The thing I dont get.

[Dokopop]

Why do some people buy the same sports franchise game every year when its almost exactly the same as the one from last year?

[Magus]

Re: The thing I dont get.

That irks me too a bit but the same could be said for the various Jaks, Sly Coopers, Ratchet & Clanks, GTAs, Final Fantasies, Pokemons, Castlevanias, Splinter Cells, Burnouts...

Even We <3 Katamari is essentially an expansion pack.

[Denmo]

Re: The thing I dont get.

Because THIS particular sporting/shooting/adventuring/rpging/puzzling/actioning game is even BETTER than BEFORE!

[IRC]

Re: The thing I dont get.

Because they do make changes to gameplay and graphics. Madden has added a new level of gameplay pretty much every year. This year it's the GM thing where you can control aspects of how your team is run from ticket prices to parking fees and such. I believe it affects how much money you can spend on free agency. It may seem a stupid reason to you but Franchise mode and Dynasty mode on NCAA Football are the funnest aspects of the game for me. It's like a football team sim now that also lets you play the games.

Plus rosters change from year to year as well as the stats of the players. I wouldn't expect anyone to think it's a big deal unless they're into the sport and all. I wouldn't touch a baseball or hockey game because I have no interest in the sport.

Also like Magus said, why buy Half-Life 2 instead of just downloading another mod for Half-Life? Why buy the next Splinter Cell or Socom when you can just play new maps in multiplayer? Why get expansion pack after expansion pack for whatever MMORPG that you play?

[d2king10]

Re: The thing I dont get.

Any EA football game can suck my ****.

Its just a ploy to get money, and the people are stupid enough to keep buying them even if they just change one small thing.

[Manyak]

Re: The thing I dont get.

Any EA football game can suck my ****.

Its just a ploy to get money, and the people are stupid enough to keep buying them even if they just change one small thing.

Damn company! Always trying to make money off of games that I buy!

[RPGD]

Re: The thing I dont get.

Usually, in this case, when a successful game gets a sequel, the dev team focuses on adding depth. Should they remain successful, they add more and more depth, until they can add little more to prove it to be a warantable purchase and people get bored of them, in which case they must try to throw in a whole new twist to gameplay. If they're too little, too late, the franchise is screwed. Otherwise, they've a whole new system to add depth to until the cycle repeats again ad nauseum.

[Manji]

Re: The thing I dont get.

as for the nature of the genre you're talking about... sports titles are kind of like chess. essentially, it's the same game over & over no matter what you color the playing pieces or style the board with. conversely, it's never the same game twice, because the outcome & the overall strategy used to win changes from game to game.

graphics do get updated, rosters change, gameplay options are added.. i guess all those little things add up to people who enjoy sports titles. plus, football, baseball, basketball, are just apart of american life. some people love it.

[Funk]

Re: The thing I dont get.

I once asked myself these very questions, but after actually WATCHING the Madden games in action, I can see the appeal from year to year. It's not like EA isn't at least TRYING to add some innovation to a format that doesn't leave much room for innovation.

[RPGD]

Re: The thing I dont get.

Very true.

With the next-gen paradigm shift, though, who knows what'll happen.

[DarkwingChuck]

Re: The thing I dont get.

The thing is with every other genre the game needs a reason to have a sequel (new gameplay, new story, something new) with sports games they're expected to make a new version every year and all they really have to do is update the rosters. Anything else they add is gravy. Then I again I have never bought and almost never played a single sports video game so I'm only going by what I read.

[IRC]

Re: The thing I dont get.

The thing is with every other genre the game needs a reason to have a sequel (new gameplay, new story, something new) with sports games they're expected to make a new version every year and all they really have to do is update the rosters. Anything else they add is gravy. Then I again I have never bought and almost never played a single sports video game so I'm only going by what I read.

That's a flawed statement. The only thing a sequel needs is a publishers desire to make a sequel and more money. Parasite Eve 2 was a flawed product compared to it's sequel. In my opinion there has been more harm done to X-men Legends 2 than good. I've never really heard of anything negative going from one EA game to another except for the things like it's harder to pass or it's harder to run with Michael Vick. I would think that most people would relish the increased challenge in gameplay.



OMG what a scam!

[Ogre]

Re: The thing I dont get.

i don't think you can say that every ff game is the same, even though I'm no fan of ff games past ff7 one thing I will say is that is isn't basically the same engine with a few new things added, no for better or worse, the story changes.

Dynasty warriors, as fun as it is, is a more fitting comparison, all they do is add a few more characters each time and tweak the game system slightly.

I haven't figured out why people buy dw 3,4 AND 5, but I'd guess like sports games it is because they are addicted to the genere, but unlike sports games they are designed primarily as one player, while sports games are designed to be able to rub a win in your friend's face. Note: the only sports games I buy are boxing games and colussieum. I should buy a UFC related game, but I haven't, I hear they are all really really bad.

[IRC]

Re: The thing I dont get.

I could easily compare different stories to different rosters.

[DarkwingChuck]

Re: The thing I dont get.

That's a flawed statement. The only thing a sequel needs is a publishers desire to make a sequel and more money. Parasite Eve 2 was a flawed product compared to it's sequel. In my opinion there has been more harm done to X-men Legends 2 than good.

I didn't say the sequels were always an improvment. Actually, MOST of the time they're not. I was just saying that with other types of games if all they changed were some character names and absolutely everything else was exactly the same, the publisher would never okay the sequel because it wouldn't sell. But with sports games they could (I'm not saying they don't make improvements) just update the rosters without changing a single other line of code and still release a sequel.

Dynasty warriors, as fun as it is, is a more fitting comparison, all they do is add a few more characters each time and tweak the game system slightly.

I haven't figured out why people buy dw 3,4 AND 5

Like ogre said, that's my point. Few people buy multiple versions of Dynasty Warriors and every game review bashes the franchise for not changing enough between versions. There's supposed to be a reason to make a sequel with other games but with sports it's kind of scheduled to have a new one every year. That's why you don't see any other games listing their version by year.