"The Onion" article: 'EA New Revenue Model: Deleting Everyone's Anthem Characters Unless They Send $

Yikes! If you’re attached to your Ranger, Colossus, Interceptor, or Storm, looks like now might be a good time to pony up.

“Look, the idea here is simple: You send us 300 bucks in the next 60 minutes or else we’ll permanently delete your Javelin,” said EA CEO Andrew Wilson in a statement sent out to all of the game’s users. “Think about that. All your gear, gone. The time you’ve clocked into leveling up your Freelancer in Heart Of Rage, gone. Your weapon stash, gone. Forever. Or you can just play along and send us the goddamn money.”

“And no, we’re not fucking around here,” he added.

This will definitely be a huge test for Anthem’s player base, which risks losing all the experience they’ve accumulated if they choose to not pay the fee. Many have already spent dozens of hours grinding strongholds for Legendary loot, which could all be for naught if they don’t provide the money. For those users, paying up seems like a no-brainer.

“We don’t care how many hours you’ve spent building out your fully kitted-out Ranger—all of that’s going straight down the toilet unless we get three-hundo by the end of the hour,” said Wilson. “You could have crafted more Masterworks than anyone else in the game. We don’t care. Without that sweet cash, they’ll be gone.”

“Cough it up, goddamnit,” he added.

Since the announcement, many players have reported the presence of a new countdown clock in the game lobby, counting down the seconds they have left to comply with the company’s request.