Roster Updates Take Step Back This Year

When it comes to the subject of roster updates there are various opinions on how often they should occur. However what everyone seems united in is that they should be at least consistent in the delivery of them. After having significant advancements made with the 09 titles the majority of games have actually fallen off from the expectations that were built up for this year.

-Madden 10 started with a stream of weekly roster updates but then quickly slipped. There was a stretch where only one update was released within a five week period. Through the end of November Madden 10 has received nine updates but in comparison Madden 09 had 13 in the same time period. The update used for Online Franchise is even farther behind. Players on IR are still allowed to be used in ranked games.

-NBA 2K10 with its “Living Rosters” feature has been updating semi-regularly however online play still uses the game’s default rosters. The full updates are not happening quite as frequently as they were with 2K9 but it is especially troubling that they aren’t used at all online.

-NBA Live 10 uses the DNA to automatically update which keeps the rosters correct but the game also relies on someone to update the full ratings manually and fix the newly inserted players. The first complete update wasn’t done until three weeks into the season.

-MLB 2K9 with its “Living Rosters” feature went months at a time without updating the rosters. Though in comparison to 2K8 it was actually an improvement.

-MLB 09: The Show continued its consistency with weekly updates. It is probably the series that held up best compared to its previous year in this regard.

Again it is consistency that is crucial. If it is too time consuming to do regular frequent updates with ratings changes than a good compromise is to at least get the rosters right and then deal with the ratings on a semi-regular basis. Laying out the concrete plan for updates in advance and communicating as much as possible would go a long way.