games on a deeper level. Demos may help you decide a game isn’t for you, but when they help a player fall in love with a new game, they act incredible gateways to worlds you’ve never experienced before, in a way no other tease could ever accomplish.

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Jonathon Dornbush is IGN’s Senior News Editor, host of Podcast Beyond!, and PlayStation lead. Talk to him on Twitter @jmdornbush.

Scavengers Studio’s Season, which had an impressive debut trailer at 2020’s The Game Awards, has reportedly had a tumultuous development that is due to the latest in a reported pattern of workplace harassment and toxic behavior at the studio.

A new comprehensive report from GamesIndustry.biz lays out a host of allegations from nine current and former employees of Scavengers Studio, the team behind the previous Darwin Project and the upcoming Season, against co-founder and Darwin Project creative director Simon Darveau. Specifically in regard to Season, the report describes an alleged, previous worry among developers at Scavengers that, should Darveau become a part of the team working on Season, he would essentially “override” the current creative director, Kevin Sullivan (who IGN previously spoke to about Season), and the rest of the team’s work.

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According to the report, these concerns became real, with allegations that, despite his actual role on the game remaining unclear, he has come in and led to “a considerable shift in focus and scope” on Season than what had previously been in place.

“Several current employees mentioned that Darveau had used the partnership with Sony to force his own ideas onto the game, saying he had promised a number of features to seal the deal – such as a larger world, quests, and objective markers – that either weren’t planned or had already been scrapped by the team. Now, they said, the studio is on the hook for them,” Gamesindustry.biz’s report states, with one source quoted in the story saying “I don’t even recognize the game” from what was originally planned.

One source even told the outlet “While it brought me extreme joy to see the work of my friends, it did sting a little bit to see a bunch of people praising the studio, saying how calming and chill and progressive everything looked. It might well be true for the Season project, but it has not been my experience with management.”

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And those concerns are allegedly not just due to the claims of Davreau’s “inability to follow through on ideas” that was also a marked aspect of Darwin Project’s development internally. Instead, the report shines a light on a number of accusations against Devreau and current-Scavengers CEO Amélie Lamarche.

Chief among the claims of the alleged hostile workplace created by Davreau and Lamarche is the sense of a “boys’ club” atmosphere, with allegations that women at the studio have been ” frequently degraded by male employees including Darveau, or infantilized and treated as if they did not know what they were talking about even when speaking from a position of expertise about their own work.”

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Additionally, the report lays out reported concerns from current and former employees about Davreau’s mistreatment and bullying of employees, save for a group of “commandos” that were Davreau’s favorites; allegations of Davreau groping multiple employees, and the implications of Lamarche essentially serving in an HR role to other employees despite having previously been in a romantic relationship with Davreau.

Scavengers responded to Gamesindustry, saying “Scavengers Studio appreciates that there have been situations during its rapid growth and takes the position that any type of harassment is unwelcomed and unacceptable and takes any complaints in this respect very seriously,” and while the studio told the outlet that “Certain elements…are false, somewhat blown out of proportion or lacking important pieces,” Scavengers did not comment further on what specifically may have been incorrect about the allegations.

Season is scheduled for a release this year on PC and PS5.

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Pokemon Go is holding a new Limited Research event starring Sneasel. The event takes place this Saturday, January 30, from 8 AM to 10 PM local time and features limited-time Field Research tasks that lead to encounters with the Sharp Claw Pokemon. Developer Niantic also says that players will have a chance to encounter Shiny Sneasel during the event.

Additionally, Niantic has announced it is rolling out a new line of Timed Research tasks. This line will be available from January 26 to February 7 and is themed after Team Go Rocket. If you’re able to complete the Timed Research while it’s available, you’ll earn a chance to catch a Ho-Oh that knows Earthquake. You can read more details on the official Pokemon Go website.

That isn’t all that’s happening in Pokemon Go this week. The game’s Johto Celebration event also kicks off on January 26. Throughout the event, Gen 2 Pokemon such as Chikorita, Cyndaquil, Totodile, and even Shiny Miltank will be appearing in the wild, and you’ll have another chance to learn a handful of previous Community Day moves.

The Legendary Pokemon Entei is also returning to Raids as part of the event. It will be available as a five-star Raid boss from January 26-31. Raikou will follow immediately afterward until February 4, while Suicune will make an encore Raid appearance from February 4-9.

