With the Success of Ultimate Team Modes, What is the Future of Franchise Modes in Sports Video Games?

[tinpanalley]

I'm glad to see this article here. It gives me at least a small glimmer of hope that someone else feels the same as me on this. A couple of years ago, I began playing FIFA 16 with updated squads even though 17 had already come out. In fact, I ended up playing a whole year with several teams I like while everyone else got on the 17 bandwagon. I just didn't see a purpose.  Then I didn't buy The Show 17 because I was still finishing 16. And when I finished 16, I was able to update MVP2005 to run current rosters and teams. Then I started exploring all the other sports games that have amazing communities keeping the rosters updated. And not just updated, but also with download after download of classic seasons. Now it's two years later,  and the ONLY game I play that is a current release is FIFA 18. For NFL, baseball, hockey, and NCAA basketball I play old games. The newest one in all this is NHL Legacy, again, fully updated (I replace Arizona with Vegas).
The bottom line is this, older games played fine unless you have some obsessive need for cutting edge graphics. Give me lesser graphics for better physics any day of the week. But the true test the old games pass that every new game has complicated to the point of overproduced ridiculousness is season/franchise mode. When they even have one that's worth playing. The older games just said, "here's a schedule, here's your team, pick what you want to manage, play all the games, we'll keep all your stats and give you a playoff". Done. What more do you need? Well apparently people need that fantasy element and the card collecting and yadda, yadda.  I simply do not get it. I have no interest in it. And the XP and the points, and... just exhausting. I wanna play the game because I love the sport. I don't want an RPG. I'll stick to my MVP2005 and MLB2K12, Madden 08, FIFA 14 and 16, NCAA10, NHL Legacy and 2K10,  all updated and given classic team historical mods.

[tarek]

I haven't put in serious time into a console sports game in a couple of years now (despite buying the latest madden and MLB the Show and NBA 2K17 - i've skipped 2K18). The reason is that I find FAR more enjoyment out of two other games: OOTP, Draft Day Sports College Basketball and Football Manager (soccer).
In addition, the last great NFL game I played was NFL Head Coach 09.

I know what type of gamer I am, and it's the type that loves coach mode and franchise. As both those options seem to find themselves less and less part of the big name console sports games every year, I'll continue to give my hard earned money to the sports management sim developers, who continue to fly the flag of true franchise gamers.

[GlennN]

And this is why I firmly believe sports gaming is in the dark days.  As with many of the above posters, I have no interest in card collecting games (or online gaming).  The state of sports games being stale (largely due to stagnant franchise features) has made my purchasing of games no longer an annual event.  Heck, even going every other year has been a waste of money.  Sadly, it does appear the end of gaming (for me) is near.  Though I prefer some arcade aspect to my games, I may have to switch entirely to text sims, since those are the only games that seem to care about franchise features.

[GlennN]

Re: With the Success of Ultimate Team Modes, What is the Future of Franchise Modes in

And, this is why we have to support the independent developers who try to create franchise mode in games, like Axis Football. https://twitter.com/axisfootball?lang=en If developers see a market, the odds of there being a game go up!

[Cardot]

Re: With the Success of Ultimate Team Modes, What is the Future of Franchise Modes in

And this is why I firmly believe sports gaming is in the dark days.*

Agreed. For me, the pinnacle was the 2003-2005 time frame. Online hadn't blown up yet, and more importantly it was before exclusive licenses. So many choices. The good ole days.

[spoofrice11]

Franchise Modes are pretty much all I play in Sports games. If they go, then I will too. I love creating teams, prospects, developing them and building a team up. And you can change it all by trading players for you guys or whatever if you get tired of your team.

I do not get the appeal of Hut and MyPlayer. I have tried them out a little, but it was more of a play a little until I start my Franchise, doing the Domination mode in NBA 2K. I don't really enjoy playing online, especially since most people will just try to find a play or cheap way to do things that there is no way to stop. Also, they get boring after your player gets high or until you get a team of players like: Durant, Wall, Porzingis, etc...
And then there is the money. I don't get why people would buy a game, then waste a bunch more so it is more playable. I feel spending $60 on a game is plenty and with other games don't want to throw more money at something. If it's not good without the money, it doesn't seem like it'd be worth getting to me.

