I remember when sports video games were about playing the game, now it seems like it is playing the stock market.
I know it makes me sound like an butter old man yelling at clouds, but my playtime in sports games has gone down about 10000% since those card modes took over and I'm still bitter about it. From a business standpoint I get not catering to the customers that refuse to partake in microtransactions, but from where I'm standing it seems like the $60 I used to pay annually would be better than the collective $0 I've spent on the major sports games the past couple years
Then again it's not like they can't make that up easily by a single person with an addictive personality in, like, 15 minutes.
To be fair, I would likely be playing The Show 21 franchise mode if I'd even seen a PS5 or Series X with my own eyes by now, but that hasn't happened and that doesn't seem likely to change anytime soon. Instead I'm feeding the itch by customizing an entire world in Out of the Park.
We've gone from me buying a PS3 explicitly for the MLB: The Show games to me not buying a licensed console sports game in about 3 years now, despite me buying more games than ever.