Why Yearly Sport Video Game Releases Are Outdated

Over the past few years, there has been a growing frustration among sport video game players over the sport games that they play.

If you sift through a lot of the complaints, you’ll notice a similar theme of games looking and feeling the same year-after-year. These comments are all an issue cause by sport sims being an annual release.

This strategy was once perfectly fine. However, over the past few years, it’s become very apparent that it is outdated and change needs to happen for both the overall health of the games and the communities that play them.

There are four key reasons why sport games being yearly releases were fine previously:

1. It was significantly easier to see graphical improvements year-to-year up until around 2016
2. Mechanical gameplay mechanics had room to grow for a long time, but are nearing their peak now
3. The game development process, while not easy at any point in time, was less complex
4. Expectations for games have increased over time as people compare them to other titles

Let’s get more in depth on each of these below and why each of them point to why it’s time to stop having sport titles as yearly releases.

Visual Improvements and Diminishing Returns

One of the largest complaints about all major sport games right now is how they all look and feel the same. And, to be fair, on a year-over-year basis it is extremely difficult to notice the difference between them visually. It’s only when you go back a couple of years that you notice a difference.

Essentially, we’re at a point of diminishing returns on graphics in terms of structures/modelling. There’s a solid comment on a Reddit post from 6 years that explains this better than what I can, so I’ll link that here. The gist of it is that while graphics will continue to improve, we’re limited to the tech available on a console and the rate that it improves at will be less noticeable year-over-year, and less noticeable per console jump.

Just to illustrate the above points, here are some examples with NHL in the 1080p era.

Here’s NHL 08 (first year released on PS3) compared to NHL 14 (last year of a dedicated release on PS3)

That’s a fairly big jump in graphics that occurred over 7 titles. Even towards the latter years, there was a noticeable visual difference between NHL 12, NHL 13, and NHL 14.

In comparison, here’s NHL 15 (first year released on PS4) vs. NHL 20 (where we are at):

That’s a six-year jump in graphics, and while it is much better in NHL 20 than NHL 15, the differences aren’t as noticeable as NHL 08 to NHL 14. Where you notice the visuals the most in NHL 20 are environmental (i.e. the lighting and textures of the ice). It’s only when you’re actively trying to look for things.

From a personal viewpoint, there really aren’t a lot of main areas where I’d say NHL graphics can improve for the core gameplay since the players are in padded uniforms. Most of it applies to more subtle things like environment, player likeness, and animations. However, none of those will be super noticeable on a year-to-year basis when playing the game.

The same principles are true across most (if not all) of the major sport sim games. The graphics of the games right now are in a really, really solid spot. Where they’ll improve are in areas that you won’t notice as much on a yearly basis, but when you look back in a few years you’ll be like “yeah, they definitely improved”.

As a final point, here’s NHL 17 to NHL 20:

NHL 20 undoubtedly looks better but that’s a four-year jump and you’re not going to notice the differences year-to-year as much as you used to. That margin will continue to shrink over the years too.

Pushed to the Mechanical Limits

Something that doesn’t get enough discussion is how there is an eventual limit on the mechanics within a sport simulation game, especially if you’re trying to keep it realistic. We’re also very close (if not already) to that point.

Think about it.

How much can sport games add to mechanical gameplay right now to make them feel both different and improved? There’s only so much you can to do running, skating, passing, shooting, dribbling, dunking, tackling, etc., when you’re working within the realms of realism to make it feel tangibly and noticeably different each year.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing either. It just means that the games are going to start blending together more by both look and feel, which is why we’re seeing more and more complaints from consumers if the yearly release schedule continues.

These mechanics will still require tweaking and adjusting to get right as their real life counterparts grow, but at the end of the day there really is only so much more that can be done.

They‘re Complex and Time Consuming to Develop

In order to make games better, they need to have more added to them. For example, if you want to improve the graphics of the game, you need to add more to it. If you want to add more customization options, you need to add to your game.

The more you add to a game, the more complex it gets. The more complex a game gets, the longer it takes to make them, test them, and polish them. This is why we are seeing more and more games getting delayed (worth noting that this was happening pre-COVID).

If you look at studios that make sport games, they have to make and publish a new game each and every year. In comparison, the vast majority of AA and AAA titles have 2+ years between a game releases. This allows them more time to create a better game, polish the game, and support the game once it is live.

In contrast, sport games are all done by a single team. There aren’t multiple studios to rotate through like Call of Duty has; the same team for all sport franchises is tasked with making a game better, testing it, and adding to it every single year.

With that in mind, there is only so much you can add to a game each year because you still have to do the same amount of testing and polish before you can publish it. This means that a sports game, which carries the same price as a AAA title that has multiple years of dev work.

And that leads us to value and expectations.

An Unfair Valuation

First and foremost, making a game is very expensive. However, major sport games (FIFA, NBA, Madden, NHL) are all priced at the AAA release point of $60.

The valuation of that game is the same as those that have multiple years of development time to focus on a single game. Whether you like it or not, that valuation says to customers that this game will give you the same amount of value as GTA V, Red Dead Redemption, The Last of Us, Uncharted, Halo, etc.

And, sure, you can argue that a sport game brings the same amount of value within a single year. There is a lot to do within the games between offline and online modes. The problem is those games don’t ask you to spend $60 a year every year just to keep up-to-date and that’s where the valuation is off.

Every year, you hear the whole “x sports game is just $60 for a roster update” and, while that is a gross over-generalization, there is a lot of truth within it. For most players, $60 every year for updated rosters, some general improvements, and a new or improved mode or two is a lot to spend.

The value of that to an average consumer isn’t $60 because they have most of what the next year’s title has to offer already. Given how similar the games are at their core from year-to-year both visually and mechanically, each yearly title feels closer to a $20-$30 DLC pack than a full-fledged $60 title.

And, honestly, that’s a pretty fair assessment.

So What Does This Mean?

A lot of sport gamer frustrations, whether core or casual, boil down to them (rightfully) expecting more value for their purchase each and every year. Over the past 5–10 years, the tangible differences between yearly sport titles have become harder and harder to notice.

That’s not to discredit the teams that develop the games — it’s actually a compliment that they’ve made them fairly realistic. It’s more to say that we’re at a point in time where sport games are in a desperate need of a transition in how they are developed and published.

Those teams are being tasked with an extremely unfair expectation of delivering major improvements worth $60 year-after-year when it’s nearly impossible to do so when the core of the game feels and looks similar to the previous year’s release.

Giving development teams more time to focus on the game also allows them more time to spend on all facets of the game, meaning deeper and more polished releases that are better for a consumer.

The current state of the sport video game industry isn’t healthy. The core players of the games are still buying them for now, but most are getting tired of paying full-price for something that doesn’t deliver that value when compared to other titles.

If publishers continue down this path, it’s not unlikely that support for these games will dwindle over time and they’ll be forced to make a change. Instead of being reactive, it’d be nice to see these companies be proactive and change the development cycle to benefit both their employees and their player bases.

But more on that another day.