I agree. I bought Madden 18 recently, and despite the game itself being incredibly good, it is annoying that there are certain game modes that are locked / restricted behind what are effectively paywalls. The ultimate team mode is fine, but there are modes such as Draft Champions that now cost 'tickets' to enter them - even if played single player against the computer. You also get constant notifications about different legend players that are available for your ultimate team, yet to get the ones you want would require you to either be extremely lucky, or force you to buy coins etc so you can buy them in auction.
It feels with more and more games that they are trying to artificially lengthen the lifespan of games through either a dripfeed of content, or making the grind so slow. I have played Madden ever since the first version on the Megadrive - and have always put a lot of time into each version. I don't need anything to 'lengthen' the lifespan of the game - just playing the game itself is good.
It is similar with other games, like GTA and The Division. I am looking forward to Assassin's Creed Origin this week, but hearing that they have introduced more RPG elements into it just makes me wonder whether it will again feel too much like a grind.
