It’s Time For Sports Video Games To Abandon The Annual-Release Model

I’ve been covering sports games for more than a decade now, and I’ve been playing them for nearly three times that long. When I speak to someone about the latest Madden NFL and NBA 2K middling entries, their first question is always, “Should this one be bought if my last year’s was?” Sometimes I had to consider whether or not I recommended a gamer buy the latest version. However, over the past few years, I have found that the games are just as iterative. I now know the answer: “How crucial is it?” [this year’s tentpole feature]Do you agree? What is the importance of having the most recent rosters? Even if one is a bit wishy-washy I’d say “Wait for the sale” or “Just go to last year.” With each passing year, the song and dance become increasingly more obvious.

My fellow Game Informer Kimberley Wallace wrote an opinion piece recently about how sports games can get trapped in a rut. Madden has placed more emphasis on the Franchise mode, but only after an enormous fan campaign. The NHL series implemented many gameplay enhancements that had little impact, while the NBA 2K franchise felt less exciting with every entry. The defense always offered up for sports games is Because they are required to be out by the first of each season, they often have very short development cycles. That is fair to the developer. However, it is unlikely that they are responsible for deciding whether or not to publish a game every single year. The publisher, or the licensee will likely make that decision. 

However, the sports genre isn’t the only category, nor are EA Sports and 2K Games the only publishers that have been criticized for the annual or rapid release schedule. Other franchises, publishers, and genres that have come under fire in the past have found ways to alleviate or circumvent this problem. Capcom was previously notorious for its approach to releasing new versions of its Street Fighter titles. What did Capcom do to solve this problem? Street Fighter V was released as a platform which evolved over several years. Street Fighter V was hardly my favorite entry in the franchise, particularly at launch, but the development team kept working on it and improving it, demonstrating that the long-running series could break away from tradition and transition to the platform format.

Are there other franchises who were criticised for their past annual releases? Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed and others are two that come to my mind immediately. Assassin’s Creed, which has moved from an annual release to a more flexible approach in recent years, gives its players enormous playgrounds in games like Odyssey or Valhalla. Then, the company continues building on those worlds by offering huge expansions that are both free and paid. These games often come from different studios or multiple. Call of Duty is similar to this, although it continues to release new games each year. Activision instead of giving up the annual release date, implemented a rotation of development tasks that involved Treyarch (Infinity Ward), and Sledgehammer Games. The Warzone is a Call of Duty product, which is why the franchise continues to release a new game every year.

The success of the Assassin’s Creed series is due to its departure from an annual release model

As you begin looking at the landscape of how games across the various genres have progressed in recent years, the annual release method feels antiquated. It is possible for developers to update their titles and fundamentally alter parts of the game long after it has been released. Madden NFL 22 took full advantage of this capability by retooling its entire Scouting system in Franchise mode, months after it was released. It’s possible to apply this concept to multiple-year projects. Why can’t I buy a copy of Madden, then for the next few years, purchase annual roster and feature updates in the form of less expensive seasonal content? It would stop the online community from splitting and it would allow for a more cohesive experience. 

In talking with sports game developers from multiple companies in the past, one of the big sticking points is that the sports themselves don’t evolve that much year to year, making it difficult to innovate the games that are based on those sports. The platform approach would reduce the expectations that every year should be markedly different. EA Sports UFC 4 is a similar game. EA Sports UFC Series has always operated on a two year cycle. Every entry builds upon the previous games and innovates in new modes such as career or the online suite. Although the UFC does not have defined seasons, it is clear that a two-year cycle can be used for any sports title. This will allow for more innovation within the series.

Although it works under various circumstances, EA Sports UFC has been releasing games every other year

There are many factors beyond the control of developers. As alluded to before, it’s entirely possible that many licensing contracts (particularly the exclusive/restrictive ones) with established sports leagues require the publisher to release an annual iteration of the game. These annual games are also very popular, regardless of any criticism. For example, Madden NFL 22 was released in August and quickly became one of the best-selling games of 2021, dominating as the top-selling game during its release month. Likewise, both FIFA 22 and NBA 2K22 posted strong sales in their release month, coming in at number 2 and 3 respectively, only beat out by Madden NFL 22, which was once again reigned as the best-selling game for the second month in a row. These numbers were achieved in spite of lower than usual Metacritic aggregate scores. Madden NFL 22’s PlayStation 5 score is 68.

Both the leagues as well as the publishers would have to be able to show that a change is necessary or beneficial in order to maintain the current release schedule. Sadly, I don’t know how that happens without a test case from another major player in the sports video game space, or a year of uncharacteristically underwhelming sales for a flagship release. It’s a shame that we won’t be able to move forward with the annual plans we have seen ever since sports video games were big business.

Although it may be some time before major publishers of sports franchises embrace this method, it is becoming more obvious that there needs to be change. It has been proven to be productive and fruitful for many non-sports franchises and it is possible that this model could also work well within the game industry. Now the question is: Which major league or publisher will be open to taking that risk, and possibly compromising on the gold goose annualized sports titles have been for decades?