[The Senator]

Re: With the Success of Ultimate Team Modes, What is the Future of Franchise Modes in

I despise Ultimate Team modes. If I want to build a dream team, I'll edit a roster. Heavily customizable franchise modes are the best sports gaming experiences for me. No micro transaction garbage, play at your own pace, with your own rules, and contemplate every what-if scenario that you can think of.

I understand that the younger generations in general couldn't care less about an in depth single player experience, and that the collectible card games are where the money generation is at, but for me, they're less than worthless to my gaming experience, unless they're funding more legends on the roster(that I can use in my modes), more work on the franchise mode, and more work on perfecting gameplay.

[Landle]

Without a deep Franchise Mode, I would have no reason to play sports games anymore. I don’t play online at all. Although I think $60 every year is a lot already, the extra revenue available online will eventually phase out franchise modes. Unless they make us spend money in the Mode. What’s it going to eventually cost to play a game and use all its features? Hundreds?

[mhayden614]

Without a Franchise mode I wouldn't buy sports games. MyTeam modes don't interest me in the slightest. I've dabbled with them to try them but they're a waste of time in my opinion. The only modes I play when it comes to sports games are Franchise modes. I guess according to this article i'm in the minority but then I read the comments and everyone seems to share my sentiments. 

[JayhawkerStL]

Re: With the Success of Ultimate Team Modes, What is the Future of Franchise Modes in

Maybe it's because I'm so old, but I don't mind finding other ways to play sports games. I've played them in just about every manner you can think of. My first baseball board game had round cards and spinners and only featured all-time greats. Even when we upgraded to Strat-O-Matic, we still would have giant redrafts and create fantasy leagues. My favorite was to run four team leagues based on all-star teams from each division.

But I've played the LED handhelds, vibrating football fields, and bubble hockey. None of those were sim, but then, we didn't have anyone whining about sim back then. We just played. We used a tape recorder to commentate out games, including slot racing.

Even in video games, I liked sims like the World's Greatest Baseball Game, and it only featured all-time great teams. That and hardball and Dr. J vs. Larry bird were my C64 sports games. Oh, of course Summer Games, which was flipping fantastic.


Loved Tecmo Bowl, Double Dribble, and all manner of arcade sports games on the NES and SNES. Loved the "football" game Cyberball in the arcades. Would play that and the hyper realistic baseball coin-up that had the little stick you pulled back and used to swing. Played as much NBA Jam as I played NBA Live with my roommate, who was a monster Knicks fan.

And yeah, I played Diamond Mind Baseball, FBPro and BBPro by Sierra, and Action PC Football for deep, deep simulation. I played in an APBA sim league that required us to snail mail the disc to the next owner when we finished out games. I played in a Strat league in college, pre-intenet, where we got together weekly and played out a series or two of games, all redrafted teams.

So yeah, I get it that folks like their one little mode. I like sports games, and all the ways developers have come up with repeating ways to emulate the sports we love. To me, it was a lot more than the trying to just mimic reality, it was about creating ways in which we used sports games to match-up strategically.

Ultimate Team is just another new way to give players a chance to build teams that match their ideas about strategy. And yeah, it started out with players paying to win. But Madden Salary Cap eliminated that. I think it is great. But then, I rarely play LUT in NBA Live 18. I used to play HUT an ton, but now just play the Play Now games, or run through a season.

I cannot imagine having grown up in a way that I could I only enjoy a sports game if it was a paint-by-numbers representation of what I see on TV. That's not to say I would not enjoy a great sim. But honestly, the fact that we call The show and NBA 2K great sims is a problem. Because they don't really cut it either.

But I like sports games, and this is a great time to a be sports gamer.

[RodionMaZ]

Re: With the Success of Ultimate Team Modes, What is the Future of Franchise Modes in

To me, Ultimate team modes (which, btw, started as a paid add-on for FIFA 09, not in Madden 11) is the ultimate fantasy sports mode, a true "simulator" where influence of the real world is minimized: I couldn't care less about injuries, divisions, drafts, playoffs, player "development", etc which is dictated by the economics in the first place (it's a videogame - I don't need to fly across the country to play against Boston). All I need is a basketball sim where I can play with the lineups I like.
Ultimate team could be seen as a franchise started from scratch, when you have a bunch of bums at the start and have to work (or pay) your way up. You invest your personal time or money to improve your lineup, but instead of "leveling up" your players, you earn better cards.
If you get tired playing your max lineup, you can always set your rules, salary cap, etc to bring more challenge to the mode. And it is where NBA 2k's MyTeam falls short: lack of vs CPU game modes like "vs CPU divisions" in FIFA or plain "vs CPU"/"vs other user's lineups" modes in MLB: The Show or PES, where you can choose CPU difficulty or difficulty increases the more you win against AI.

