When EA halted real-money transactions in Star Wars: Battlefront II last month , the company said it was a temporary move that would be reversed "at a later date... only after we've made changes to the game." Now, an EA executive suggests that later date for the return of microtransactions may never come.

"Over time we'll address how we will want to bring the [microtransactions] either into the game or not and what form we will decide to bring it into," EA CFO Blake Jorgensen said in remarks to NASDAQ's investor conference earlier this week. That "or not" is the first public indication that the in-game purchases, which were heavily integrated into the game's progression system at first , might never come back.

"Clearly we are very focused on listening to the consumer and understanding what the consumer wants and that's evolving constantly," Jorgensen said. "But we're working on improving the progression system. We turned the [microtransactions] off as an opportunity to work on the progression system inside the game. We're continuing to update that...

"It's been a great learning experience for us," he continued. "We consider ourselves a learning organization, and if we're not learning we're failing in some way."

Battlefront II's microtransaction decisions come amid a backlash against the idea of randomized "loot boxes" in games. Regulators in Belgium and politicians in Hawaii have been looking at the practice as a form of gambling that should be restricted for children or banned entirely. Hawaii State Representative Chris Lee has continued his push against loot boxes, encouraging a letter-writing campaign to get legislators in other states on board with the issue.

While EA has yet to respond directly to press questions since the microtransaction controversy erupted, Jorgensen recently addressed the issue at another investor conference, saying that cosmetic items in the game could have violated Star Wars' carefully curated canon . "Darth Vader in white probably doesn't make sense compared to Darth Vader in black," he said. "Not to mention you probably don't want Darth Vader in pink—no offense to pink, but I don't think that's right in the canon."