PES are going free to play! Future of Sports Video Games?

[JeffreyLFC]

Pro Evolution Soccer (2nd most popular soccer video game) will become a F2P to compete with FIFA franchise

PES is dead, replaced by the F2P 'football platform' eFootball | PC Gamer

Is it the future of sports video games free + charging additional content or is EA Sports model of charging upfront + additional content will prevail? Basically charging you money to recycling crap and roster updates.

I know this is only soccer and EA Sports have exvlusive right to the NFL for madden but it is very interesting that competitors are going head to head with them with their most profitable franchise.

I hope it works. I have never felt more scammed than by EA Sports and their monopoly on sports games.

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[aleshemsky83]

The problem with this being the future is that it would be extremely hard for a company to rationalize microtransactions not carrying over if it went F2P, which they currently don't under the yearly release model.

Ultimate Team and My Player doesn't carry over year to year. You cant just create a ban list to make people by newer cards since in TCGs you can just make new cards, with sports games you cant make new athletes that don't exist in real life.

In reality getting a sports game if you really want to compete online and be competitive immediately is like a $200 purchase. Making it F2P and having microtransactions carry over year to year cuts down a lot on yearly income unless you implement some type of power creep mechanic (which apparently EA nerfs older cards, and are currently being sued for it, but they claim its not true)

Its kind of a weird catch 22 cause these micro transactions and gambling mechanics are what make the game way more popular. If you took it out and just had regular online matches way less people would be into it.

PES is doing this cause Fifa is murdering them. Apparently its got its niche and is even popular with footballers as seen in current events, lol, but its dwarfed by fifa.

 

[JeffreyLFC]

The problem with this being the future is that it would be extremely hard for a company to rationalize microtransactions not carrying over if it went F2P, which they currently don't under the yearly release model.

Ultimate Team and My Player doesn't carry over year to year. You cant just create a ban list to make people by newer cards since in TCGs you can just make new cards, with sports games you cant make new athletes that don't exist in real life.

In reality getting a sports game if you really want to compete online and be competitive immediately is like a $200 purchase. Making it F2P and having microtransactions carry over year to year cuts down a lot on yearly income unless you implement some type of power creep mechanic (which apparently EA nerfs older cards, and are currently being sued for it, but they claim its not true)

Its kind of a weird catch 22 cause these micro transactions and gambling mechanics are what make the game way more popular. If you took it out and just had regular online matches way less people would be into it.

PES is doing this cause Fifa is murdering them. Apparently its got its niche and is even popular with footballers as seen in current events, lol, but its dwarfed by fifa.

There are many way you could finance a game.

Some examples :

Purchase game mode, skin, arcade mode, pay for updated rosters, you can collect FUT cards from previous years (just like real players card)

EA Sports business model is building a monopoly and extort as much money as they can. Do little to no development at all and sit on exclusive rights deal.

 

[93LEAFS]

I would love to see sports games treated as long term project. Just go all out for the start of a generation, and sell a yearly DLC update with roster updates and some small gameplay changes/improvements at a reasonable cost, and just continue microtransactioning the hell out of people on Ultimate team. I used to buy EA games yearly (NCAA Football, Fifa, Madden and NHL almost yearly, owned NCAA Basketball, NBA Live, and Triple Play Baseball, and even bought a Nascar game once), but I haven't bought one since 2018, and I haven't invested time into one since 2016, and probably haven't bought more than one EA Sports game in a year since 2012. I'm sure my purchases have been made up by diehards who need packs for ultimate team, but I'd love a better playing game, with a great franchise mode. Seems that's been abandoned.

 

[Unholy Diver]

Nobody was buying the game so making it free isn't really that big of a deal, in recent years FIFA has been out selling it around 10 to 1, so I can't see this making a difference in sports games going forward

This article shows the sales up through the 2019 versions

FIFA vs PES sales: Which football sim game has sold the most units? - Stealth Optional

 

[Apex Predator]

I’m not sure I’m understanding this correctly but they want to offer you a game for free to play. You pay for roster updates and all the modes you like. Any updates after you would pay as you go? If it’s something like that I would be interested depending the price. I only play career mode so for me once I get a career mode going I would only pay for updates that affect the mode or game play.

 

[The Nuge]

The problem with this being the future is that it would be extremely hard for a company to rationalize microtransactions not carrying over if it went F2P, which they currently don't under the yearly release model.

Ultimate Team and My Player doesn't carry over year to year. You cant just create a ban list to make people by newer cards since in TCGs you can just make new cards, with sports games you cant make new athletes that don't exist in real life.

In reality getting a sports game if you really want to compete online and be competitive immediately is like a $200 purchase. Making it F2P and having microtransactions carry over year to year cuts down a lot on yearly income unless you implement some type of power creep mechanic (which apparently EA nerfs older cards, and are currently being sued for it, but they claim its not true)

Its kind of a weird catch 22 cause these micro transactions and gambling mechanics are what make the game way more popular. If you took it out and just had regular online matches way less people would be into it.

PES is doing this cause Fifa is murdering them. Apparently its got its niche and is even popular with footballers as seen in current events, lol, but its dwarfed by fifa.

It shouldn’t be that hard. You could do it where players have one year contracts that have to be renewed with actual money (say $5 a player?), or they can’t be used. You could even do it like MLB, where players stats are updated, so your star from 5 years ago might not be worth using anymore. To go a step further, you could make “limited edition” cards that have better stats, but can’t be renewed.

 

[aleshemsky83]

You know I realized that there is actually a sort-of sports game thats quite popular that does the yearly membership thing. Trackmania by Ubisoft sells yearly passes for a ton of online functionality and tracks. Its a borderline console/mmo type online experience.

With that said, its only like $30 a year, which is a fraction of what regular sports games make through microtransactions.

 

[ItsFineImFine]

Microtransactions, FUT, and whatever the online version of PES' master league is called now are the worse things to happen to soccer gaming.

These companies absolutely stopped giving a shit about the actual game and not only that but to address issues with online gameplay, it made the AI in offline gameplay worse. What a shame, PES was renowned for its gameplay and addictiveness of its Master League mode but then they just stopped developing it and it's gotten worse.