Episode 46 – Use It!

I kind of have an issue with sports games. Let me tell you a story:

For the 2004-2005 season 2K is making sports games that only cost 20 dollars branding their games with ESPN. I don’t have a hockey game for my Xbox so for 20 bucks I’ll defiantly grab ESPN NHL 2K5. Ok there’s a lock out in 2004 so actually there was no season. They should have given this game away… but that’s something else.

But ok, 2005-2006 comes around and there’s a whole new set of rules in the NHL along with entire new rosters and two years worth of rookies, and a lot of players who retired, (Mark Messier). Now 2K has dropped the ESPN partnership but still managed to keep the price down, at 30 dollars. Seems like a good price, plus with all the new rules and rosters and such, I feel 2K6 is a game I need to buy. So I do. And when I pop the disc into my Xbox I get old rosters.

What the hell is that? You had a whole year to change the rosters and they didn’t.

So I started my season in August (because I always end up behind the season anyway) with these BS rosters. I could manually change every player but that would take forever. I’m not happy.

Then all of a sudden in mid September or October I forget, I get a little blip on my Xbox through Live (the old Live). It tells me there is an update for NHL 2K6. Sweet, its new rosters. Totally makes my day. I was hoping that next year they would put update again with the next years rosters… but no. Not the case.

What also sucks is that 2K (and EA) had their hockey games at 60 dollars this season (2K7 and 07 respectivly for the 360). So now that you’ve heard my whole ordeal about hockey games and all that I’ll get to my point.

It can’t cost too much money to build and create a game each year where there aren’t too many changes overall. I would bet that most of the money is spent in new packaging and distribution. And since not too much has to change offering a free (yeah right) or reasonably priced update over Live, or WiiConnect or the PlayStation downloadable service would be awesome. Even if it was only supported for one year.

So if I spend the ungodly 60 dollars on NHL 2K8 next year when 2K9 is released for 5-10 bucks I should be able to download the new rosters for the 08-09 season. Think what it would do for 2K. Well, they would defiantly get my 60 dollars, and eventually 10 more down the line with out having provided me with anything more really.

And all I really ask is for that kind of support be made available for the next season. After that, I’ll go and buy the game again. I’ll have to, or I’ll have to play with old rosters. I think its is something that 2K would do sooner than EA. Knowing EA's history with mirco-transactions they would probably charge for other unlockables, but certainly not support for their games.

Every console is equipped with online functionally. Use it!