Are these the "Dark Ages" of Sports Gaming?

[inkcil]

When you think about what the consoles are now capable of, and what other gaming genres are doing (action, shooters, etc.), is Sports Gaming in the midst of its own Dark Ages?

Remember "how good music was" before it became a machine where greedy corporations pumped out the same sound because they calculated it would make them the most money...has the same thing happened to Sports Gaming?

People who do complain about annual sports franchises often argue that a big part of the problem is the "suits" who only allow so much improvement to be released per year in order to milk potential. This is somewhat similar to what has happened in the music industry.

Add to that, the fact that the number of annual titles has diminished...not 2 football games, just 1. Not 3 basketball games, just 1 (and a second that struggles to stay in the market). Not 2 hockey games, just 1. No simulation MLB licensed game on the Xbox One.

Where is the boxing game? The tennis game? Where are we at with the state of licensed PGA tour games?

No College Sports titles.

Then there is the lack of arcade titles. On that note, has anyone played an arcade fighting game as good as Def Jam Fight For New York since it was released?

BTW, Tony Hawks games have seen better days.

And like Hollywood, now there is the lack of innovation, creativity and originality. Just recycled ideas and concepts. "Oh, let's remaster an old Tony Hawk game, the people will just love that!"

And to think, at one point Sports Gaming was expanding to the point that it even had the audacity to give us NFL Head Coach and MLB Front Office Manager.

Edit: Not to mention, if someone had asked me 10-12 years ago, I would have promised that our options for Olympics games and X Games would be highly impressive by now.

And weren't we supposed to have the option to be playing sports games with advanced peripherals by now? Looks like Sports Gaming gave up on that...

Are the sports games pushing the graphical or processing power of these new machines...across the board, is the AI really that much better? The presentation? The immersion? The number of ways to play? What about the options? These are all things that were supposed to improve when the memory of the system is 10 times more powerful than it was 15 years ago.

Here's a thought: Did the "Online Evolution" take away anything from us? Perhaps the resources publishers and developers needed to push the boundaries in the aforementioned categories? Maybe...

The one possible bright spot (as a genre, not talking about any one specific franchise or publisher) could be the Racing Genre. It hasn't really lost or forgotten its past, and it continues to expand the number of settings where racing takes place...from open worlds to dirt tracks designed for 2 wheeling.

If we are in a Sports Gaming Dark Age, perhaps the Racing Genre will feature the games to lead us out. Perhaps...

[mestevo]

Personally, no. I play more sports games than I ever have because of EA / Origin Access.

[GlennN]

I would say yes, for the reasons you mentioned. A single choice for football, baseball (on the PS4, anyway) and hockey? I'd add lacrosse to your list of sports unrepresented (though there was the Casey Powell Lacrosse last year). I'd buy the Nintendo Switch in a heartbeat, but with football, baseball or hockey, there would be pretty much no game I would play on it. It's funny - we are victims of technology. The consoles have become so advanced, that programming requires a much greater devotion of resources than in the past. I miss the days when we had multiple annual choices of games. And I don't think it is ever coming back.

[redsox4evur]

Nope because only 2 of the 5 major sports don't have multiple games out there. In MLB there is The Show and RBI Baseball, as well as OOTP. Yea RBI Baseball is crap but it is still being produced and OOTP was called the best PC game of 2016 and doesn't take much to run on your PC. Also if we are talking strictly baseball and not MLB there is Super Mega Baseball which is a great arcade style game. FIFA has PES, NBA Live and 2K. And then there is no competition for NHL because the market is so small.

[ExtremeGamer]

For an offline gamer, it is. I didn't finish a single season in any sports game last year, skipping Madden and NHL this year and losing interest more and more every year in sports videogames.

I get it that the money is in ultimate team modes and I'm no longer the target audience, I've accepted it and moved on. I was the guy who bought all 5 NFL games, all 3 NBA games, all 5 MLB games, 3 NHL games, etc. But I'm just not a sports gamer anymore. And it's okay. If you play online or ultimate teams, it's most definitely the pinnacle of sports gaming.

[mgoblue]

Quote: Originally Posted by ExtremeGamer

For an offline gamer, it is. I didn't finish a single season in any sports game last year, skipping Madden and NHL this year and losing interest more and more every year in sports videogames. I get it that the money is in ultimate team modes and I'm no longer the target audience, I've accepted it and moved on. I was the guy who bought all 5 NFL games, all 3 NBA games, all 5 MLB games, 3 NHL games, etc. But I'm just not a sports gamer anymore. And it's okay. If you play online or ultimate teams, it's most definitely the pinnacle of sports gaming.

This.

I just don't have the time...or the time I do have I have found is better spent on single player games due to many reasons. Mostly that the sports games are also targeting online more as well.

Nothing wrong with it, just using everyone's time in the most fun ways IMO. I over time found sports games more frustrating vs. fun.

[ExtremeGamer]

Quote: Originally Posted by mgoblue

This. I just don't have the time...or the time I do have I have found is better spent on single player games due to many reasons. Mostly that the sports games are also targeting online more as well. Nothing wrong with it, just using everyone's time in the most fun ways IMO. I over time found sports games more frustrating vs. fun.

Sliders ruined sports games IMO. We tweak and tweak and tweak. Would rather just be stuck with it "is how it is" type difficulty than every game feel the need to mess with them. Frustration set in and games sat, especially by me because I couldn't find the right formula.

I never touched them the last year or 2 and dealt with whatever came from it.

[GlennN]

Quote: Originally Posted by ExtremeGamer

Sliders ruined sports games IMO. We tweak and tweak and tweak. Would rather just be stuck with it "is how it is" type difficulty than every game feel the need to mess with them. Frustration set in and games sat, especially by me because I couldn't find the right formula. I never touched them the last year or 2 and dealt with whatever came from it.

Funny, I feel exactly the opposite (and I am also only an offline gamer). If there is something that bothers me, I can tweak it to my liking. To me, sliders solve issues with frustration (except, as in the NHL series, the sliders don't seem to do what they should). Sliders, though, have been around for years (I am recalling back when I was playing with the tuning file on High Heat Baseball), so I don't know if that is even relevant to the status of modern games.