What you're asking for is a multi-million dollar restructuring of the way EA Sports develops and releases their sports franchises. I fully agree with your strategy btw, but EA sports sees fit to release their games with the same financial model that was being used in 2003 + Ultimate. Ultimate is what floats the series and the annual reset + new release creates a psychological trap to lock players in. I would be interested to see if this strategy is starting to bleed out year over year though, the sentiment seems to indicate so and the focus that anchoring every sports title around Ultimate indicates a lack of focus on other game modes that might entice new players.
I don't think EA Sports has the management right now to take such a gamble at such a massive restructure. No matter how much evidence mounts against the current sales and release model for these games they will continue this strategy until a competitor shows up that drastically eats away at their market share. Note that 2K sports uses the same model.
I'm interested to see if REMATCH will shake things up a bit but it's more likely to me Sloclap will seek some licensing on their next sports game that might turn some heads with stockholders and upper-management with EA Sports. Remember, it needs to be significant, so I would imagine somewhere like a ~10% loss of market share will force managements hands if investors raise concern. Remember this, nothing happens unless the money makes it happen.
Right now, and for the forseeable future, don't expect anything you're suggesting to happen with any EA Sports title.
younever_know8 Thanks for the reply and info! It's just so unfortunate that the business model is to omit many features every single year while focus on the money grab that is HUT. And 100% agree until we have a competitor again what is their incentive to change? I guess I just don't see a chance of anyone or having the resources to compete with licensing agreements, etc. They are clearly a monopoly with now all the rights to junior leagues, professional women's hockey league and Euro leagues. Seems the only type of competitor would have to roll out an NCAA college hockey game that was exceptional to even get their attention and pull away their profits. I guess that's why I was thinking in terms of "hey what will motivate them to make the changes we want" it's clearly their pockets and maybe with a subscription base system they can make more money while giving us what we want, but you're right I don't see it happening. They're just gonna keep riding this business model until it fails on them and by then maybe games aren't even be created by humans and it's all AI anyway.
