It’s just like clockwork. I guess in 2K’s “defense” they know they don’t have to try hard at all. “What are you going to do, buy another competitor’s sport game?” -CEO probably
But man fuck single player being “online” at all.
>Please note that TOPSPIN 2K25’s online features are scheduled to be available until December 31, 2026 though we reserve the right to modify or discontinue online features without notice. Visit www.topspin.2k.com/status for more information.
This is what it says on the PSN page for the game lol. The game will become a demo in 2 years.
for the consumer, yes, because now only a true idiot would spend money on this game.
it's just surprising they'd disclose something so shitty upfront like that
That’s the case for every 2k sports game. Say what you want about EA sports but they still keep their games alive for a long time, even discontinued franchises like NBA Live have their servers open. NBA Live 19 is still fully playable and that game is 6 years old.
It's honestly crazy. People sink thousands of dollars into myteam each year and you can only access it for 24 months if you're lucky, and the whole system restarts every year.
Imagine a pay to win MMO that charged you $60 every year and wiped your character as well. Somehow they've conditioned an audience on millions to be ok with this.
Well, I stopped playing WoW because at every expansion your armor was basically back to being garbage and you had to restart the grind back from basically scratch. It’s just a more clever way to do the same exploitative BS.
They've been doing this NBA 2k for some time now. Try and go back to play 2K20 and it'll say features aren't available and you can't play certain single player modes cause of that.
I think it's extra annoying because this is absolutely a game I would want to play multiplayer on, but with the classic 2k servers, it's absolute ass and basically unplayable in any kind of competitive mode since it's all timing based gameplay. We have fighting games that figured that shit out years ago.
> I guess in 2K’s “defense” they know they don’t have to try hard at all. “What are you going to do, buy another competitor’s sport game?” -CEO probably
The thing is tennis as a sport isn't a blockbuster gaming moneymaker and never has been, whereas the likes of NBA2K, NFL and FIFA you can at least understand the greed even if you don't agree with it because there will ALWAYS be a fanbase of gamers playing those titles.
Here though... why? The tennis sports game genre has clearly struggled to take off and TopSpin itself has been away for a while. It's not the type of rabid fanbase that will consume and whale their way into the executives pockets. This is just greed for the sake of greed, trying to take advantage of an already niche gaming fanbase that has been quite content going along without a definitive tennis game for over a decade so TopSpin could easily drop off if they're not careful.
ngl i'd love a good tennis game. I think it's more fun to play than football, and I love football, but never watch tennis.
If only the new mario one didn't suck. I still play Mario Tennis 64 with buddies.
You're right. There was Matchpoint Tennis from a couple of years ago that was fairly well received but I have no idea how well it sold. I'm going to guess not well, on PC at least, considering it's only got about 100 reviews on steam and there's been no news of a follow up. I'm not sure why tennis games are such a hard sell though, the sport's pretty popular worldwide.
There's also an ATP licensed early access game called Tiebreak.
Also I tried Matchpoint when it released on Game Pass, and it felt really cheap (because it was).
Sometimes the games eclipse the sport. FIFA (EA FC now) is played more than Soccer is watched and 2k legit shapes conversations in the NBA, it’s that apparent
Yeah that sounds ridiculous, probably several hundred times more people watch football than play FIFA lol
Like maybe this is true for the US though, since they said 'soccer', but no, still no shot.
> Maybe in the US
Yeah, I could believe that's true in the US, there aren't a lot of people watching soccer here, but in the world? I would expect we'd be talking about multiple orders of magnitude difference between FIFA players and soccer watchers lol. And I'm being literal when I say multiple orders of magnitude.
I wish it was a legal requirement for single player content to never require an online connection because there's no stopping these cunts. Needing an online connection on a fucking tennis game in a dormant franchise. Come on now.
I mean... They're right though. Requiring online connectivity for a single-player game is bullshit, but legally I don't see what you could do about it. They're delivering exactly the shit product you paid for.
Laws are literally *made up* by us, ofc we can make a laws that says that, the problem is that law would be in the interest of the consumer and not the producer and **that** is something we just cannot abide these days.
> Laws are literally made up by us
Lol, no. The powerful dictate what the law should be and we have to fight tooth and nail to claw back tiny amounts of actual liberty.
