The Downfall of Sports Games

The sports video game genre is designed to simulate the practice of a sport like basketball and football, for example. While they were really good from the beginning of the genre to 2015, they have sadly taken a sharp drop in quality.

Bad Qualities

1. The main problem with these games today is that they suffer from microtransactions, bugs, glitches, unskippable ads, reskins, server issues, being rigged.
2. Most game developers who develop sports games don't listen to criticism or their player base, which is another major problem with these games.
3. The pay-to-win game modes, Ultimate Team (EA Sports), MyTeam (NBA 2K), Diamond Dynasty, (MLB: The Show, while still decent) are plagued by microtransactions and packs/loot boxes.
   • Even worse, NBA 2K20's MyTeam mode has minigames that resemble casino games (slot machines, panchinko, etc.) despite its E rating. In other words, it's a game with real gambling being sold to children, which is unethical and illegal!
4. Most of the games in the series are copy-pasted with little to no differences, aside from better graphics.
5. Some of the games always tend to have bad PC ports based on inferior console versions instead of superior next-gen ones starting from FIFA 07.
6. There have been plenty of bad and mediocre sports games today, such as:
   • NHL 15
   • NHL 16
   • NHL 21
   • NHL 23
   • Madden NFL franchise from 18 onwards
   • FIFA 19
   • FIFA 20
   • FIFA 21
   • NBA 2K18
   • NBA 2K20 (the most infamous in the series due to real gambling)
   • NBA 2K21
   • NBA 2K24
   • NBA Live 15
   • NBA Live 16
   • WWE 2K20 (the most infamous)
   • UFC 4
   • The Robomodo era of Tony Hawk games and Motion (also the most infamous)
   • eFootball 2022
7. Some of these games tend not to focus on their franchise mode and career mode. The most notable examples of this are Madden and NHL games since 21 respectively.
8. There is no competition whatsoever. Literally almost all of it is gone, NHL 2K, NFL 2K, MLB 2K, NBA Live, and Sony’s NBA series. All gone.
9. A lot of features that used to be in sports games from the PS2/XBOX and PS3/X360 era are gone such as:
   • Create-a-Team (removed in Madden, NBA 2K (though it partially still exists in MyLeague/MyGM and MyNBA))
   • Halftime and postgame interviews (removed in NBA 2K)
   • Contract Holdouts (all)
   • Position Battles (removed in Madden)
   • Detailed player cards (removed in Madden, MLB: The Show)
   • Vision Cone (removed in Madden)
   • Rewind (removed in Madden)
   • Pro Bowl (removed in Madden, though added back in Madden NFL 20)
   • Player Weapons (removed in Madden, also added back in Madden NFL 20 in a cheesy, more unrealistic fashion as X-Factors)
   • Winter Classic (removed in NHL)
   • Battle for the Cup (removed in NHL)
   • Situation Mode (removed in NBA 2K, Madden)
   • Create a Legend (removed in NBA 2K)
   • Codes (removed in NBA 2K, not the locker codes, but the codes you can use to unlock special teams like the development team, jerseys, the ABA ball, and heck, even a boost in NBA 2K13 that increases your ball handling in MyCareer)
10. Overall, this downfall tarnished the reputation of this genre. This downfall got too sharp to the point where this genre went into a streak of underwhelming years.

Good Qualities

1. There is still a handful of good, OK, alright sports games today such as:
   • Good sports games:
     • NHL 18
     • NHL 19
     • Any MLB: The Show game
     • NBA 2K16
     • NBA 2K23
     • F1 21
     • F1 23
     • Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2
     • WWE 2K22
     • WWE 2K23
   • Okay sports games:
     • FIFA 22
     • FIFA 23 (which ended the FIFA series on a decent note)
     • Madden NFL 17
   • Alright sports games:
     • NHL 17
     • NHL 20
     • NHL 22
     • NHL 24
     • Madden NFL 16
     • FIFA 16
     • FIFA 17
     • NBA 2K19
     • NBA 2K22
     • EA Sports FC 24 (which started the EA Sports FC series on an okay note)
2. The sports video game genre even though it had gone downhill, can still be considered decent.
3. The sports games were amazing in the 90s and 2000s as there were awesome games, such as:
   • NBA Jam
   • The Neversoft era of Tony Hawk games
   • The FIFA series (before FIFA 19)
   • The SSX series
   • WWE series
   • Def Jam: Fight For NY, and many more
4. These games still tend to have good soundtracks, but not Madden NFL.

Reception

While these games today tend to get mixed to positive reception from critics (presumably due to bribery), sports games today usually are criticized by gamers for feeling copy-pasted every year, microtransactions (most notably NBA 2K), bugs and glitches (especially in WWE 2K20) and the pay-to-win Ultimate Team.

How This Genre Can Improve

• Stop with the repetitive annual release formula and update a game’s rosters for 2-4 years before making a new game.

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