[jfeev215]

Re: With the Success of Ultimate Team Modes, What is the Future of Franchise Modes in

[QUOTE=RodionMaZ;2049187873]To me, Ultimate team modes (which, btw, started as a paid add-on for FIFA 09, not in Madden 11) is the ultimate fantasy sports mode, a true "simulator" where influence of the real world is minimized: I couldn't care less about injuries, divisions, drafts, playoffs, player "development", etc which is dictated by the economics in the first place (it's a videogame - I don't need to fly across the country to play against Boston). All I need is a basketball sim where I can play with the lineups I like.
Ultimate team could be seen as a franchise started from scratch, when you have a bunch of bums at the start and have to work (or pay) your way up. You invest your personal time or money to improve your lineup, but instead of "leveling up" your players, you earn better cards.
If you get tired playing your max lineup, you can always set your rules, salary cap, etc to bring more challenge to the mode. And it is where NBA 2k's MyTeam falls short: lack of vs CPU game modes like "vs CPU divisions" in FIFA or plain "vs CPU"/"vs other user's lineups" modes in MLB: The Show or PES, where you can choose CPU difficulty or difficulty increases the more you win against AI.[/QUOTE

You have the right to your opinion on the matter, however I would challenge that by stating you truly feel that way would you play a title of that nature with wholly fictitious players, cities and teams? I don't have a problem with these 'fantasy' sports style modes being done in that manner, but when devs use the licenses of the sports I enjoy to watch and play and make them in to a complete joke without putting forth a valiant effort to recreate the true essence of the sport it reeks of exploitation. Franchise modes should be the main focus of game development, because in truth the fans of the pay for play online modes will continue to play those modes whether they evolve or not. They'll complain about lack of options, microtransactions, server issues and impact lag but they'll still play and pay away. So devs, if you should read this posts here; try to show us franchise players some love before devoting the remainder of the device cycle and post release support towards the online community.

[RodionMaZ]

Re: With the Success of Ultimate Team Modes, What is the Future of Franchise Modes in

You have the right to your opinion on the matter, however I would challenge that by stating you truly feel that way would you play a title of that nature with wholly fictitious players, cities and teams?

Of course I do. I did it with Pro Evolution Soccer 3-6, where there were almost none of the licences and main "franchise" mode - Master League - was based around the team with non-existing players and you started in "generic" 5th division of some championship. And it was fun because gameplay was million times better than in license-packed FIFA 04-07. Heck, I played PES 5 until FIFA 09 on x360 came out in 2008, bringing next gen graphics and physics.

I don't have a problem with these 'fantasy' sports style modes being done in that manner, but when devs use the licenses of the sports I enjoy to watch and play and make them in to a complete joke without putting forth a valiant effort to recreate the true essence of the sport it reeks of exploitation.

Franchise modes should be the main focus of game development, because in truth the fans of the pay for play online modes will continue to play those modes whether they evolve or not.

That's the main difference: I'm a fan of the game of basketball, not NBA. Yes, it is cool to use "real-world" players (mostly retired legends) but the franchise recreated after real NBA is just plain stupid. Why do I have to play Denver 6 times and Cleveland only twice per season in a videogame? Why do I even need playoffs? Most sports use round robin tournaments to determine the best of the best without the need to split participants into divisions or conferences. You don't even need "home" and "away" matches because they have no difference in videogames besides the look of the court.
So the true videogame franchise would allow me to set up no-division, no-playoffs, fantasy-drafted, customized teams in round-robin format with 1-3-5-whatever number of rounds so I can play the league the way I want it to be played, that suits my needs better and not forcing me to edit rosters to enjoy playing some wack teams like Nets or Dallas if I happen to be their fan (or rearrange divisions, or add/remove teams I want or don't like).
In the end, we all want to use players we like and real-world representation of NBA just won't allow us to do that if we are now GSW fans.