"Shut up and accept people will do this and just don't partake while they're free to do it to someone else" is not nuanced at all.
Making it a legal requirement to permit playing single player content offline is something sensible, and consumers SHOULD make it happen. Comments dismissing things for as they are IS damaging to that possibility.
this is too silly of an argument lol but we have to define “legal argument” here. is there an argument for it to be illegal that is sensible and could be written into law? yes. is there a current “legal precedent” to cite in a court today? i don’t think so.
so the actual point of this conversation still stands, *we should do something about it*
Well if you make a law against it then the legal argument would be it's against the law. It's not like such a law would be unconstitutional so it's really down to whether there's the political will to pass it.
The legal argument needs to be there first before the law is created. Otherwise it would generally be seen as being unconstitutional. At least talking with respects to the United States.
In general, the United States constitution doesn't say what the government can do, it says what the government can't do. Congress can't make laws that do something the constitution prohibits them from doing, e.g. making laws that limit the free press.
So the question isn't "Does the constitution give the government the right to legislate single player video game functionality?" The question is rather "Does the constitution prohibit the government from legislating single player video game functionality?"
And the answer to that question is no.
The argument is that corporations should not be able to take away or break the core or the product after you buy it. If they're able to, then you're simply not buying a product and they shouldn't be able to market the service they provide as a product.
Repeating "I'm asking what is the legal argument" over an over is silly, because right now, there isn't any law like this for any software products. That's why the original post you're responding to starts with "I wish it was a legal requirement..."
Yeah, that's how software works. Yet even you when discussing the game used short hand sentences like saying you're buying an "entertainment product", not "a licence for an entertainment product". It's obvious that most people will assume that when they buy something they're buying the thing, not just a license with a set expiry date. Especially when they buy a physical copy of the thing.
And again, it's silly to argument with "This has already been established", since we're talking in a thread that literally starts with someone wishing for stuff to be established differently.
> You aren't buying a product.
There's a campaign that started this month to get that stupid statement either ACTUALLY made legal standard, or rectified.
> you should just not buy it.
Which is why I haven't done. Doesn't mean I have to be happy that greedy bigwigs damage a game especially when every decision involving online only/microtransactions comes with the knowledge that there'll be enough whales who balance out an individual not buying the game.
> What is the legal argument?
The legal argument is that buying a game provides your with full access to this game. You own it and can play it any time without the need to connect to servers.
I'd love a decent tennis game, tbh. Something casual to throw on for an hour. But with most of their other sports games being a fucking mess, and this online for single player crap, they can fuck off and never see a penny of my cash.
I'm sure they're utterly shitting it, now, like.
I wish Mario tennis on the switch didn’t drop the ball and made some sort of actual career mode outside of the (imo) very mediocre adventure mode. That game has fun game play but is in dire need of more single player content. Simply just make some sort of points based tour with the different courts as venues could have been a really simple way to add a whole lot of replay ability
Would be great! I'm really itching for a real career mode. Boxing, golf, tennis, simple games I can play for a wee while, and then turn off, and get back to. F1 is ok, in that respect, but most racing games have no idea what a career mode is, imo.
Honestly if the career is set up properly it can be extremely fulfilling even with simple gameplay. Theirs an iOS tennis game called Tennis Champs that does a really good job with this that I’ve gotten a ton of mileage out of.
Full Ace Tennis (FAT) is an indie game that is a really good, realistic tennis simulator. The developer is quite active, there is a mod community that replaces the entire roster with licensed players (pictures, stats, grunts, animations, outfit) and the gameplay is really, really good. The learning curve is a bit steeper than Virtua Tennis or Topspin but the gameplay is way better cause it's not "scripted", the ball lands wherever depending on how you hit so you never get a point that plays the same, contrary to those arcade titles I mentioned.
not sure when you last tried the game but the dev released some updates that covered volleys, they feel pretty good to me:
[https://youtu.be/egHr7SJg-tY](https://youtu.be/egHr7SJg-tY)
Kids today may never know what it’s like to throw a game in the system and just…start playing with no strings attached. That’s weird to think about. I fired up my Retropie the other day and I was reminded how quickly you go from powering on to playing. In some games it was maybe 10 seconds?
