Franchise Modes Are Not the Only Answer

During this past week, there was a conversation that came up on the OS Discord that got me thinking about season modes and franchise modes. The conversation was related to EA’s NHL game because we were talking about the lengths of seasons and how many years we realistically get through in an NHL franchise mode.

To put it succinctly, the general issue that was brought up was that, well, NHL seasons are long. You can simulate games, and you can do other things to speed up seasons, but the point is there’s still 80+ games you need to get through. For those of you old enough out there who were playing sports games back in the ‘90s, a majority of those games only had season modes, and in something like NHL that still ate up a boatload of our time.

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Of course, we then got franchise modes, and the novelty of making trades, signing players, and creating a potential dynasty became the new norm. Every sports game followed the same general pattern, and the idea of an “endless” single-player mode mostly replaced season modes as the default single-player option.

Looking beyond video games for a second, you can make the argument this is the same reason hockey, basketball, or even baseball get weak-ish TV ratings in comparison to the NFL’s once-a-week schedule with 17 games on the docket. Of course, most of you also probably know every league wants more games rather than fewer games. Now, rich people can be just as dumb as people without a penny to their name, but I don’t think these owners are unaware that one of the best ways to increase ratings would be to cut games from these very long seasons.

An NHL or NBA season that had 50-60 games rather than 80+ would mean every game means more, and you could still spread out the schedule to be around the same length as it already is in terms of days on the calendar. However, no group of owners ever suggests that because owners want the extra cash. This is why even the NFL continues to push for more games even though everyone seems to agree the lack of games is one of many reasons it does so well. Regardless, more games means more ways to sell tickets, TV rights, media rights, and on it goes.

However, video games don’t need to abide by the same rules because these companies don’t have to worry about greedy owners — or at least not those specific greedy owners — in the same way. Yes, the “official” games need to present a product that represents the real sports league, but sports video games are not beholden to the owners in the same way a commissioner of a major sports league might be. And I’m not just saying these sports games with long seasons should provide shorter season lengths in their video games either (and most of them do that anyway and have for many years).

What I’m saying instead is what if we’re not thinking about this the right way? We’re the “owners” in this sense, and would we really revolt if developers started to think again about whether or not a franchise mode is the best way to make single-player fans happy?

There’s No Shame In Admitting 82 Games Is Too Many Games

People who love franchise modes (and I would count myself among that group) can be a bit militant about their stances with the mode. We want a lot of resources poured into franchise modes, and many folks are quick to point out when they think those resources are being “wasted” on other modes like Ultimate Team simply because that mode makes money after launch.

But what if people who love franchise modes aren’t playing those modes not because the developers did anything wrong, but because they simply feel overwhelmed by the time commitment? During the discussion on Discord this week, there was a couple people who almost felt ashamed to admit they would sometimes play Ultimate Team or Diamond Dynasty rather than play franchise mode in NHL or MLB The Show. They weren’t putting extra money into the game or even playing online against others, but the general explanation was that “seasons are long, and I can actually see some results and things coming back to me when I play these card modes.”

It makes sense if you think about it. It’s less stressful going this route, and it’s less of a commitment to play some 3-inning games and get a couple pretty cards to put in the lineup or rotation when the alternative is 162 games of grinding. Can we really blame these people for picking Diamond Dynasty when they don’t want to play oodles and oodles of 9-inning games? Should they really feel shame for not wanting to play franchise mode because they know they won’t make it through more than one season before the next version comes out? I think sports developers even realize this split because a mode like DD now has truncated season modes within it that give you some rewards along the way.

To be clear, I’m not saying games like baseball or hockey should abandon franchise modes, and I’m not advocating for a season mode being our only option, but maybe it’s time individual sports start thinking about things in a different way.

Let’s Switch Up The Formula

I think anyone who is making a game that is trying to “simulate” something from real life needs to take liberties in some areas in order to make it work — same as with writing books, creating television, or making a movie. You take the “essence” of the thing, but you need to mold it for the audience. If we look at sports games, every sports game takes liberties with gameplay in order to try and make it “fun” for us. At the same time, every sports game kind of approaches everything modes-wise about the same way. How many modes are truly unique to one sports game out there?

I think a reason why something like March to October was so intriguing at the time was because it seemed MLB The Show might actually try to change up the formula. MtO was essentially a season mode, but this was at a time when season modes were part of the past. The problem was that SDS didn’t really seem to commit enough to MtO or franchise mode, and so you had two things just stumbling along without being a trademark feature. But what if SDS was on the right path but just didn’t commit enough?

