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Comment by that_guy_iain | Hacker News Reader

From my experience with the NHL franchise. If you're a casual or light player of the game you probably won't notice a difference except for the time rosters.

But if you play the game on a regular basis you will also notice the new feature or the thing they've improved. If you play FIFA 2015 and then play FIFA 2022 you'll notice a massive difference yet people will have been saying for years that they don't change anything. That is because every year they improve a single aspect of the game.

The main revenue source for these games isn't even the actual game. It's the online experience where I've heard stories of people paying thousands for their online team.

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> But if you play the game on a regular basis you will also notice the new feature or the thing they've improved. If you play FIFA 2015 and then play FIFA 2022 you'll notice a massive difference yet people will have been saying for years that they don't change anything. That is because every year they improve a single aspect of the game.

I think that's the point people are trying to make. If you're making a very small change,why are you charging people for the full price again? They could push an update for a small free each year. And resell the game for full price every 4 years.

Who said they make a very small change? I said they improve a single aspect. The aspects are normally massively changed.

And the point people are making is they can't spot the differnce and for them there is no difference. No there is, but they're not good enough to feel or see the difference. It's like saying there isn't a difference between each version release of a programming language. If you're a newbie programmer you won't notice the difference but if you're an advance user you notice it instantly and it changes how you do things.

One of the reasons I normally upgrade every year is that I found if I missed a year the number of changes that I would experience with basically overload me when I did upgrade.

I agree. It's a typical error of judgement from people that know things superficially. "All electronic music sounds the same", "all FIFA games are the same", "all soccer matches are the same". We simplify things that we know little about or things where we have poor proficiency. But experts can see the slightest differences and nuances.

Updating the roster and 3D assets is not a trivial change.

Also from my experience with the NHL games, things change at a snails pace and not always for the better. It's been a few years since I've played one, but I remember the same buggy moves being possible for multiple years and then strange quality of life decreases in various seasons modes.

I quit when the gacha team stuff was starting. I'd hope the whales led to huge game improvements, but I wonder if they actually used that money to make huge changes would they just piss off their fanbase?

Some of us still play NHL94.. http://www.nhl94online.com/

That game is how I got into ice hockey.

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