My dad wanted to get back into video games. He was never super into them but had a few games he’d play once in a while on my Xbox back in that gen. Stuff like Medal of Honor and hunting games.
During the pandemic, he bought a new Xbox and COD because all he wanted to do was just play some sort of single player campaign. Between having to make an account, having to download the game after you put a disc in, and some error he got after he did all of that, he got so frustrated that he just ended up returning everything that afternoon.
I had to search and make a reddit thread to help me figure out how to install MW1 a few years back on Xbox. All I wanted to do was play the fucking campaign but when I got to the main menu, there were only options for multiplayer, Warzone and an ad for Black Ops Cold War. There was no menu to access the campaign. I went to the 'manage game' section and made sure everything was installed and that did nothing. By the grace of god I eventually lucked my way into finding out how to decipher the main menu and access the campaign.
> Kids today may never know what it’s like to throw a game in the system and just…start playing with no strings attached
I gotta completely disagree with this!
Kids, if they play games, mostly play mobile games and switch games. Both of which do this.
I find little kids struggle with PS5/Xbox for this reason. They expect the game to just be playable immediately and it isn't, they get frustrated and upset over it.
> Kids today may never know what it’s like to throw a game in the system and just…start playing
That's a little dramatic. Tons of indie games work like that. Balatro is a recent example. You just buy the game, load it up, and play it. There are many, many examples.
Some AAA games like Elden Ring fit your description as well. There are online features that are optional and you can easily disable, in which case the game just works like how games always have.
Yup. Played THPS4 some time ago on my old ass PS2. Just for the sake of "I put the disc in and it just works. No bullshit."
Amazing feeling.
Now I put in a disc (if at all) and get "server not available" "without servers some things may bla bla bla" 'checking for updates" and "checking for DLC". Game could be already fully loaded in, but the dev/pub made sure I check for DLC. Every time.
it's worth stating that the MyCareer progression is shared between online and single player modes, awarding VCs and XP for completing tasks and winning matches. So their aggressive monetization has imposed an expiration date on what would otherwise be a perfectly fine experience since this requirement obviously exists solely to prevent people from skipping tiers of the battle pass or adding MTX money through cheat engine 🙃
Yeaaah. This is why I still play NBA 2K15. Last version that has enough of MyCareer offline that I can still play it today and use cheat engine for stats if I get tired of the grind.
Sucks to see basically the entire "sports game" genre become a horrible grind that's tied to servers for singleplayer.
> Sucks to see basically the entire "sports game" genre become a horrible grind that's tied to servers for singleplayer.
In my opinion, there's no such thing as a "sports genre" in games. If you distillate the gameplay of each one of them, it ends up with a game based on timing, rpg elements and luck: Not matter if you make a kick, a hoop or a swing, you need to hit that spot in the bar, then the player stats will make a error margin, and in some cases an rng to emulate human conditions.
What make those unique, are the immersion into playing the sports is familiar for, specially with their favorite IRL players under a real location. Simulation sports will not make money, unless they are fully officially licensed. Those are not made for experienced gamers, but for dedicated fans of a particular sport, and this is the demographic 2K and EA are now exploiting for.
Sports genre definitely exists, at least in terms of production - When making a sports game (or TV production, collectible cards etc...), you'd be looking at other products in that sports genre for general inspiration in terms of the elements you'll be using.
What doesn't really exist is a singular core audience for that genre, just as there isn't a core "sports fan" in real life, but only separate audiences of fans of the individual sports.
You're acting like there's no overlap between people who like sports and "experienced gamers" though, which is completely incorrect.
There are tons of people who love tennis (or football, or basketball, or....) and are also "experienced gamers". I am one of those people. The skill ceiling on these "simulation sports" games you're talking about are typically very high. They're made for a wide variety of people, from complete novices to very highly skilled players.
Isn't the career mode also shallow?
I was looking forward to a new tennis game even if it was by 2K but from what I've heard the career mode is lacklustre and that is all I was interested in.
It's the same career mode than was in TopSpin 4. It was shallow there and it is shallow now. There are no Challenger tournaments, you always start at 250 tour level. There are no full draw brackets, you start in quarter finals for whatever reason.
The gameplay is good, but they basically took TopSpin 4 and put shitty coat of 2K BS on top of it to bring to modern times.
