A while ago, Bill Abner had a piece at the Escapist about the Stagnant State of Sports Games. I meant to link it back then because it was a good read, but never got around to it. So I’m linking it now.
I was reminded of Bill’s article because today I also came across this post from Zack Hiwiller (via a long list of places, originating with Troy) about the State of Sports Games:
How many people out there watch and enjoy football without having a Knute Rockney [sic] level of understanding? The answer is: more than the games industry is hitting right now.
Zack makes a lot of good points, go read the whole thing. This is coming from a game designer working on sports games, not a games journalist. Not sure if that fact makes me a little more optimistic about the future of sports games or not.
Be optimistic. While I complain about the failures I see, there are a lot of great successes that I see here every day as well. It’s just a matter of whether we see them as a trickle or a deluge.
@Zack – I see you worked on my favorite EA Sports game, NCAA 0X, so I will be optimistic. I’d love to give you my wish list, but I’m sure you’ve seen hundreds of them 🙂
Have you guys read Dubious Quality lately? He’s always riffing about Madden problems. His arguments seem valid, but I don’t play Madden so it’s no big deal to me.
However, the latest college game was the best I’ve played in a long time and I’m not saying that to brownose.
@Nat – Bill dissects sports game with precision. He gets into it way deeper than I do, that’s for sure.