It’s no secret that Ultimate Team modes, where gamers build teams of players from cards won and purchased to build their own custom teams to play as, are on the rise. These modes are the primary income generators for sports games once they’re on your console, and the modes that get year-round support and updates.
For gamers who prefer traditional modes like franchise or be-a-pro modes, this has been an alarming development. While sports games were never known for their radical development year on year, as offline modes have been deprioritized in development, the lack of progress has grown more and more stark. If you’re one of those gamers who misses the days when the main appeal of sports games was the ability to play your own seasons, here’s what you can do to make them more appealing to the decision makers at game studios.
How Fans Could Bring Focus Back To Other Modes
Not every fan has a problem with Ultimate Team modes being so heavily prioritized, as evidenced by their popularity. Still, if sections of the community want to see change, there are many options to make that more likely. Here are some of the best ways the gaming community can make the case for more focus on traditional modes with both words and actions:
Keeping Wallets Closed Online
Online card-based modes aren’t the most developed modes in sports games now because publishers just believe in them so damn much; they’re that way because video games are developed by publishers who demand profits, and those modes are money-printing machines. In a subsection of the video game industry where so much of the money a game would bring in came in the opening months and where there is no longtail to sales to keep bringing it in when the developer has already moved on to the next year’s release, the ability to generate steady year-round income is great for the bottom line.
That’s why the best way to make sports games move some attention away from these modes and into ones you prefer — if you find yourself missing the more-developed offline modes — is to make the card-based modes less profitable. This means cutting off the flow of money they generate all year long. If the community wants more resources put into other modes, it needs to show that taking attention away from Ultimate Team is not throwing away money because the people controlling the finances at developers care far more about that than any claims on artistic merit.
Streaming Other Modes
Another critical way to show that a mode is worth putting time into is showing that it’s a mode that can generate value for a studio in other ways. While an offline franchise mode is not going to provide the kind of year-round income, at least so long as developers aren’t also stuffing those with pay-to-win mechanics like NBA 2K’s MyCareer. Just because these modes aren’t a source of direct income doesn’t mean the community can’t do more to show their value.
Streaming is not just a popular source of entertainment for gamers; it also serves as a fantastic form of advertising for a game. When a wide variety streamer decides to give a game a shot, it can turn an indie gem into a major success. A community that wants to show the value of an offline mode, like Franchise, can spend more time streaming that mode and bringing attention to the game to generate new sales.
If a developer sees that a successful mode can still generate income in the form of additional game sales, it is easier to make the case to devote more resources to it to keep it fun enough to get that free advertising.
Talking About Other Modes Online
If you’re not a streamer, that doesn’t mean that you can’t still play your part in showing that non-microtransaction-filled modes are still worth care in the development. Social media is another fantastic way to bring attention to a game and the modes you prefer. As with streaming, social media serves as a form of organic marketing for publishers, as discussion of their game brings it more attention to generate more sales.
While there’s an idiom that all press is good press, good press is still better press. When a popular mode generates an online community that discusses it, vouches for it, and shares great moments from within it that can show that it is a mode worth supporting. By keeping that mode fun and fresh, developers know they will keep the attention the mode generates to justify the additional resources committed to its development.
Calling Out Money Chasing Development
The flipside of the coin to bringing positive attention to the modes you love is to call out the behavior that you don’t. If gamers feel that a mode is predatory or stacked too strongly against gamers who are unwilling or unable to invest heavily in pay-to-win mechanics, then an online backlash can get that point across loudly and clearly.
Yes, talking about the Ultimate Team mode in a negative light is bringing it more attention, if all that attention is focused on not enjoying the mode or flaws that the community see it does not encourage others to dive in and give it a try. This has the effect of making the card-based modes less profitable, which in turn makes it easier for developers to make the case that reinvesting some resources from Ultimate Team into career or franchise modes is not just good for gamers but for the studio’s bottom line, too.
Organizing Around Offline Play
Building an online community is an excellent way to have fun and make friends who share your love for a mode, but it can also be an opportunity to get the mode a little more consideration in the next edition of the game. Communities create an ecosystem where the above benefits of streaming and social media talk are amplified.
By banding together with other gamers who also love a particular mode, the collective voice of the group becomes amplified beyond what the individual members of the community are capable of creating.
Playing Older Games
Wrapping things up is another opportunity to directly speak with your dollars, and online communities of like-minded gamers often make this even easier. If the community around a game that prefers a particular mode feels that new editions are not doing enough to build on and improve those modes, gamers can keep playing their older games.
This is where modding and customization can be super helpful. While sports games are often criticized for just being full-price roster updates, the ability to now import custom rosters into games means that you gamers can create this effect on your own by making and sharing updated files, providing gamers who want it with a genuine roster update without the need to drop the cost of a brand new game.
Are you a fan of Ultimate Team modes who loves where sports gaming is headed, or are you in the group that thinks they are better served as just one of several featured ways to play?