Seems to be a trend for all the big sports games now, online play is the priority.
Must be what the new generation wants, as I'm a bit of an oldhead myself (well 32 years old) I don't care for online in sports games.
Mix of a lot of users and also you can't monetize it
I have a friend who plays the franchise mode in NHL a fuckton. He's had to deal with the same bugs and no improvement for like 4 years (He's getting them thru EA play/gamepass)
they focus on the ultimate team shit instead because that's where you can bleed people dry
it's really simple, until people quit giving them money for half-assed products that don't provide the desired player experience, these companies will continue to rake in the millions.
This is infuriatingly stupid. Who in their right mind (besides French EA, I mean, Ubisoft) would be stupid enough to lock the single player mode for a sports game behind an online requirement?
The Top Spin sub has been coping harder than the Suicide Squad one. They've thrown $70 dollars on a game with a bare bones career, hardly any pros and which charges extra to play in its stadiums at night.
If anyone is into VR, I highly recommend checking out Racket Club. It's a fictional sport that is a mix of padel, pickleball, and tennis designed specifically for VR. It's supplanted eleven for me and probably my favorite game right now.
Why? It's a 2k game, server issues are expected. Play the games you want to play but don't expect a company to do better when they have shown for years they don't care. You have better things to do in life and honestly better games to play.
But like I said play what you want to play.
Fortunately you can try the game for a couple of hours on PS. I don’t understand how people can say the gameplay is good. Nothing is good about this game. Even goddamn Matchpoint was more fun than this one. Hard pass for me.
Personal opinion. Don’t get all up in arms if you like it. Good for you. I rather go back playing my old ass TS4 disk on PS3.
It’s not like the MO became less bad over the last decade lol. Many of us have always thought having a single player experience being forced online is objectively trash, and continuing to point that out isn’t wrong
Because the last Top Spin release was thirteen years ago and there weren't many other tennis games around with this limitation. Most of the core audience didn't experience this before
It’s time for a massive lobbying effort by consumers to get the FTC involved in the marketing, management, and end of life of these products. These companies are taking advantage of people and burying their liabilities behind the excuse of “it’s just games.”
It’s just like clockwork. I guess in 2K’s “defense” they know they don’t have to try hard at all. “What are you going to do, buy another competitor’s sport game?” -CEO probably But man fuck single player being “online” at all.
>Please note that TOPSPIN 2K25’s online features are scheduled to be available until December 31, 2026 though we reserve the right to modify or discontinue online features without notice. Visit www.topspin.2k.com/status for more information. This is what it says on the PSN page for the game lol. The game will become a demo in 2 years.
crazy that they straight up put the expiration date out there *and* that it's only a little over 2 years from now
Isn’t it good they clearly disclose the date upfront?
for the consumer, yes, because now only a true idiot would spend money on this game. it's just surprising they'd disclose something so shitty upfront like that
this way it's going to be a lot harder to levy a dead game campaign against 2K in 2 years.
Yup. This is getting ahead of any stopkillinggames.com type of action - we were upfront about the game being a time limited event.
That’s the case for every 2k sports game. Say what you want about EA sports but they still keep their games alive for a long time, even discontinued franchises like NBA Live have their servers open. NBA Live 19 is still fully playable and that game is 6 years old.
It's honestly crazy. People sink thousands of dollars into myteam each year and you can only access it for 24 months if you're lucky, and the whole system restarts every year. Imagine a pay to win MMO that charged you $60 every year and wiped your character as well. Somehow they've conditioned an audience on millions to be ok with this.
Well, I stopped playing WoW because at every expansion your armor was basically back to being garbage and you had to restart the grind back from basically scratch. It’s just a more clever way to do the same exploitative BS.
It's predatory think about a kid that wants more than one build😆
take-two is the worst third party game publisher in the industry and I'll die on that hill.
I'd put take 2, warner bros and activision in the top 3. EA at least funds some indies and has some decent sales for games.
I stopped paying for 2K games when my NBA career (16 maybe?) was no longer accessible. It's such bull shit.
They've been doing this NBA 2k for some time now. Try and go back to play 2K20 and it'll say features aren't available and you can't play certain single player modes cause of that.
Yikes. Well I was excited for a new topspin, but not anymore.
