There are a lot of sports video games out there, but most of the companies and teams seemingly have no idea what they’re doing. Madden is the leader in the clubhouse of disappointment, as the only NFL series available doesn’t deliver simulation-style play or in-depth franchise and career modes, and instead attempts to squeeze money out of people in Madden Ultimate Team. But a lot of sports video game franchises disappoint year in and year out.
Typically, MLB The Show releases solid games every year (despite their issues with online connection for most of the beginning of the game’s release last year), but now they are almost reaching Madden levels of ineptitude, completely removing online franchise mode from the upcoming game.
As explained on The Show Nation, the mode “didn’t make the cut this year”:
For the online areas of the game, we spent this year focusing on our technology. We knew we had to prioritize the stability and speed of our online infrastructure for MLB The Show 18.
As such, Online Franchise mode didn’t make the cut this year. This was not an easy decision to make and we understand some of you will be disappointed with this change, but we believe focusing on continuing to improve our online performance was the right priority for The Show 18. With the major technology change this year it wasn’t possible to just leave in the previous mode without alteration.
Please know that Online Franchise fans are not forgotten and every new year offers an opportunity to evaluate our plans.
Thank you for understanding.
That last line really strikes me, because I don’t understand it at all, and it seems pretty arrogant to assume fans are going to understand something so… dumb… for lack of a better term. You can do a simple search on social media or through the comment sections on gaming sites to find a whole bunch of people who don’t “understand.”
And similar to EA Sports with Madden, there’s no doubt that this decision has to do with pouring resources into the money-making Diamond Dynasty, which ignores hardcore baseball fans in favor of hardcore gamers.
It’s just an absolute shame that companies continue to value unrealistic, card-based modes rather than building in-depth franchise modes. Unfortunately, we are likely to keep heading in that direction because it takes less effort and ambition.
However, there is a company that is continuing to be bold in their approach every year—2K Sports with NBA 2K. MyGM continues to innovate with each new release, but even their games earlier this decade had a much better franchise mode than Madden or The Show. I believe their sweet spot came when you were allowed to customize the business attire your character wore (which has unfortunately since been taken out).
The gameplay in the now-extinct MLB 2K series wasn’t as good as MLB The Show’s, but at least it had an ambitious team behind it. 2K has a long history of tremendous video games, and I think gamers would welcome them bringing competition back to baseball games, especially for Xbox owners.
Barring an unlikely Hail Mary attempt to get online franchise into this year’s game before release, I’m sitting out MLB The Show 18.
Lol great title. Not buying the game.
This is a joke. Smh.
they don’t make em like they used to..
Whatever. Getting rid of my ps4 now.
BS