Home

Are Online Franchises Endangered? (Roundtable)

This is a discussion on Are Online Franchises Endangered? (Roundtable) within the Operation Sports Content and Other News forums.

Go Back   Operation Sports Forums > The News Desk > Operation Sports Content and Other News
MLB The Show 24 Review: Another Solid Hit for the Series
New Star GP Review: Old-School Arcade Fun
Where Are Our College Basketball Video Game Rumors?
Reply
 
Thread Tools
Old 03-29-2015, 11:44 AM   #1
Executive Editor
 
RaychelSnr's Arena
 
OVR: 57
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Oklahoma City, OK
Posts: 4,846
Blog Entries: 490
Are Online Franchises Endangered? (Roundtable)


Online franchise. Online dynasty.
Online franchise modes -- yesterday's fad -- have all but disappeared from sports games. Are these experiences on the endangered list? Or will we get to enjoy them in the future?

We break down where the modes are going and if you can expect to see them in the years to come in this new roundtable!

Read More - Are Online Franchises Endangered? (Roundtable)
RaychelSnr is offline  
Reply With Quote
Advertisements - Register to remove
Old 03-29-2015, 01:22 PM   #2
Dead!
 
CM Hooe's Arena
 
OVR: 45
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Culver City, CA
Posts: 20,945
Re: Are Online Franchises Endangered? (Roundtable)

Quote:
Originally Posted by MMChrisS
Online franchise modes -- yesterday's fad -- have all but disappeared from sports games.
Connected Franchise is prominently featured in Madden NFL 15, NBA 2K15 still has online leagues (albeit their new MyLeague feature is not online-enabled), and MLB 15 The Show still has an online franchise mode. The only two we've lost over the past year or so are NCAA Football (we lost the game completely) and NHL 15 (next-gen leap). To say these modes have "all but disappeared" isn't really fair, IMO.

Here's the thing - a console sports video game has to attract people to play it beyond what the monetized quick-play modes offer. The game needs replay value beyond the pick-up-and-play aspect, and certainly needs to offer this without forcing the player into micro transactions lest consumers revolt. Sports games have offered season modes since their inception, and franchise modes since the turn of the century. Having a franchise mode is now an expectation of licensed console sports games, and a sizable portion of the audience now expects it to be there. It's an institutional component of the infinite replay value concept that sports games have, which sets them apart from traditional narrative experiences in video games; franchise modes are capable of telling millions of different stories. Between that expectation and the continued online connectivity of players across all mediums of video games, I don't see the modes in any danger whatsoever.

All that said, could we see some changes over time? Sure. Using Madden as an example, maybe Connected Franchise achievements are tied to MUT rewards - for example, if you win the Super Bowl in a CFM, you unlock a John Elway card. This may incentivize those who play CFM to give Ultimate Team a try. Maybe the mode moves away from the dedicated server approach, instead decentralizing and making one player the "host" player and he effectively acts as the server, other players submitting game results to his console and the week-to-week simulations happening locally instead of at some central server bank. What we won't see is the death of online franchise mode altogether.

Last edited by CM Hooe; 03-29-2015 at 01:24 PM.
CM Hooe is offline  
Reply With Quote
Old 03-29-2015, 01:37 PM   #3
MVP
 
eric7064's Arena
 
OVR: 1
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: United States
Online Franchise mode is all I really play. Ever since madden introduced it me and my buddy will get 10+ seasons done in madden. We love to play in the same franchise and share the same universe. Same with MLB the Show me and him got 8 seasons done. Im not really into the full 32 team league online franchise, I just like being able to play with a buddy or two and go at a quick fun pace. In previous years in the show we used to pick the same team and compare how we did, but it is nowhere near the same amount of fun as competing against each other in games, free agents, draft. There is nothing like it.
eric7064 is offline  
Reply With Quote
Old 03-29-2015, 02:01 PM   #4
Rookie
 
OVR: 4
Join Date: Jun 2009
Online Franchise /Dynasty Mode(s) is all I can enjoy, especially long term. I am currently in a full 32 user Madden CFM that is 10+ seasons deep and still going strong all the way to Madden 16.