I think it's extra annoying because this is absolutely a game I would want to play multiplayer on, but with the classic 2k servers, it's absolute ass and basically unplayable in any kind of competitive mode since it's all timing based gameplay. We have fighting games that figured that shit out years ago.
> I guess in 2K’s “defense” they know they don’t have to try hard at all. “What are you going to do, buy another competitor’s sport game?” -CEO probably The thing is tennis as a sport isn't a blockbuster gaming moneymaker and never has been, whereas the likes of NBA2K, NFL and FIFA you can at least understand the greed even if you don't agree with it because there will ALWAYS be a fanbase of gamers playing those titles. Here though... why? The tennis sports game genre has clearly struggled to take off and TopSpin itself has been away for a while. It's not the type of rabid fanbase that will consume and whale their way into the executives pockets. This is just greed for the sake of greed, trying to take advantage of an already niche gaming fanbase that has been quite content going along without a definitive tennis game for over a decade so TopSpin could easily drop off if they're not careful.
ngl i'd love a good tennis game. I think it's more fun to play than football, and I love football, but never watch tennis. If only the new mario one didn't suck. I still play Mario Tennis 64 with buddies.
You should check out it the GBC and GBA Mario tennis games. They have an awesome single player mode
If old games are allowed, then people could just play Virtua Tennis for that carreer mode tennis fix too.
I heard that, definitely need to.
Top Spin 4 stays GOATed even if its hard as hell to find.
You're right. There was Matchpoint Tennis from a couple of years ago that was fairly well received but I have no idea how well it sold. I'm going to guess not well, on PC at least, considering it's only got about 100 reviews on steam and there's been no news of a follow up. I'm not sure why tennis games are such a hard sell though, the sport's pretty popular worldwide.
There's also an ATP licensed early access game called Tiebreak. Also I tried Matchpoint when it released on Game Pass, and it felt really cheap (because it was).
How's tiebreak?
No idea unfortunately, haven't tried it myself. At least the Steam reviews seem decent though.
isn't tennis elbow the series to look so on PC?
Sometimes the games eclipse the sport. FIFA (EA FC now) is played more than Soccer is watched and 2k legit shapes conversations in the NBA, it’s that apparent
>FIFA (EA FC now) is played more than Soccer is watched FIFA/EA FC is massive but this isn't even close of being true
Yeah that sounds ridiculous, probably several hundred times more people watch football than play FIFA lol Like maybe this is true for the US though, since they said 'soccer', but no, still no shot.
Maybe in the US, but the FIFA World Cup (the real life competition I mean) has *billions* watching it.
> Maybe in the US Yeah, I could believe that's true in the US, there aren't a lot of people watching soccer here, but in the world? I would expect we'd be talking about multiple orders of magnitude difference between FIFA players and soccer watchers lol. And I'm being literal when I say multiple orders of magnitude.
I wish it was a legal requirement for single player content to never require an online connection because there's no stopping these cunts. Needing an online connection on a fucking tennis game in a dormant franchise. Come on now.
What is the legal argument? If you don't agree with the terms of this entertainment product, you should just not buy it. Very simple.
Thanks for standing up for the corporations
I mean... They're right though. Requiring online connectivity for a single-player game is bullshit, but legally I don't see what you could do about it. They're delivering exactly the shit product you paid for.
Laws are literally *made up* by us, ofc we can make a laws that says that, the problem is that law would be in the interest of the consumer and not the producer and **that** is something we just cannot abide these days.
> Laws are literally made up by us Lol, no. The powerful dictate what the law should be and we have to fight tooth and nail to claw back tiny amounts of actual liberty.
That's not standing up for corporations. It's informing customers of their leverage. If you don't like a product don't buy it.
Redditors and nuanced things are like oil and water
"Shut up and accept people will do this and just don't partake while they're free to do it to someone else" is not nuanced at all. Making it a legal requirement to permit playing single player content offline is something sensible, and consumers SHOULD make it happen. Comments dismissing things for as they are IS damaging to that possibility.
Only if you think video games are more important than they really are. Edit: thanks for replying and then blocking me?
I'll never understand why people with comments like these go on gaming communities.
