I know by using this title, I've probably drawn some people in with the reference, while scaring others away with the dreaded S-word. What I'll be doing is to look at ways in which sports games do well, in terms of both gameplay and the games industry. I'll also throw my own personal experiences with the genre wherever I can.

First, some disclosure. I used to play sports games once in a while back in the NES-N64 period, but really it was only arcade-style ones like NBA Jam or Baseball Simulator 1000. Of course, I've always liked the various Mario sports games, but for the purposes of this article, I'm mainly going to look at the "serious" sports games that seek to recreate the actual experience of humans playing sports (i.e., Madden, 2K Baseball, FIFA, etc.). I'll also admit that I haven't actually played any of those series in several years, so I'm mostly going off of what I've read and heard among the gaming media, and my earlier experiences with them

Now, as I've done in previous articles, I try to bring in a personal anecdote to lead into my argument. In this case, the story isn't about me, but about my father. Being from the 70's-80's generation, he also grew up with video games, and he owned a Colecovision, NES, and Sega Genesis. It was on the latter system that had one type of game that he became almost obsessed with: hockey; more specifically, NHL 96. By this point, most sports games had some kind of season mode, where one could follow a team or league through a recreation of an entire sports season (with trades, injuries, playoffs, etc.) As well, the game already had some decent statistic tracking, but my dad went even further. He kept a detailed spreadsheet (written on old-school graph paper) keeping track of almost every stat in the game for his favourite team, the Calgary Flames. I would have posted an image of it, but unfortunately he told me that he lost them over the years. This detailed stat tracking would also impact how he played the game in terms of player selection, trading, line formation, etc. Now, a normal person would say this is obsessive, but I would argue that this is a result of the focus on detail that the genre has.



Detail

The main thing I respect about sports games is their attention to detail. Even though the actual game engine is overhauled only once or twice a generation, each annual iteration seeks to improve on the smaller details (textures, faces, uniforms, the crowd, audio, etc.) and statistics. As for graphical details, it's to be expected that from year to year any game will be improved to reflect new hardware, new features in the game engine, etc. But instead of having to focus resources on new environments, character models, narratives, and other areas that traditional games need to have for sequels, sports games only have to worry about perfecting the details. So, features like new statistics, plays, AI, etc., can be added on with each version, with a much lesser risk of "rocking the boat" in terms of gameplay.

Speaking of statistics specifically, sports games share similarities with the more "respectable" role-playing genre. Although sports games can be played to varying degrees of success focusing only on realtime gameplay (i.e., actually playing a match), many of them depend on playing the larger metagame of knowing the stats and playstyles of specific teams/players. For example, in a season of NHL, a player can prioritize obtaining high-scoring star players if they like making strong offensive bursts, or create a balanced team with solid defence if they prefer to play a low-scoring defensive game. Compare this to making different types of parties or character builds in Final Fantasy (focusing on offensive attacks and magic, healing and support, etc.), or building a really good lineup in Pokemon. As a matter of fact, much of the gameplay of the Pokemon type of RPG's revolves around building up "teams" of interchangeable Pokemon, paying attention to their stats, and trading them with other other players. What's the difference between that and working as the manager of a soccer team in a sports game? Was my dad keeping a ledger of stats any different than writing or reading the complicated charts of a FAQ online?



Perspective

Sports games are unique in that instead of to trying to replicate how it feels to be an individual playing the sport, they are actually replicating the experience of watching the game on television. After all, the perspective of most sports games is the same as that of the television camera (overhead, and showing most of the field at once), there is color commentary, graphic overlays, replays, etc. Improvements in detail are often in this area, rather than in specific gameplay changes (e.g. making the stadiums accurate, matching the overlays of a specific broadcaster, even replicating ads on the sideboards). Baseball games in particular have become heavily focused on simulating television broadcasts. In this article from Kotaku, Owen Good explains how he sought to manipulate the camera in MLB 2K10 to "give added broadcast realism to a game striving for it."For example, only a few sports games (other than racing) have attempted to use a first-person perspective, or if they have, it's been as an optional alternative to the main, overhead perspective. The upcoming football game Backbreaker is trying to shake things up by focusing on an over-the-shoulder perspective, but whether that change will catch on or be seen as a gimmick remains to be seen. Actually, I would argue that most sports games can be described as being from a second-person perspective, since although the player controls the action on the field, they are are really seeing things the same way as if they were sitting on the couch watching Monday Night Football, Hockey Night in Canada, etc. It's hard to imagine other genres pulling off such a concept so consistently well without making it simply a gimmick ("Oh, you're playing as someone watching someone play, THAT'S SO META!").



Iteration

As I mentioned earlier, sports games are known and often ridiculed for the fact that new iterations are released every year, with only marginal improvements. The main non-economic reason for this is that new statistics on teams/players need to be added for the new season. Of course, some people would say "Why don't they release it as DLC?" That is a valid complaint if the developer adds little else than new stats, but that is rarely the case, with the aforementioned tweaks to details, AI, etc. What is really the issue is that sports games operate on an iterative business model that seems disagreeable to "regular" gamers. Though, really, this model is basically the same as what publishers have done in every genre of games, with the only difference being that the frequency of sports games is higher. Just look at Megaman 9 and 10 (or earlier Megaman games): The same engine is used, plot is generally the same, some new characters and items are added, etc. How different is that from Madden 09 and 10? What about both the Gears and God of War trilogies? The Halo series? Again, the only difference between their iterative models and that of sports games is the frequency of releases. And since sports games are closely tied to the seasonal nature of sports, it makes sense that they can be released yearly,

Of course, publishers (especially EA) know that they can make a good profit releasing sports games year after year. As much as I want to hate them for it, I'd be a hypocrite considering how often I'm tempted to upgrade/replace my computer, netbook, MP3 player, cell phone, etc., which are released with the same iterative business model.



Competition

A final thing I know sports games have always done well is the ease of which multiplayer fits in with the genre. If you go all the way back, the first video game to become popular, Pong, was technically a sports game, and competitive multiplayer was at the core of the game. So, from the very beginning of video games, multiplayer and sports have been closely linked. This is natural considering that sports themselves are humanity's (relatively) non-violent outlets for our natural instinct to compete with one another. Fighting games are really the only other genre where multiplayer is required to be part of the basic design of the game. After all, in both genres you are either playing against a human opponent or against the CPU as a replacement for a human opponent. Unlike fighting games though, sports games rarely have to force the "regular" game concept of narrative to frame the competitive gameplay. Instead of creating immersion through plot or characters, a sport game relies on pulling the player into competition; the desire to "win" is critical, be it on the scale of a single match with a friend or over a stat-filled season against the CPU.

Conclusion

I had some trouble writing this article. Trying to cover an entire genre was probably a little too big to tackle in one go. If I can bring one common thing out of all this writing, it is that sports games really aren't that different from any other genre of gaming. Many games share a focus on detail (graphical and statistical), perspective and competition, and almost all developers have a tendency towards iterative evolution. So, really, there's no reason to hate sports games as being somehow detractive from more "mainstream" games (whatever that means...). They're following the same basic trends of all games (competition, recreating fantasies, etc.), and it's just that they are skinned with sports, which not everyone likes to either play or watch. So, if you like a particular sport or sports (like my dad and hockey), there's a good chance you'll like playing sports games. If you don't, you might not like playing them, but you should at least respect the basic characteristics that the genre does well and those it shares with video games in general.