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- The sports genre used to be a well of creative ideas, but the lack of competition has diminished that.
- Nowadays, sports games are a way to sell you microtransactions, not a fun experience.
- Even if a modern sports title is good, the experience is ruined by the in-app purchases being pushed on you.
Over the past few decades, the sports genre has evolved into one of the most financially viable assets of the industry, with major franchises like EA’s FC and NBA 2K selling in millions every year.
However, even though the genre has been producing more realistic simulators that mimic real life, it has become stale and unimaginative. For example, even though every FC game makes hundreds of millions, the fan reception has been getting worse.
In my opinion, the reason games in the genre have become increasingly uninspiring over the years is the lack of competition.
Why It Matters: Sports games constitute one of the most financially reliable avenues in the gaming world, but with the titles slowly becoming lacklustre, this might not stay true for long.
The Sports Genre Lacks Choice
Looking at the state of sports video games at the start of this century, you will notice the variety of choices players had. If you didn’t like the EA Sports Madden games, you could just grab the iteration developed by 2K.
The same was true for NBA titles (2K and EA), football (Konami, EA, and Dino Dini), and almost every major sport.
With such ferocious competition from rivals, there was a sense of emergency amongst the developers that they had to make the most innovative and engaging video game to attract fans and make money, imploring them to come up with new and imaginative.
For instance, Madden 2005 gave us the brilliant franchise mode that forever changed the landscape and made it one of the best offerings in the series’ history.
However, NFL 2K5 wasn’t any less groundbreaking. Its realistic broadcast package mimicked real life and made the players feel like they were playing a live NFL match.
Hence, people had the freedom to choose what kind of experience they wanted and that choice was only present because different developers were competing with one another.
But now, that isn’t the case, with many of the franchises we once loved dying, such as PES. Because of this development, developers have made sports games a means to sell microtransactions instead of innovating and delivering a fun experience.
Even if a sports title is enjoyable in this day and age, you can’t just boot up your console or PC and enjoy a game for 3-4 hours without seeing multiple ads for a paid in-game purchase you don’t really need, which turns the experience sour.
And, the ones to blame aren’t the people directly making these titles, but rather the executives and the business model they have implemented.
A lot of these new sports games have interesting modes and engaging mechanics but all of that is overshadowed by corporations using these titles as psyops to force kids into purchasing loot boxes.
Lack Of Gameplay Innovation
There is no doubt that these new sports games look amazing graphically, but that has been the case for almost a decade now, and in that time, no real gameplay innovations have really been introduced besides hair and clothes physics.
For sure, we are told that there is a new AI system that affects player movement or a new physics system. But, in reality, we barely ever notice these small changes as the impact is insubstantial, which makes us question the $70 price tag these titles have every year.
And, it’s not that gameplay innovations aren’t possible anymore, the reality is just that studios are more interested in selling you microtransactions than making a sports simulator feel fresh and fun to play.
The lack of competition in the sports genre has made studios lazy, and instead of thinking of new innovations for the genre, they use it to shove microtransactions down our throats.
No doubt, these titles still make heaps in revenue, but the soul of the games has been taken away because of corporate greed.
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Shameer Sarfaraz has previously worked for eXputer as a Senior News Writer for several years. Now with Tech4Gamers, he loves to devoutly keep up with the latest gaming and entertainment industries. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science and years of experience reporting on games. Besides his passion for breaking news stories, Shahmeer loves spending his leisure time farming away in Stardew Valley. VGC, IGN, GameSpot, Game Rant, TheGamer, GamingBolt, The Verge, NME, Metro, Dot Esports, GameByte, Kotaku Australia, PC Gamer, and more have cited his articles.
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