Sports gaming franchises benefit from considerable inertia among consumers, and developers are aware of this. It’s often cited as one of the main problems holding back innovation in the sports game market. Sometimes, however, a new game comes along and takes out the dominant force. Here are some of the most prominent examples and how they did it.
MLB The Show Slew The Sports Game Titans
At the turn of the millennium, much of the sports video game landscape was dominated by the industry’s two main players, EA Sports and 2K Games. Loyalties among fans were often strong, similar to the stronger at the time console wars, with a sports franchise by either developer capable of benefiting just from the name it released under.
The two dominant forces were already in the market when MLB The Show took over development of the Sony-exclusive line of games, but today, the baseball video game market is dominated by The Show, so how did it do it? By consistently delivering a high-quality game that felt more engaging and, importantly to players, more realistic and immersive than its peers.
Through the transitional period where The Show wrestled control of the industry away from its predecessors, the game delivered baseball gameplay that was simply more fun for players and felt better.
As has been common in sports video games where a single dominant force has taken over, either through apathy or exclusivity, the series has hit a rougher patch since becoming king. It has faced complaints that the appealing, realistic feel of the game has given way and that stagnation has set in from year to year, but with no strong threat coming from the defeated, it remains the king of the sport.
Skate Used Realism To Change The Game
The Tony Hawk series of skating games is among the most beloved franchises in video game history, let alone sports video game history, with the titles beloved by gamers even when they had never stepped a foot atop a board in real life. The series was all about fast-paced action and arcade gameplay to get you whipping around virtual environments, chaining moves like a regular skate god.
While love for the series remains strong, as evidenced by the popularity of the modern re-releases like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4, which allowed fans to relive the classics, the reviews and fan reception of the series began to dip. As fans appeared to grow tired of the Tony Hawk series’ formula, a new contender emerged in the form of the Skate series.
Rather than trying to outdo THPS at its own game with arcade action, Skate decided to make use of the then-modern addition of twin-stick controllers to create a system where success was not just a matter of hitting the right buttons. This results in a more challenging entry into the game when picking it up but also a more realistic experience that led to rewarding growth as you honed your skills, helping the series step up and fill the void as the buzz around the Tony Hawk games began to wane.
NBA 2K Conquered The Sports Basketball World
Although it can be hard to look at 2K games as the new guy on the block when we’re now more than a quarter-century into the millennium that gave the series its branding, when 2K Studios began releasing sports games for the Sega Dreamcast, it was just that, going toe-to-toe with the giant that was EA Sports. The battle was a fierce one waged across many fronts, with 2K releasing games in all the US big four plus the major college sports.
You don’t have to have been around then to know how most of those battles went, as 2K Games has abandoned all of those major sports bar one: basketball. The discussion around the two was similar across sports, with 2K games often looking brilliant on the Dreamcast and featuring gameplay that many fans argued blew its EA Sports analog out of the water, but with EA having the inherent momentum of a large pre-existing fanbase, 2K needed to eat into.
It was on the hardwood that 2K games like NBA 2K26 had the most success. The games were praised for offering a new level of gameplay that EA couldn’t match, and visuals that were unparalleled to make the gameplay experience more immersive. As the battle waged through the years, it became clear that 2K was winning the war, and it now stands as the clear leader of the genre.
