Over the last decade, sports games from FIFA to Madden and NBA 2K have been some of the best-selling titles around. When you factor in massive in-game purchases, they have been absurdly successful for their publishers.
With more and more major titles flopping and costing their developers millions, sports titles have been bankable assets for developers. They turned into true cash cows when Ultimate Team arrived. But it seems like the tide is turning against these games now.
Annual Burnout
It's been a meme for a while that annual sports games are just a $70 roster update. While it's been a major driver in titles like Madden that players have access to the latest rookies, in previous years the technological advances were also a massive selling point for players, adding better graphics and visuals along with smoother gameplay.
In recent years that gain has become increasingly marginal, leaving players hunting for substantial features and gameplay upgrades. It's been a fruitless search though, as the majority of added features provide little to career mode saves while gameplay changes are often buggy and balance-destroying.
The burnout from these games seems to have become worse since covid as well. Whether players stuck at home ground out these games to an excessive amount and are still feeling the effects or the knock-on from office closures is still being felt as sports titles have such little margin in their release cycles, the frustration from players has just been growing and growing.
Meta Gaming
The appeal of sports games is to control your favorite team and replicate their play. The issue is that most sports games force one way of playing thanks to unbalanced gameplay.
Zone coverage is often completely broken in Madden. This year's College Football revival was great until players discovered the Wildcat Jet Sweep was basically unstoppable. Attacking movement from AI players in FC 25 is diabolically awful while five-at-the-back formations were dominant, forcing a style of play that is totally alien to the game fans watch at the weekend.
The result is everyone playing to the meta of the game, rather than expressing themselves in the sport they love. If you try to play like Arsenal in FC 25 you will get demolished. If you try to play cover 3 defense in Madden it's over. This just makes every game the same, turning it into a grind to get through a season of career mode. Never mind Ultimate Team...
Squeezing Every Penny
Ultimate Team has been perhaps the greatest innovation in gaming of the 21st century. Players (most players anyway) absolutely love it and it has turned sports titles into money-printing machines.
I recent years though, the mode has become more and more exploitative and expensive. Free rewards used to be abundant and could keep your team competitive without needing to spend real money on packs. That is no longer the case.
Practically the only way to interact with an FUT promo these days is to buy a pack. The free rewards in MUT programs have shrunk considerably. Rewards at the end of the Field Pass, which look competitive when announced, are just fodder by the time they are unlocked.
This move to more and more aggressive promotion of the store over in-game rewards is souring a lot of players to the Ultimate Team modes. The whales of the player base may never change, but a company can't rely on whales alone to keep its game profitable and relevant. Just look at what's happened to Halo Infinite.
Forcing Change
While EA and 2K hold exclusive licenses to these sports fans can't protest by simply moving over to a rival title. Instead, full on boycotts may be required to truly signal that change is needed.
Review bombings and brutally negative subreddits aren't moving the needle at EA or 2K. So voting with your wallet via not getting the game until it is on sale or outright skipping years combined with not spending on packs is the only way to make the developers pay attention.
We all want a great game that accurately replicates the sport we love. None of us are getting that right now.