I think it’s because they got wise to licensing. If you secure the rights to an official sports league’s image, they will demand that the models are impeccable and the simulated advertisements are grand and that the gameplay is accurate. This means you need to have incredible graphics and at that rate you need to make an overly complex game to justify that massive cost.
Meanwhile games like Tape to Tape turn 2d hockey into a roguelike. There’s no way you could convince the NHL to put real people into an (expertly stylized) 2.5d aesthetic these days. The only reason a game like Backyard Baseball got it was because it had intense appeal to the kids on PC, before there was NBA 2K9
I think it’s because they got wise to licensing. If you secure the rights to an official sports league’s image, they will demand that the models are impeccable and the simulated advertisements are grand and that the gameplay is accurate. This means you need to have incredible graphics and at that rate you need to make an overly complex game to justify that massive cost.
Meanwhile games like Tape to Tape turn 2d hockey into a roguelike. There’s no way you could convince the NHL to put real people into an (expertly stylized) 2.5d aesthetic these days. The only reason a game like Backyard Baseball got it was because it had intense appeal to the kids on PC, before there was NBA 2K9