A New Way Forward: Laying down the base - RaychelSnr's Blog

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RaychelSnr's Blog

A New Way Forward: Laying down the base Stuck

Posted on February 22, 2010 at 03:33 PM.

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I like doing blog series like this. If you didn't catch my preview post last week, I'm starting a new series to start an out of the box discussion on what sports game developers can do to innovate once again in sports gaming. Well today is day one and we are going to be laying down the base for the rest of the week with four principles I think all sports gaming developers should adhere to: Dynamic, Customizable, Controllable, Integrated

Dynamic- Sports are, by their very nature, dynamic. They are unpredictable and often, you see things no one else has seen before in history when people get together and compete athletically. Sports are not scripted and they certainly are not static. I'm talking both on and off the field here as well. I believe the first principle sports games have to adhere to is to strive to be the opposite of what many of them are today. I want them to be unscripted, non-static, and much more dynamic.

Customizable- My pet peeve with any form of interactive entertainment is when developers take interaction away from the gamer and define the experience for us, the consumers. I think all sports games should be fully customizable, from the teams, to the players, to the difficulty levels, to the rules which sports can be played by both on and off the field. I know some licensing details might hinder complete customization, but the more open and customizable games are, the longer they will resonate with people who play them.

Controllable- Imagine this: You are driving to the basket and you push a button and an animation plays out and then you push another and the shooting animation plays, but your prior animation already put you behind the basket and you hit the backside of the backboard with your shot. Embarrassing eh? For sports games to be less static and scripted, they have to be more controllable. I'm picturing a future where we can play sports games without being tied down to animations which must first play before the game can continue.

Integrated- Sports games should do a better job of integrating with the rest of our lives. Ever since social media redefined how humans communicate with one another, video games -- especially sports video games -- have been slow to catch on. Sports gaming needs to take a page out of the social media realm and start becoming a more social type of medium. There are unlimited possibilities from community ran tournaments, to Twitter/Facebook integration with Online modes, to leaderboards. With more and more people jumping online, now is the time to revolutionize how we play and interact with sports games.

Admittedly this post is light on details but big on vision. That was on purpose, because we are just laying the groundwork here for the next four days. Until tomorrow, share your vision for sports gaming in any way you want in the comment box!

Comments

# 1 BaylorBearBryant @ Feb 22

Nice read Chris. The reason I love NHL10 and EASHL is because of what you mentioned in the Integrated section. Teamwork, communication, and interaction is vital in team sports.

# 2 BaylorBearBryant @ Feb 22

Nice read Chris. The reason I love NHL10 and EASHL is because of what you mentioned in the Integrated section. Teamwork, communication, and interaction is vital in team sports.

# 3 SHAKYR @ Feb 23

I like this write up because it reminds me of my visions.

# 4 IceNHL @ Feb 23

Good writeup but sports gaming is obviously headed in all of these directions lately. The tech is just new and being integrated in sports gaming for the first time....but its all there with the exception of how Dynamic is described, but thats only because THAT tech isnt quite there yet (Backbreaker is trying).

Devs are very aware of how they can make things more realistic, and we're getting there. Its just weird to all of us since graphics advancements outpaced gameplay enhancements. So since it looks real, we expect it to act real. Future is bright though as tech continues to advance.