So devs, if you should read this posts here; try to show us franchise players some love before devoting the remainder of the device cycle and post release support towards the online community.

I believe I saw a statement from devs before 2k15 or 2k16 that franchise users are less than 2% of overall player number who only buy the game and not generate any further revenue. So it is logical that devs are putting minimal effort to support such game mode: it is really time consuming to improve various aspects of the franchise which will be ignored by the majority of players anyway.

[JayhawkerStL]

Re: With the Success of Ultimate Team Modes, What is the Future of Franchise Modes in

I don't have a problem with these 'fantasy' sports style modes being done in that manner, but when devs use the licenses of the sports I enjoy to watch and play and make them in to a complete joke without putting forth a valiant effort to recreate the true essence of the sport it reeks of exploitation. Franchise modes should be the main focus of game development, because in truth the fans of the pay for play online modes will continue to play those modes whether they evolve or not. They'll complain about lack of options, microtransactions, server issues and impact lag but they'll still play and pay away. So devs, if you should read this posts here; try to show us franchise players some love before devoting the remainder of the device cycle and post release support towards the online community.

This is BS. Just because you view franchise play as the end all be all, it doesn’t make it essential. Look at the reaction to NBA Jam.

The real issue, as I’ve seen it, is that the more sim sports dominate console sports games, the more the sports market has contracted. It is literally the least creative and most boring mode in sports games. Again, I say that with a long, long history of playing sims, everything from board games to text sims to action sims on the PC.

Further, I still have a hard time considering any of the franchise modes on consoles as worthy of the attention they get here. They are as much of a joke as you complain the other modes are, to me. I had long believed that you could not use a controller to control a player in a sim. That was sacrilege. So instead of whining about the state of sim sports, I decided to start just playing these modes that others seem to enjoy.

I found that the MyCareer stuff, whether it is cinematic or just grinding a player to the pros to be monotonous and boring. I really hate it.

But I found the UT modes to be really nostalgic, reminding of the days I sat in my bedroom floor surrounded by baseball and football cards, and later, StratOmatic and APBA cards. I’d create rosters and lineups, comparing their stats and/or ratings.

Sure, I played a ton of straight up games. But I’d also do All-Star leagues, battling divisions against each other. With my friends, we create small leagues and do fantasy drafts by hand, sorting all the cards on a ping pong table. With just 6 teams, we also had full minors.

It seems like, as sim sports gaming has become less and less popular, those committed to it have regressed even more, become even less open-minded about what can be fun about sports gaming, as though they are defending the last stand.

What a waste of time, when opening your minds a little might result in having more fun overall, even if your favorite modes get less love.

Mostly, when I see millions of folks enjoying something, I try to find what it is that is driving that joy. Sometimes, it still doesn’t click, like MyCareer. But often, I find myself enjoying something I thought I would hate. But it requires a serious attempt to enjoy it, not a cursory quick look and judgement.

When I moved to console gaming from PC, which basically happened when the sim sports genre mostly collapsed, I thought I had to give up first person shooters. I knew that keyboard and mice were faster and more accurate, and my attempts at Halo made me nauseous. But I picked Halo late for the Mac, and started to really enjoy it, but the performance was crap. I decided to give the Xbox version another try. This time though, instead of going in with my knowledge of the keyboard and mouse being superior, I went in thinking that if millions of kids can not only play this, but love it to death, I can adapt, too.

So I forced myself to play it with a controller, ignoring how terrible it felt. At some point I realized I was just playing and loving it, feeling as natural with a controller as keyboard and mouse. That opened up a ton of gaming for me, which I had cut myself off of using nothing but a closed mind.

And seriously, shedding the religious devotion to sim sports had the same effect on me. It opened up the consoles as a fun place to play sports games. I just had to stop restricting myself out of some devotion to sim sports.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[KSUowls]

Re: With the Success of Ultimate Team Modes, What is the Future of Franchise Modes in

The future isn't good. We've already seen the impact on franchise modes with an increased focus on UT, and when you hear comments by top execs from EA and other companies about the success of UT to their bottom things don't look good for sim fans. The future is likely either a simple roster update or a monetized franchise mode.