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Magazine covers and EA Sports

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OHIOSTATEV22-COPY.jpgIf you’re a sports fan and you’ve perused the magazine rack at your local bookstore, you’ll notice most of the pre-season rags will have an athlete from your favorite team on the cover. “Cool,” you think, “everyone will see the great Troy Smith on the cover of Althon Sports pre-season magazine.” Well, not everyone. Some will see Troy and Brady Quinn. Others will see Brady and USC’s Dwayne Jarrett. It’s a simple and ultra-effective marketing technique — sell the fans what they want. I know I am immediately drawn to the covers adorned with the scarlet and gray. I might not always buy one, but I’ll at least pick it up and thumb through it.

Fans of EA Sports have been using photoshop for a long time to do the same thing. Every year, while speculating of who will be on the cover of the next NCAA or Madden, fans help out EA and design the cover with who they think deserves to be the next cover. Fanblogs.com has collected a ton of NCAA 2007 covers and posted them on Flickr.

It got me thinking about the marketing that sport magazines use and how EA does it. While it is an honor (and a curse) to be on the cover of an EA sports title, I wonder how many more they would sell if they “customized” the covers for different regions. It would be tricky for a couple reasons: you can’t have a current NCAA player on the cover (nixing my Ted Ginn Jr. dream) and there are only 32 teams in the NFL. Nevertheless, I still think it would work. Sure, this year Reggie Bush was honored with the cover (and rightfully so) but if I was a Texas fan, I’d much rather buy a copy of NCAA 2007 with Vince Young gracing the cover, not the chump your team beat in the Rose Bowl.

Me? I’d personally like to see A.J. Hawk on the cover of my copy.

Extravaganza Recap

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Well, as is often the case, even though I had lots of free time, I didn’t get to do everything I had hoped to do during my “free time.” There never seems to be enough hours in the day.

One thing I did accomplish was playing a lot of golf. I got in 45 holes in a 24 hour period. That’s a lot of golf. I golfed some of my best golf, which always makes the rounds that much better. I had two chip-ins for birdies, which for me is a rarity to do it once, so doing it twice in a weekend is close to golf Nirvana.

As far as gaming goes, I got some time online with Halo 2, finally played Brinstar for our STOB match (I won 0-(-1), not very convincingly) and I picked up the New Super Mario Brothers (more on that later). One game that I didn’t play, surprisingly, was EVE-Online. I think it’s time that EVE and I start seeing other people. I may go back to it, but currently there are other games I’d rather play, which means EVE goes into hibernation. I’m not giving up on it, it’s just no longer a priority, and if I don’t plan on paying for something I’m not playing.

So now the family is back in town, bringing this year’s extravaganza to a close.

Buckeye Blogging, Spring Game Edition

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I went to my first Ohio State Spring Game (known as the Scarlet and Gray Game). Even though some of OSU’s top players didn’t play (or play much), OSU fans can rest assured that The 2006 Ohio State Buckeyes are going to be early favorites contending for a pre-season #1 ranking. The defense, which lost nine starters, looked like they won’t skip a beat. It will be tough to replace the line backer corps of 2005, but these guys coming in will do just fine.

And the highly touted Chris “Beanie” Wells looks impressive. He is going to be a bruiser. This is going to be an offense that is going to rack up a lot of yards and put up a lot of points. Even if the defense struggles at first, the offense will have its back. I am excited about this Ohio State team.

The only downer from going to the game (besides the sun burn) is that we’ve got to wait 4 1/2 more months until football season starts. I can’t wait!

Buckeye Blogging, basketball style!

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osu_sylvester.jpgI know I don’t mention the Buckeye cagers a lot (come on, there’s way more games to watch) but today was OSU vs. Michigan in ESPN’s “Rivalry Week.” While I would disagree that OSU and Michigan are rivals when it comes to basketball (that honor would go to the Bobby Knight-led Indiana Hoosiers) but it still is Michigan and Ohio State, so I’ll give ESPN a bye on that one. It was a good game, with the Buckeyes absolutely shredding the net with the three-pointer in the first half. They ended up winning 94-85, which is a huge road win for anyone in the Big Ten. Go Bucks!