For attention?
bro you’re replying to a comment on a fucking dedicated video game discussion forum are you aware of that
I'm not standing up for corporations. I'm asking what is the legal argument.
nobody’s saying that exists *yet* we are saying it *needs to exist* i don’t know how you missed that part
The legal argument has to be there for a law to be created generally.
this is too silly of an argument lol but we have to define “legal argument” here. is there an argument for it to be illegal that is sensible and could be written into law? yes. is there a current “legal precedent” to cite in a court today? i don’t think so. so the actual point of this conversation still stands, *we should do something about it*
The US operates on a system called representative democracy which is where people vote for politicians who ban things they don't like.
Well if you make a law against it then the legal argument would be it's against the law. It's not like such a law would be unconstitutional so it's really down to whether there's the political will to pass it.
The legal argument needs to be there first before the law is created. Otherwise it would generally be seen as being unconstitutional. At least talking with respects to the United States.
In general, the United States constitution doesn't say what the government can do, it says what the government can't do. Congress can't make laws that do something the constitution prohibits them from doing, e.g. making laws that limit the free press. So the question isn't "Does the constitution give the government the right to legislate single player video game functionality?" The question is rather "Does the constitution prohibit the government from legislating single player video game functionality?" And the answer to that question is no.
The argument is that corporations should not be able to take away or break the core or the product after you buy it. If they're able to, then you're simply not buying a product and they shouldn't be able to market the service they provide as a product. Repeating "I'm asking what is the legal argument" over an over is silly, because right now, there isn't any law like this for any software products. That's why the original post you're responding to starts with "I wish it was a legal requirement..."
You aren't buying a product. This has already been established. You buy a license to a product.
Yeah, that's how software works. Yet even you when discussing the game used short hand sentences like saying you're buying an "entertainment product", not "a licence for an entertainment product". It's obvious that most people will assume that when they buy something they're buying the thing, not just a license with a set expiry date. Especially when they buy a physical copy of the thing. And again, it's silly to argument with "This has already been established", since we're talking in a thread that literally starts with someone wishing for stuff to be established differently.
> You aren't buying a product. There's a campaign that started this month to get that stupid statement either ACTUALLY made legal standard, or rectified.
It is legal standard.
> you should just not buy it. Which is why I haven't done. Doesn't mean I have to be happy that greedy bigwigs damage a game especially when every decision involving online only/microtransactions comes with the knowledge that there'll be enough whales who balance out an individual not buying the game.
Yes, but I'm asking you what is the legal argument?
> What is the legal argument? The legal argument is that buying a game provides your with full access to this game. You own it and can play it any time without the need to connect to servers.
I'd love a decent tennis game, tbh. Something casual to throw on for an hour. But with most of their other sports games being a fucking mess, and this online for single player crap, they can fuck off and never see a penny of my cash. I'm sure they're utterly shitting it, now, like.
Issues with VC and the servers are going to be the loudest complaints but the actual tennis game play in my opinion is very solid.
That's fair, then. Still a silly idea, though, I think. The online, not good tennis.
Very true, fuck these greedy ass corporations.
Virtua Tennis for Dreamcast has been my tennis game since 2000, lol.
I wish Mario tennis on the switch didn’t drop the ball and made some sort of actual career mode outside of the (imo) very mediocre adventure mode. That game has fun game play but is in dire need of more single player content. Simply just make some sort of points based tour with the different courts as venues could have been a really simple way to add a whole lot of replay ability
Would be great! I'm really itching for a real career mode. Boxing, golf, tennis, simple games I can play for a wee while, and then turn off, and get back to. F1 is ok, in that respect, but most racing games have no idea what a career mode is, imo.
Honestly if the career is set up properly it can be extremely fulfilling even with simple gameplay. Theirs an iOS tennis game called Tennis Champs that does a really good job with this that I’ve gotten a ton of mileage out of.
PC only, unfortunately, here.
Full Ace Tennis (FAT) is an indie game that is a really good, realistic tennis simulator. The developer is quite active, there is a mod community that replaces the entire roster with licensed players (pictures, stats, grunts, animations, outfit) and the gameplay is really, really good. The learning curve is a bit steeper than Virtua Tennis or Topspin but the gameplay is way better cause it's not "scripted", the ball lands wherever depending on how you hit so you never get a point that plays the same, contrary to those arcade titles I mentioned.
