With September half over, many of the most anticipated video games of the year will start making their way to store shelves. Along with this year’s Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales will come the release of NHL 21, FIFA 21, and Madden NFL 21. While I love beating my friends in a best-of-seven series in NHL every year, Electronic Arts’ (EA) flawed sports titles have a major pro-consumerism problem that fans could fix if they speak with their wallets.
For many years, EA’s sports titles have seen little to no improvement or innovation; while the graphics of EA’s games have slowly improved with each generation, their NHL series’ last major change came in 2006 when the company introduced the Skill Stick. That is nearly a decade and a half of players buying the same game each year for full price, approximately $850 USD over that time span before tax. Additionally, the company has incorporated some of the video game industry’s most egregious tactics, like the loot boxes and micro-transactions found in the Ultimate Team modes.
In an age of “games as a service,” a revenue model where games continue to be monetized after their release and initial purchase, EA could, and should, release one final version of each sports game. From there, the respectful thing to do would be to release a yearly fee of roughly $20 to continue gaming updates.