Funny thing is, the best part of the game was around the eleven minute mark of the 2nd half, the showed a little clip of the OSU/Michigan football game. They highlighted the Gonazales catch. You might remember that great catch, but in case you forgot, you can check it out here. I know it sounds sad that the best part of a OSU basketball is an OSU football highlight, but that’s how we roll in Columbus. We really, really like our basketball team, but we LOVE our football team.

The catch still gives me the chills.

True Swing Golf, again

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True Swing Golf
Thanks to Bill, now I’ll have to rethink my feelings on True Swing Golf. He says it’s a blast. He also notes what other reviewers have pointed out – you can’t have a bad swing. That sounds like bad design. Maybe it is, but it isn’t a deal breaker:

Here’s the strange thing, though: it’s almost impossible to mishit a shot. Using the stylus on a regular shot always seems to result in a nearly straight outcome, no matter if you’re contacting the center of the ball or not. That sounds like an absolute deal breaker, and it should be, but course management, even with straight shots, is very challenging, and I can’t seem to stop playing. The effects of lie and slope are almost flawless, and in particular, it models shots to uphill greens better than any golf game I’ve ever played.

I like reading Bills reviews and he’s usually spot-on, so now I’m considering TSG again. Man, I wish my Blockbuster rented DS games!

Another double bogey

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I’ve mentioned in the past that I’m pretty excited about True Swing Golf for the DS. Having played (and hated) Tiger Woods I was really looking forward to TSG. Eurogamer had good things to say about it last year, but now things aren’t looking as peachy. Gamespot gives it a poor score and Modojo dogs it pretty bad, too. Of course, perrenial grade-inflater IGN.com gives it an 8.0, so there’s that. So what to do. I don’t trust many online reviews, but reading Gamespot’s pointed out that character progression is almost non-existent. That’s a bummer, it’s what I was hoping would be there. From the gameplay and graphics I really thought this would have some type of RPG elements, but it looks like there’s nothing there.

It’s unfortunate that the game is a stinker. I had high hopes, but I guess I’ll have to wiat.

Dan Fouts

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If you’ve watched college football on ABC, you’ve had to survive Dan Fouts and his cliche machine. Musberger is no better, switching allegiances faster than Benedict Arnold, but Fouts is the worse (if you exclude Kieth Jackson’s senility). Read “A Moment with Dan Fouts” from the Phat Phree. Hilarious stuff.

Buckeye Blogging, looking ahead.

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It’s been college football all the time right now on buttonmashing.com. I’ve been watching the ESPN RSS feed to see any Vince Young news. This is the latest that’s popped up:

… Texans received word Friday from an intermediary representing Texas quarterback Vince Young that the Houston native is leaning strongly to also going pro.

I’m torn with the Vince Young turning pro saga. Part of me wants to see Young go, because the OSU vs. Texas game, in Austin, will be a lot easier without Young at the helm. The other part of me wants OSU to have the chance to even the score fair and square. In the end, I think Vince will enter the draft, go to Tennessee (like the article says) and OSU will have a great shot at the 2007 Fiesta Bowl. We’ll have to wait a little longer to see.

In other college football news, I was glad to see the people at Virginia Tech grew a pair and kicked Marcus Vick off the team. How he lasted as long as he did is beyond me. I am all for giving kids a second chance, but Vick had like four and squandered them all. I pity the NFL team that drafts him.

I’ll get back to the video games soon enough, I promise.

Update: bm.com reader Jeremiah tipped me off to a press conference for Teaas QB Vince Young. ESPN is saying:

Longhorns junior quarterback Vince Young will declare for the NFL draft at a 4 p.m. ET news conference Sunday, an official within the athletic department told The Associated Press.

Say hello to the pre-season #1 team, The Ohio State Buckeyes!

Another Update: Confirmed.