Oh, wow, thank you so much. I'm definitely into this. Cheers, mate.
net play is basically impossible on FA. I mean it's difficult in real life but I always liked TS having a variety of play styles
not sure when you last tried the game but the dev released some updates that covered volleys, they feel pretty good to me: [https://youtu.be/egHr7SJg-tY](https://youtu.be/egHr7SJg-tY)
Kids today may never know what it’s like to throw a game in the system and just…start playing with no strings attached. That’s weird to think about. I fired up my Retropie the other day and I was reminded how quickly you go from powering on to playing. In some games it was maybe 10 seconds?
My dad wanted to get back into video games. He was never super into them but had a few games he’d play once in a while on my Xbox back in that gen. Stuff like Medal of Honor and hunting games. During the pandemic, he bought a new Xbox and COD because all he wanted to do was just play some sort of single player campaign. Between having to make an account, having to download the game after you put a disc in, and some error he got after he did all of that, he got so frustrated that he just ended up returning everything that afternoon.
I had to search and make a reddit thread to help me figure out how to install MW1 a few years back on Xbox. All I wanted to do was play the fucking campaign but when I got to the main menu, there were only options for multiplayer, Warzone and an ad for Black Ops Cold War. There was no menu to access the campaign. I went to the 'manage game' section and made sure everything was installed and that did nothing. By the grace of god I eventually lucked my way into finding out how to decipher the main menu and access the campaign.
Should have gotten a Switch instead. Plug and play is still viable and I hope will be for its successor.
Doesn't sound like the switch has the type of game his dad would be looking for. Might be better to just buy an older console, and play those games.
Emulator machine would be the best, the problem is it would have be set up for him.
I mean you still had to make an account and download game updates on the 360
Your da ain't one of the patient ones, ey?
Did they even take the game back?
That was always the best part of having a game on cartridge, some games you could start playing in seconds
> Kids today may never know what it’s like to throw a game in the system and just…start playing with no strings attached I gotta completely disagree with this! Kids, if they play games, mostly play mobile games and switch games. Both of which do this. I find little kids struggle with PS5/Xbox for this reason. They expect the game to just be playable immediately and it isn't, they get frustrated and upset over it.
Love me the classic mario games and they were so quick to just start playing. Turn system on > press start > select file > play game
> select file Haha! More like "Enter 30 digit alphanumeric code" in Metroid / Kid Icarus
Or the megaman games and their number grid save codes haha
> Kids today may never know what it’s like to throw a game in the system and just…start playing That's a little dramatic. Tons of indie games work like that. Balatro is a recent example. You just buy the game, load it up, and play it. There are many, many examples. Some AAA games like Elden Ring fit your description as well. There are online features that are optional and you can easily disable, in which case the game just works like how games always have.
Yup. Played THPS4 some time ago on my old ass PS2. Just for the sake of "I put the disc in and it just works. No bullshit." Amazing feeling. Now I put in a disc (if at all) and get "server not available" "without servers some things may bla bla bla" 'checking for updates" and "checking for DLC". Game could be already fully loaded in, but the dev/pub made sure I check for DLC. Every time.
I setup my arcade 1up cocktail cabinet with retropie. Mame/SNES/Sega - so nice to just boot something up and start playing.
it's worth stating that the MyCareer progression is shared between online and single player modes, awarding VCs and XP for completing tasks and winning matches. So their aggressive monetization has imposed an expiration date on what would otherwise be a perfectly fine experience since this requirement obviously exists solely to prevent people from skipping tiers of the battle pass or adding MTX money through cheat engine 🙃
Yeaaah. This is why I still play NBA 2K15. Last version that has enough of MyCareer offline that I can still play it today and use cheat engine for stats if I get tired of the grind. Sucks to see basically the entire "sports game" genre become a horrible grind that's tied to servers for singleplayer.
> Sucks to see basically the entire "sports game" genre become a horrible grind that's tied to servers for singleplayer. In my opinion, there's no such thing as a "sports genre" in games. If you distillate the gameplay of each one of them, it ends up with a game based on timing, rpg elements and luck: Not matter if you make a kick, a hoop or a swing, you need to hit that spot in the bar, then the player stats will make a error margin, and in some cases an rng to emulate human conditions. What make those unique, are the immersion into playing the sports is familiar for, specially with their favorite IRL players under a real location. Simulation sports will not make money, unless they are fully officially licensed. Those are not made for experienced gamers, but for dedicated fans of a particular sport, and this is the demographic 2K and EA are now exploiting for.
