On Friday, we were treated to a new trailer for both FIFA 21 and Madden 21. In an advert which combined the two games and with the arrival this year of the PS5 and Xbox Series X, fans have been excited by what these sports game will be like on the new consoles.
Madden and FIFA are two of the longest running game franchises and both sell millions of copies each year, however, one of the biggest flaws of these sports franchises in recent years is the decline in gameplay.
For a number of years, many games fans including myself are critical of the fact that the gameplay significantly more flawed than in past years.
It seems that since the arrival of the PS4 and Xbox One that the gameplay quality has massively dropped, with a focus seemingly on graphics seeing an impact on the gameplay. For me the biggest reason for this is EA Sports’ constant focus on Ultimate Team.
Where Games All Started
Ultimate Team was first seen in FIFA 09 and in Madden 10. Both have been ever presents since.
For the first few years, they were not the biggest part of the sports games but then we saw the introduction of YouTubers opening packs on their videos. Many YouTubers such as KSI, Chris MD and W2S started showing videos of them opening FIFA packs and a new craze hit the world.
Many gamers would spend their hard earned money on virtual FIFA packs and EA Sports found a way to earn more money.
Fast forward to 2020 and Ultimate Team appears to be the sole focus of EA Sports.
If you play Madden 20, every time you start the game up an advertisement for Ultimate Team comes up. On FIFA, the start menu always advertises Ultimate Team, this then draws fans in and gets them to pay for more packs. As a result, we have seen the lack of effort in FIFA’s career mode and Madden’s franchise mode.
Both these game modes have both seen very little improvement, with all EA Sports energy being used on Ultimate Team.
2k Sports’ NBA 2k games are more popular than EA Sports’ NBA Live series. This is partly due to the fact that NBA 2k is more fun and there is alot more focus on the gameplay.
You can still create a team and their kits unlike in FIFA and Madden. This was a feature in the EA Sports glory days of the Noughties when sports games focused on fun rather than graphics or Ultimate Team.
Overall, EA Sports needs to think of new ways to improve their games for the overall audience. Ultimate Team appears too big to end any time soon but there needs to be a way to please ultimate team fans and also the Career Mode and Franchise Mode fans.
With new consoles coming later this year, EA Sports needs to revamp and think of new ideas. With the decline of the gameplay and the various errors that have been noticed on both sports games.
EA needs to think less about the amount of money they will make through virtual packs and think of the money they will make by Career Mode and Franchise Mode fans excited go buy the game to play an exciting and revamped game mode.
The games market will continue to grow over the next few decades, but whether Madden of FIFA continue depends on them maintaining a higher level of realism and greater features.
For more like this check out our football section or our NFL section. And make sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for all the latest sports news, opinion, and analysis.