MLB The Show 24's Diamond Dynasty Monetization Is Committed to Pushing Me Away

MLB The Show 24's most popular mode, Diamond Dynasty, has a huge problem that is going to lead to me putting down the game sooner rather than later. For the most part, I've played every new MLB The Show entry in some capacity for the last decade. Despite this, it's only been within the past couple of years that I've found myself more engaged by Diamond Dynasty. In previous iterations, I found myself naturally falling away from the DD grind in favor of playing other games, but for MLB The Show 24, I didn't want this to be the case. Despite being more committed to keeping up with the year-round content in MLB 24 this season, though, I'm already feeling increasingly bothered by how it handles rolling out new players. 

Yes, it's no secret whatsoever that Diamond Dynasty is the offering in MLB The Show that is all about milking more money out of players. The entire mode is centered around building a full roster that you can then take online to face against others, or to face the CPU in a variety of single-player options. Broadly speaking, assembling my own roster is something that I've always loved in Diamond Dynasty as it lets me put together a squad that contains legends of the past with the game's biggest stars today.

With MLB The Show 24, though, the way that San Diego Studio has started to refine how it allows players to unlock these various MLB superstars is getting a bit ridiculous. Diamond Dynasty passively encourages players to spend their own real-world money on Stubs, which is the currency in the mode. With Stubs, you can turn around and buy packs of random players, or head to the Marketplace and buy specific ones if you have enough capital. Generally speaking, I've gotten used to this format, so it's not the mere implementation of Stubs that's the issue. 

Instead, San Diego Studio seems to have doubled down in MLB The Show 24 by introducing players that can only be acquired by purchasing randomized packs. For instance, when the game's recent "Egg Hunt" event happened a few weeks ago, some limited-time packs were added to the store. These packs happened to contain a version of Ryne Sandberg that I really wanted as a Cubs fan, but simply purchasing a pack alone didn't ensure that I would get him. The randomized nature of this wouldn't be as much of a problem to me if it weren't for the fact that these special, limited packs that SDS adds are often bafflingly expensive. One of these packs retails for 40,000 Stubs alone, which is the equivalent of over $40 in real money. To have to fork over so much money just for the mere chance of getting a card you want is absolutely crazy. 

What's worse is that this hasn't been a one-time issue to this point in Season 1 of MLB The Show 24. San Diego Studio has added packs worth 40,000 Stubs numerous times already with its MLB Pipeline, Spring Breakout, and Seoul Series offerings, just to name a few. Essentially, the best and most highly desired players always end up being locked behind these paywalls where you don't even know what you're getting. The alternative is that you can choose to go to the Marketplace to buy the exact player card you want, but sometimes that ends up being even more expensive. 

The cherry on top of this whole situation is that most of these cards in question that you're trying to earn for Diamond Dynasty don't even have the legs to carry throughout the entire life of MLB The Show 24. Outside of the game's "Core" players that are based on current MLB rosters, all other players are tied to specific seasons. Season 1 is planned to run until early June, at which point Season 2 will then begin and will prevent S1 cards from being usable any longer. MLB The Show 24 does circumvent this slightly by giving players the option to use a handful of "Wild Cards" that can be from any season, but it still just reiterates how egregious this whole system is. 

Perhaps the saddest thing about all of this is that the way MLB The Show 24 handles monetization isn't as bad in some ways when compared to the likes of Madden, EA Sports FC, and NBA 2K. In short, all of the major sports video game franchises have been filled to the brim with money-making practices that are meant to milk every last dime out of you. As someone who grew up playing sports games constantly, it continues to bum me out that keep bouncing off of these annualized sims each and every year even when I actively want to stick around. Barring some changes in the coming weeks with MLB The Show 24, I'll likely end up setting it aside once again in favor of something else.