Definitive Guide to Sports Gaming

Do you remember the days where we jammed cartridges into our respective gaming consoles and battled the computer for hours on end?  If we wanted any other competition we would call up our friends to challenge them to a friendly game.  Man, that was so fifteen years ago.

Now we can plop a CD into the disk tray, hit a button, and invite strangers into our living rooms to game with.  Complete with headsets, we can even talk to these individuals as we play, offering advice or talk smack.  But, there is one small problem with all of this.  Gaming companies seem to be dumbing down the AI because more and more people are playing online.  Online equals two human opponents squaring off, thus making a CPU opponent not the main focus of the game.

Gaming companies, such as EA Sports and 2K sports, believe online is the future and by dumbing the CPU opponent we are forced to play online to get a “realistic, fun game”.  We see in sports games like Madden, NCAA Football, NHL, NCAA Basketball, NBA 2k9, there’s much more online integration inviting the player to jump online and play a live opponent.  For instance, when a player first fires up EA Sports’ NCAA Basketball they are prompted to pick a favorite team.  Depending on who they pick they will get a list of other players who have chosen the team’s rival as their favorite team. With a few clicks, those two players could play an online game against each using their favorite teams.

Here is where the problem lies, what do people who choose not to use the online features do when the core product is dumbed down?   Many people just like to play by themselves because it’s more enjoyable than having someone scream in their ear every time they score a touchdown.  But, they pay $60 just like the person who use the online feature.

There are a few features EA and 2K have invented that even strictly offline users utilize.  The Locker system is where people can store their rosters and sliders for others to download and use.  Both respective companies will even release their own updated rosters for the community to download.  They also send out patches to fix mistakes that were left over from production.

Sadly, what has happened are games cater to the online crowd.  Gameplay is faster which doesn’t lend itself to the sports purists who want to play as close to the real thing on the field as possible.  This is prevalent in Madden which has seen its popularity (and profits) rise every year and even has a whole television show devoted to it.  (Opinion: The show is really awful)  But you can see the type of people who play the game and they all seem to enjoy the faster gameplay.  Since the game is shown on television the game producers feel the faster gameplay is what everyone likes.

What do the offline-only gamers do when gaming companies are helping the console makers, like Microsoft and Sony, line their pockets by dumbing down the core AI, effectively forcing gamers to play online (which they have to pay for) to enjoy good competition.