“Look at what they did to my boy,” I remember thinking.

(Just recently, NBA 2K21 also started adding unskippable ads during loading screens after reviews were already over.) That is, until it turned into the spring break version of a microtransaction bacchanal. I remember absolutely loving that video game franchise at one point, which I considered to be the best sports game bar none thanks to its mix of gameplay, features and tack-sharp visuals. Regardless of the reasons, I just stopped.Įven as someone who reviews video games as part of my job, I can’t even remember the last time I requested a review copy of, say, an NBA 2K game. In other cases, I found myself just completely turned off by the blatant use of microtransactions. I thought maybe it would be better to skip the next couple of games, at least until they kill the servers for the game I had. One reason was that I started noticing that there really wasn’t much of a change between many of the brand new games and the titles they were replacing. Looking back, it’s really no surprise why my love affair with sports games ended with the whimper of an errant airball. Then I’d suddenly be reminded of the games gathering dust on the shelf once the next iteration of the franchise comes along. There were even a few years when I’d still buy the games out of habit, even though I wasn’t really playing them as much as I used to.

It wasn’t a sudden change, mind you, especially for myself. Somewhere along the way, though, we just stopped. That’s how much we both enjoyed playing sports games.

By the time the rivalry between EA Sports and Visual Concepts came about, there were times when we would actually buy their competing games during the same year. I say that as someone who used to religiously buy sports games starting way back in the NES days so my brother and I can play them to death, at least until the next new shiny sports title comes along.

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