These companies put out these fake so-called "statistics" simply to justify when they are slacking on features on their end and trying to buy themselves time to implement it. The only time we don't have a lot of people playing these modes is when the feature set is poor (like NBA2K15 currently collecting dust in my collection).

Now I am all in favor of paying extra money to make it worth the investment to the developers. Just like many of us currently pay an additional $50 to host our leagues on the DaddyLg site because it is far superior to the EA CFM site.

So charge us more if you need to. There is absolutely a huge demand the service.
aksumite is offline  
Reply With Quote
Old 03-29-2015, 02:07 PM   #5
Rookie
 
COLE THE SHMOLE's Arena
 
OVR: 0
Join Date: Aug 2012
Quote:
Originally Posted by eric7064
Online Franchise mode is all I really play. Ever since madden introduced it me and my buddy will get 10+ seasons done in madden. We love to play in the same franchise and share the same universe. Same with MLB the Show me and him got 8 seasons done. Im not really into the full 32 team league online franchise, I just like being able to play with a buddy or two and go at a quick fun pace. In previous years in the show we used to pick the same team and compare how we did, but it is nowhere near the same amount of fun as competing against each other in games, free agents, draft. There is nothing like it.
Love your response, I do the exact same thing. Online franchise is really the only thing that interests me, having a group of friends building, trading, to win the league is awesome. Can't play online H2H cause more than half the time other player is cheesing so that's no fun.

With the reports from the NHL developmental team saying "Online GM Mode is the least played mode" it's because it's garbage, NHL doesn't even have Fantasy Draft that you can control just sim, so may different features that have in regular GM. The NHL team better be working hard on Online Franchise as well as EASHL as they do on HUT.

Madden even with all its flaws has a pretty good online franchise; needs improvements but so does every other game, it has everything you pretty much need other than being more in depth, real rookie draft which don't know about licencing very smart to both online and offline together. If you build a quality game mode players will come.
COLE THE SHMOLE is offline  
Reply With Quote
Advertisements - Register to remove
Old 03-29-2015, 02:52 PM   #6
Rookie
 
OVR: 2
Join Date: Aug 2008
Only thing I been into in sports games since Madden 2004 is online leagues. There are many who play in online leagues and we play the games for the full year until the next release.

Of course online leagues will fail when people have no clue how to create or join a league that is actually going strong and active for a full year.

First thing is you don't just join or create a random online league: because it will fail for sure.
- You need some friends or look up message boards / google (game) online leagues
- Need some kind of online place to interact like twitter, facebook, groupme, or aim where the whole league can interact
- You need a schedule to get games done on time

Do that and you can make some good friends along the way. I been playing in online leagues now with the same guys for years, and right now where in out 7th year on Madden in the playoffs, and in a week were starting our MLB league. We also have a NBA2k15 league going good, and we play some WWE and GTA on the side and they all go strong. Sadly NHL is one that missed out on this, also didn't get any of our money.

Now if the general public out there knew all this they would prolly most likely want to be apart of the online leagues, cause its much more than just one online league for a game.
lynkraid is offline  
Reply With Quote
Old 03-29-2015, 09:11 PM   #7
Tecmo Super Bowl = GOAT
 
charter04's Arena
 
OVR: 21
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Arkansas
Posts: 5,718
Blog Entries: 3
I understand what the guys in the round table are saying and sadly agree to an extent but, the day sports games don't have online franchises or franchises in general and only focus on MUT and Online ranked type of stuff will be the day I walk away from sports gaming. My $60 might not mean much but, it will remain in my pocket or be spent elsewhere.

Unless they can find a way to go about it a different and more exciting way that I might enjoy. I won't be on board for a micro transaction based experience.
charter04 is offline  
Reply With Quote
Old 03-30-2015, 12:14 AM   #8
Pro
 
Retropyro's Arena
 
OVR: 8
Join Date: Jul 2010
It's not April 1st yet....
Retropyro is offline  
Reply With Quote
Reply


« Previous Thread | Next Thread »

« Operation Sports Forums > The News Desk > Operation Sports Content and Other News »


Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is On
Trackbacks are Off
Pingbacks are Off
Refbacks are Off



All times are GMT -4. The time now is 04:13 AM.
Top -