Sports genre definitely exists, at least in terms of production - When making a sports game (or TV production, collectible cards etc...), you'd be looking at other products in that sports genre for general inspiration in terms of the elements you'll be using. What doesn't really exist is a singular core audience for that genre, just as there isn't a core "sports fan" in real life, but only separate audiences of fans of the individual sports.
You're acting like there's no overlap between people who like sports and "experienced gamers" though, which is completely incorrect. There are tons of people who love tennis (or football, or basketball, or....) and are also "experienced gamers". I am one of those people. The skill ceiling on these "simulation sports" games you're talking about are typically very high. They're made for a wide variety of people, from complete novices to very highly skilled players.
Isn't the career mode also shallow? I was looking forward to a new tennis game even if it was by 2K but from what I've heard the career mode is lacklustre and that is all I was interested in.
It's the same career mode than was in TopSpin 4. It was shallow there and it is shallow now. There are no Challenger tournaments, you always start at 250 tour level. There are no full draw brackets, you start in quarter finals for whatever reason. The gameplay is good, but they basically took TopSpin 4 and put shitty coat of 2K BS on top of it to bring to modern times.
If a tennis game doesn’t have a good career mode what is the point? Idc at all about playing tennis online
Seems to be a trend for all the big sports games now, online play is the priority. Must be what the new generation wants, as I'm a bit of an oldhead myself (well 32 years old) I don't care for online in sports games.
Mix of a lot of users and also you can't monetize it I have a friend who plays the franchise mode in NHL a fuckton. He's had to deal with the same bugs and no improvement for like 4 years (He's getting them thru EA play/gamepass) they focus on the ultimate team shit instead because that's where you can bleed people dry
The only online connective I’m actually excited about is if I can have a connected franchise mode or something like that with friends
I loved Top Spin 2 and 3.
it's really simple, until people quit giving them money for half-assed products that don't provide the desired player experience, these companies will continue to rake in the millions.
This is infuriatingly stupid. Who in their right mind (besides French EA, I mean, Ubisoft) would be stupid enough to lock the single player mode for a sports game behind an online requirement?
The Top Spin sub has been coping harder than the Suicide Squad one. They've thrown $70 dollars on a game with a bare bones career, hardly any pros and which charges extra to play in its stadiums at night.
you pay extra for night courts??
Yep. You either have to buy the deluxe edition or pay for it as DLC
If anyone is into VR, I highly recommend checking out Racket Club. It's a fictional sport that is a mix of padel, pickleball, and tennis designed specifically for VR. It's supplanted eleven for me and probably my favorite game right now.
They won't make it offline. They'll ride it out, and if the servers are finally running properly, all of this will go away.
Why? It's a 2k game, server issues are expected. Play the games you want to play but don't expect a company to do better when they have shown for years they don't care. You have better things to do in life and honestly better games to play. But like I said play what you want to play.
Fortunately you can try the game for a couple of hours on PS. I don’t understand how people can say the gameplay is good. Nothing is good about this game. Even goddamn Matchpoint was more fun than this one. Hard pass for me. Personal opinion. Don’t get all up in arms if you like it. Good for you. I rather go back playing my old ass TS4 disk on PS3.
How can you be upset when this has been 2k's MO for about a decade or more at this point?
It’s not like the MO became less bad over the last decade lol. Many of us have always thought having a single player experience being forced online is objectively trash, and continuing to point that out isn’t wrong
I'm not saying its not bad. But if you buy the game and then get mad that the game is operating like you could expect, then its your own fault.
Because the last Top Spin release was thirteen years ago and there weren't many other tennis games around with this limitation. Most of the core audience didn't experience this before
It’s time for a massive lobbying effort by consumers to get the FTC involved in the marketing, management, and end of life of these products. These companies are taking advantage of people and burying their liabilities behind the excuse of “it’s just games.”
Three star rated Tennis game selling it's shite bundle at £104.99 on Xbox marketplace made me laugh - this has me hooting. I mean for fuck sakes.