The idea behind MtO was that SDS wanted people to be able to get through seasons in a quicker fashion, and so you would simulate some games, jump into others, and go through the ups and down of a 162-game season in a couple sessions rather than a couple months. I’m not saying March to October is what I want or wanted, but I think SDS was absolutely correct to try and look for a new way forward. I don’t think they did enough, but a super engaging season mode could absolutely hit if done right.

During this conversation, something else that was cited as an issue for why some folks didn’t really want to play franchise mode in NHL or The Show was because they didn’t want to simulate a lot of games. For some of us, there is a lack of connection to the results the moment we give up some control. Even if we all recognize simulation engines can be super wonky — they’re not all as bad as Madden (whether you do Super Sim or sim week to week) — but it’s not even so much about the questionable results as it is the simulation itself. I count myself among this group that wants to play the games. If I buy Out of the Park Baseball, even there I’m not “simulating” games. I go into the game and play it out. OOTP goes much faster than a normal baseball game because it is simulating itself rather than me controlling every swing, but I’m still playing that game in the “purest” way possible. If I wanted to shorten the games or play them in a different way, I’d buy a different game. I buy The Show to play the games, not make it into an inferior version of OOTP by mostly simulating the results.

Being Different Can Be A Selling Point All Its Own

One other thing I think you should keep in mind here is don’t we want sports games to be different? When we say we want in-depth franchise modes, in part I think we say that because it’s all we know, right? Aren’t we really saying we want a mode that we can invest our time into that makes us feel like a GM, or coach, or gives us the ability to take a team and rebuild it? There are plenty of ways to do that, and a franchise mode or even season mode doesn’t need to look like every other one out there to pull it off.

I think every Be A Pro/Superstar/MyCareer mode is boring. I don’t think they are all “bad” for the same reasons, but the point is I don’t want to play with just one player. At the core of the mode is something I have no interest in pursuing. Franchise modes in some of these games might be going down the same path.

As always, you’re never going to please everyone, so wouldn’t the best way to set yourself apart in some of these modes be to take franchise mode in an entirely new direction, or at the very least provide a season mode that is like nothing else out there?

Franchise Mode Still Matters, But These Companies All Need To Realize Something

If we look again at SDS, the worst and best thing they ever did was add and then remove year-to-year saves for franchise mode. It was a genius move to implement it, and then it was a boneheaded move to remove it. You can’t say it was removed to try and make people buy the new version either because a feature like that only made people want to buy the new version. After all, the hardest part about franchise mode after you hit a certain point is starting over.

I think no matter what you do with a traditional franchise mode, that feature is something that needs to become a standard. A lot of what I’m talking about here goes beyond the “traditional” to something else, but since a lot of modes don’t get a lot of love every year anyway, at least make it so rosters and saves can be brought from game to game so people can have their own storylines or history filling in for the shortcomings that come along with a truncated development schedule.

But when we get beyond that to the “other” routes available, that’s where you want to set yourself apart. A baseball season is 162 games long. Couldn’t we be thinking about the ways to make 162 games as interesting as possible and not worry about anything beyond that first year? A metric I will always remember and repeat is that when I worked on Madden, we had plenty of metrics that showed most people never made it beyond Year 1 of a franchise. You can spin that in many ways or simply say the mode sucked as the reason why that happened, but my first thought was more if people can’t even make it through 16-20 games more than one time, how many people are even getting through one season in a baseball, basketball, or hockey game? You don’t ignore the people who are playing multiple seasons, but certainly the data tells me we should be thinking about trying to make one season of football as cool as possible because that’s all most will ever see anyway.

And if I’m a “smaller” game like MLB The Show or EA’s NHL, then shouldn’t I want to make something unique? If you go that route, then you’re not just pushing a card mode, career mode, and franchise mode like every other game out there. No, instead you may have this other thing that no other sports game has in it.

At the end of the day, I’m not saying add yet another mode to all these games that already have too many modes to support. Instead, I’m saying these sports games need to look at what’s there and say, is this even worth our time? We can all point to franchise modes or career modes that are probably beyond saving — and even if they are saved, they’re just going to be compared to the best versions of that mode out there and still be critiqued from that POV. They’ll get none of the credit from the hardcore fans, and they’ll have no way to stand out from the crowd among the more casual players out there.

So couldn’t a better path forward include looking to the past and saying what if some new cool version of a season mode really was the best way to hook some of these people?

Until next time y’all. And, as always, thanks for reading.

-Chase