EA's comment on a Reddit thread about 'Star Wars: Battlefront 2' set a Guinness World Record for the most downvoted comment of all time
- Reddit users have discovered that the platform's record for the most-downvoted comment will appear in the 2020 Guinness Book of World Records.
- The most-downvoted comment belongs to Electronic Arts, who racked up a score of -667,000 responding to a thread about its 2017 game, "Star Wars: Battlefront 2."
- "Star Wars: Battlefront 2" was embroiled in controversy for featuring "loot boxes" that got users to pay for access to key characters like Princess Leia and Darth Vader.
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There's a new king on Reddit for the most-downvoted comment on the platform, and we have the intense fandom behind Star Wars to thank.
A comment left by Electronic Arts on a Reddit thread from last year has set the record with a karma score - how many people have liked your comment - of -667,823. Since Reddit allows users to vote negatively for posts unlike other social platforms, EA's comment has been downvoted so widely that it's made its way into the 2020 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records.
Read more: The new 'Star Wars' game is embroiled in controversy, and fans are furious - here's what's going on
The record-breaking comment was made in response to a Reddit thread of users voicing their complaints about the controversial 2017 video game, "Star Wars: Battlefront 2." The video game, and game-maker EA, faced criticism for implementing "loot boxes" full of added features, which players could pay for in order to get an advantage in the game - something referred to as "pay for win" in the gaming community.
One of the big gripes was that the game required in-game credits, which cost money, to unlock the most popular Star Wars characters: Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, and Darth Vader. The record-shattering Reddit thread was started with a player questioning why he paid $80 for the game to have Darth Vader cost more money to access.
EA responded that unlocking characters was designed to give players "a sense of pride and accomplishment," and thanked fans for their "candid feedback." Evidently, users weren't happy with the response, and downvoted the EA comment en masse.
EA decided to scrap the concept of loot boxes in "Battlefront 2" by March 2018, and the company's chief design officer later admitted EA "got it wrong."
But with the world record, Star Wars fans aren't about to forget about the mess-up anytime soon. The entry in the 2020 Guinness Book of World Records was first spotted, coincidentally, by a Reddit user, whose post has 89,000 upvotes.
It seems that the EA comment is safe to live in world-record infamy for now. The second most-downvoted comment only has under 89,000 downvotes, thanks to a Reddit user literally asking people to downvote the comment.