Beyond that, February’s Community Day is also just around the corner. That event takes place on Saturday, February 6, and features the Grass Pokemon Roselia. Everyone who is able to evolve Roselia during the event will get a Roserade that knows two special Community Day moves: the Fast Attack Bullet Seed and the Charged Attack Weather Ball.

I remember how challenging it was to sing because the A-hole was so tight. But I pushed through because kids all over the country were counting on me. https://t.co/EiXEUjomxE

— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) January 25, 2021

Pokemon Go‘s February Community Day is just around the corner. The event takes place next Saturday, February 6, and features the Thorn Pokemon Roselia. To get you up to speed on the event, we’ve rounded up everything you need to know about February 2021’s Community Day below, from its start time to the other bonuses that will be available.

February 2021 Featured Pokemon: Roselia

The featured Pokemon for February’s Community Day is Roselia, a Grass/Poison Pokemon first introduced in Ruby and Sapphire. Roselia will be appearing in the wild much more frequently than usual throughout the event, while its pre-evolved form, Budew, will be hatching from 2 km eggs.

You’ll also have an increased chance of encountering a Shiny Roselia during February’s Community Day. This variant will still be rare, but you should be able to catch one with a little patience and persistence. You’ll increase your chances of finding a Shiny Roselia by using an Incense during the event.

February’s Community Day Moves: Bullet Seed And Weather Ball

If you’re able to evolve Roselia into Roserade up to two hours after February’s Community Day ends, it’ll learn not one, but two special event moves: the Fast Attack Bullet Seed and the Charged Attack Weather Ball. The latter move’s typing typically varies, but Roserade’s Weather Ball will deal Fire-type damage, making it effective against other Grass Pokemon.

February’s Community Day Hours

February’s Community Day will run for six hours. The event begins at 11 AM local time and ends at 5 PM local time. That means you’ll have until 7 PM local time to evolve Roselia into a Roserade that knows Bullet Seed and Weather Ball.

Community Day Special Research

As part of February’s Community Day, Niantic is offering an event-exclusive Special Research story called Stop and Smell the Roselia. To access this story, you’ll need to purchase a virtual ticket for $1. However, if you purchase a ticket for the Kanto Tour event by February 3, you’ll also receive a February Special Research ticket as a free bonus.

In addition to the paid Research Story, event-exclusive Timed Research tasks will also be available during February’s Community Day. Completing these tasks will net you various rewards, including Sinnoh Stones, which are required to evolve Roselia into Roserade.

Other Community Day Bonuses

In addition to increased Roselia spawns, a few other in-game bonuses will be active during February’s Community Day. First, eggs that are placed in an Incubator during the event will hatch at a quarter of their usual distance. Second, any Incense that you use during the event will remain active for three hours rather than the usual 60 minutes.

Additionally, Niantic will be selling a special Roselia Community Day bundle in Pokemon Go’s in-game shop. The bundle will cost 1,280 PokeCoins and includes the following items:

• 1 Elite Fast TM
• 4 Incense
• 4 Super Incubators
• 30 Ultra Balls

Star Wars: Battlefront II was recently free on the Epic Games Store, and the promotional period was massively successful for the sci-fi shooter.

Publisher Electronic Arts has announced that the game reached more than 19 million players as part of the promotion. “Thank you so much for the continued support, even after our final content drop! We’ll watch your careers with great interest. May the Force be with your troopers!” EA said in a tweet celebrating the accomplishment.

It’s not clear if all 19 million of these players are new to Battlefront II or if there is overlap between people who had already downloaded the game and elected to pick it up again on the Epic Games Store. Whatever the case, 19 million is a gargantuan number.

The Epic Games Store promo was so successful in bringing players to Battlefront II that the game experienced server issues as a result (which have now been addressed).

Released in 2017, Battlefront II was controversial from the get-go over its loot boxes and microtransactions, both of which were removed prior to the game’s public release after an outcry. Microtransactions were later reinstated, but loot boxes never came back.

The hullaballoo over Battlefront II’s microtransactions was so pronounced that it helped spur inquiries into loot boxes as a form of gambling across the world. Legislation in the US was introduced by Republican US Senator Josh Hawley, but this went nowhere, and Hawley has since garnered controversy for his part in calling for Joe Biden’s US Presidential win to be overturned.

Despite the issues, Battlefront II sold well and has a strong playerbase, one that is even bigger now. By EA’s latest count, the game and its predecessor had sold a combined 33 million copies. EA remains in business with Lucasfilm Games, and it’s making more Star Wars games with the company.