Itâs alarming how many of you people hate sports games. To the point where a harmless post on a sports game on this site usually elicits unnecessary levels of fury and trollishness.
We get it. A lot of you hate sports games. Hate Madden, hate FIFA, hate NBA2K, hate Pro Evo (Wii Sports doesnât count; itâs a party game). Hate them so much you even go and upset the people responsible for making them.
âFor many on the Madden NFL team it can be a source of frustrationâ says Phil Frazier, senior producer at EA Tiburon (ie the Madden guys). âJust about everyone on our team are hardcore. We have many that continue to play World of Warcraft, many that attend midnight sales for games like Call of Duty, and many that play the card game versions of Magic the Gathering or Bloodbowl. The fact that the âhardcoreâ group doesnât give sports games a fair shake can be frustrating.â
But have you ever taken a step back and wondered why you hate them? We do, especially since some of us are die-hard sports game fans. And for the most part, it baffles me. So I went and spoke with a couple of the guys at EA Sports, and decided to play devilâs advocate for a day in defence of sports games.
Weâve gone back through old posts and read many of your complaints. Heck, theyâre the same complaints we often have with sports games. That an annual update promotes lazy development, that people are being charged $50 for what amounts to a roster update, etc etc.
Some of those points are valid, particularly the roster updates. But others? âIn my opinion, an uninformed, non first-person shooter fan could make a similar argument about games in that genreâ says Frazier. âIâve heard sports game fans say, âItâs just new guns and maps, but the gameplay itself is the same.â
Ask yourself this: How different were Call of Duty, Call of Duty 2 and Call of Duty 3 at the end of the day? They were released on (roughly) an annual cycle, all featured the same factions, the same war, the same control scheme, and the same display.
Sure, even the most generic shooter sequels often at least feature new maps, giving them a fresher appearance than another football game on another football field. But his basic point is a valid one.
Then youâve got to consider why an annual update for a sports game is so wrong. After all, itâs a sports game, and sports run in seasons. Clear, truncated episodes, with a beginning and end, each of which tells a story and creates villains and heroes.
âYearly cycles make a lot of sense for sports gamesâ says Dave Littman, the producer of EAâs NHL series. âAfter all, professional sports do the same thing. You pay a lot of money for season tickets before the season starts. You go to all of the home games and cheer for your team until the season ends. ThenâŠyou do it all again the next yearâ.
Another, seemingly more reasonable complaint from people who despise sports games is that, well, they just donât like sports. And on the one hand, thatâs cool. Not everybody is going to like everything.
But on the otherâŠwhat about the emotional rewards on offer in a sports game? âSports games provide personal access to the emotion of sports and many of these emotions are the exact feelings you get when playing other genres of gamesâ, says Frazier, digging a little past the context of the Madden series and into the gameplay itself.
âThe satisfaction of a head shot in an FPS is very similar to a big play in football. Being the point leader after a battle in an FPS feels very much like winning a game of football. Making the tough decision about going with a frost or fire spec in WoW feels very much like the choice of signing the hot new rookie quarterback or the speedy running back, as it greatly impacts the way youâll play the game.â
Moving beyond the innate âexperienceâ you feel playing a sports game â and I think Frazier is right on the money with that â thereâs also the mechanics of a sports game to consider.
For example: Letâs look past the fact youâre playing a sports game for a second. Like any other video game, the âsportsâ setting of a sports game is just context. Window dressing, giving a purpose to a game that under the hood â where the 1s and 0s live â is there to test your strategy and reflexes via a series of challenges.
Like Mario. Heâs a plumber, but in Mario, youâre not plumbing. You donât care heâs a plumber. You care about the timing of your jump, the brilliance of the level design, the challenges inherent in progressing from beginning to end without dying or running out of time.
Now take that line of thought and apply it to sports games.
A centrepiece of both Pro Evolution Soccer and FIFA in recent years has been a game mode where you create a single player, then assume the role of that player (and that player alone) during games, guiding them through their career, from benchwarmer to superstar.
You pick his name. His height. His facial features. Which position he favours. Then you assign him attributes from a pool of points, which will determine how well he performs at various tasks. Once created, your skills as the person controlling the action will cause those attributes to improve to over time, in turn making him a better player.
Sound like an RPG?
Most major sports games these days, from Madden to NBA games, feature âmanagerâ modes, where you assume the role of the head of a team. So not only are you controlling the action on game day, youâre responsible for training regimes, sponsorship deals, the buying and selling (or drafting) of new players, that kind of thing.
Taking place off the field, these modes normally involve the distribution of allocated or earned resources across a variety of fields. The attention you pay to those fields can determine whether, in the larger scale of things, your team is successful. The process is often number-based (i.e. youâre spending money). Itâs also usually abstract, in that the moves are represented not by literal handshakes and glasses of champagne, but by little more than text bubbles and positive or negative outcomes.
Sound like a strategy game?
One final example is online play. Those who take their Madden or FIFA online gaming seriously will, as Iâve described above, soon look past the âcontextâ of the fact theyâre playing a sports game. Theyâre not actually playing sport. Theyâre playing a video game, and a video game has its own sets of rules and exploits which can be learned, mastered and then applied. Strategies, timing, specific characters or teams that are better than othersâŠ
Sound like a fighting game?
So if, like Frazier says, the emotions in a spots game match those found in other games so closely and if, like Iâve shown above, the mechanics in a sports game can match those found in other games so closelyâŠwhy the hate?
Is it because you canât relate to an NFL or a Premier League or an NHL team as well as you can ancient Romans, aliens or vampires? That you prefer learning the move-set of a large-breasted Chinese girl to that of a pro sporting team?
If so, thatâs fine!
Iâm not saying you have to like sports, or sports games for that matter. Some people hate sports. Others just wonât find the kind of action on offer to their liking. Thatâs cool. Iâm not trying to force anybody to play or enjoy something they donât want to.
All Iâm trying to do is show you that many of the criticisms of the sports game genre are unfounded, and that if youâre willing to give them a chance (as opposed to spitting hatred upon them at every mention), you may actually find something you can relate to. Maybe even enjoy.
