Online Leagues Deserve a Comeback

[Steve_OS]

In recent years, there has been a belief in sports gaming that franchise modes have been...

Written By: TJ Henderson

Click here to view the article.

[Honome]

EA won last year more than 800 million dollars only on FUT... That's right, 800.000.000 usd!!!

It's not for lack of money that EA doesn't improve their games and bring back online franchise or create something new to connect players that would be really cool, like suggested in the article, is simply because they don't care about non-ultimate team customers anymore, simple as that.

[TJ Henderson]

Where does that figure come from?* ?

[TJ Henderson]

Nevermind, just read it. From one game....*

[swimfunk]

Online leagues are all I play for sporting games.* *I don't really get the appeal for "Ultimate team" modes and get bored of them rather quickly.* *Offline franchises are fun to run a team but I don't enjoy playing games vs the cpu so I lose interest.* *Online leagues provide a chance to play directly vs a user and also act like a GM against others users.* *I wish other games would support online leagues but it seems like they are focusing on the cash grab.* *One of my favorite leagues was connected GM because the games were quick and fast paced.*
*NBA2K has stepped up recently with their My League Online and I hope they continue to take steps forward and not backwards.* I am intrigued by some of the Madden changes to CFM and am hopeful they are as good as advertised.* *

Online league players are some of the most loyal gamers because they tend to play the game year round.* *My 2K league is planning on playing right up to 2K20 release date and then will jump into a fresh 2K20 franchise.* *I've been involved in online leagues since 2009 (2k9) and have been hooked since.**

[AUChase]

I really miss when LeagueDaddy.com was popular during the PS2 sports title and early PS3 era was going.* Those leagues and the format with them was something special for me.*

[CujoMatty]

Joined an online league for OOTP for the first time *and it’s the most fun I’ve had in gaming in as long as I can remember.*

[JayhawkerStL]

Online league play used to be my primary reason for playing sorts games. In my mind, what ruined it was the introduction of CFM. Suddenly, it was no longer possible to grab five of your buddles and play in six man league.

No, now it has to be full sim all the time. You can grab five friends, but you will mostly play the CPU, because, in reality, sim players don't like playing humans. So even their online leagues have become crap-filled AI fests. The games take well over an hour, because how could you enjoy a game without really forcing gamers to grind for 45 minute before the game gets down to the nitty gritty.

Give me 6-12 team leagues that can either draft or assign players and 5 minute quarters. You know, so a group of friends can play without the game needing to be some sort of intense sim, but rather a fun game that is competitive.

I grew up playing Indian Ball in the cemetery, so we could play baseball with just a few guys. We played 4 on 4 football in the backyard. We played half court basketball 3 on 3 on a blacktop court in a neighbor's backyard. We took the sports we loved and altered them so that we could compete and play with the numbers we had.

When we played sports video games, it was just about competing with each other. It was about the fun. We had Strat O Matic, which was obviously sim, but even that we sorted into smaller leagues. My favorite way to play Strat was to create four all-star teams based on each division (back when baseball had 28 teams). I would play out seasons and track stats in the notebooks. Sometimes I ran full seasons, too.

But more than anything, with the friends I grew up with playing sports and sports video games, we never restricted our selves to making it real. It was always about making it fun and competitive. You know what is not fun? Playing a 30 team league, because, inevitably, you will not enjoy many of the folks you play with. Too often, you won't enjoy the commissioner.

This move to CPU being forced into the game to run teams has eliminated league play as something I am interested in. I think it has mostly destroyed online sports leagues.