Bi-Annual Releases
Good games take a lot of time to make. With that being said, most annualized sports titles are only afforded a nine to ten-month development cycle. Meaning, most sports games are just the previous year’s game rebuilt on the same engine, with the same assets, and minor upgrades made to visuals, AI, and game modes. Rarely does a sports game make a giant leap forward from one year to the next. There simply isn’t enough time.
The only way developers can be given the opportunity to move past the general tweaking that occurs from year to year to an opportunity to go in and blow up particular parts of the game is by migrating away from the annualization model. Placing a year between each title’s release would take the nine-month development cycle and increase it to a 21-month development cycle.
Now, rather than going in and adjusting a few minor features in franchise mode between releases, the developers can decide to completely rebuild the franchise mode with the extra twelve months of development time.
