Release Day, Way Back When: Run straight to video store after school to pick up my game, excited to add another cartridge to my collection. Oh, pray tell, how did they fit such snazzy graphics into such a small piece?

Release Day, Now: Get off work early to pick up the game. Ugh, another disk in the collection. Get them onto SD cards already.

Way Back When: Buy the game with the change from my piggy bank.

Now: As I enter my credit card PIN, reiterate, for the eighth time, to the friendly yet irritatingly persistent clerk at Gamestop that I don’t need the collector's edition, the disc protection plan and the newly released controller that will “rock my socks off.”

Way Back When: Fire the game up, baby!

Now: Open it, but hesitate in putting it in -- I hear there is a day one patch coming out. I don’t want my impressions of the game soured.

Way Back When: Here we go, match number one.

Now: Upon watching the opening visual montage, notice something interesting -- go online and post my impressions of opening montage.

Way Back When: Match number two.

Now: Refreshing web browser to see if anybody spotted the same thing I did, and if they agree with me. That sense of self-validation, and knowing that I was the first one to spot it, just can’t be replaced.

Way Back When: Match number four.

Now: Check out the rosters. Man, whoever did the rosters this year needs to be fired. I'll just edit some ratings, update player movements and create some missing players. It will only take a few minutes for me to do this, I swear.

Way Back When: Match number seven.

Now: An hour later, finally realize that this could, in fact, take more than a few minutes. Finally decide to download some other guy’s rosters and then add my tweaks on top of them. Swear to anything that moves that I will NOT be biased towards my home team... Renege on promise a few minutes later.

Way Back When: Boy, my eyes must be getting tired by now. Nah, I’ll keep playing. I’m only a teenager. I can do anything and not get hurt.

Now: Can’t help myself. Before starting a game, go online and post quick rant about roster inaccuracies.

Way Back When: Bathroom break

Now: I know I know, I said quick. But I couldn’t help owning that 14-year-old fanboy with that stupid cat avatar with my myriad arguments. There. I showed him. Okay, time to really start my franchise.

Way Back When: Call friend to come over and play. And pick up some pizza pockets along the way.

Now: Forgot to tweak an attribute for my bench player. Nope, not realistic enough. Exit franchise. Let’s do this again. And do it right.

Way Back When: Chow down that pizza pocket. Trash talk with friend.

Now: Read about a potential "gamebreaker!" (© doomsayers everywhere) Cold feet kick in, back out of franchise -- why not just go online and play an unranked match?

Way Back When: Bathroom break. Boy, those pizza pockets really did a number on me.

Now: Cheeser disconnects. Hastily cobble together a few hundred words about my dislike for playing online. Still waiting for day one patch.

Way Back When: Friend and I play seven games and make believe it’s a do or die playoff series. Winner gets that last pack of Twizzlers.

Now: As I start another game, discover a slight inconsistency in my team’s jersey. This is symbolic, and it deserves a 3,000 word essay on the troubling trend of declining quality assurance within the video games industry.

Way Back When: 2-2. This is going down to the wire!

Now: Post rant on forum. Repost on my blog, Facebook and Twitter. Furiously refreshing for any responses.

Way Back When: 4-3. Victory is mine! Gee, I hope that phrase catches on in a TV series or something.

Now: Day one patch is out!

Way Back When: That adapter is getting pretty hot, better take a break.

Now: Boy, this sure takes a long time to download and restart.

Way Back When: Friend returns home, calls. His brother bought this week’s issue of PC Gamer -- enter code for big-head players. Quite amused.

Now: Finally, done downloading. Fire up franchise. Psyched to play season opener.

Way Back When: Play again -- oh, it’s past midnight already? Let’s take a break. That red-haired guy is debuting his talk show on NBC soon.

Now: Trading my 13th player before the season opener. Just a few more.

Way Back When: Yikes. This Conan fella isn’t going to last long.

Now: Post my trades in “rate my trade” threads, giddily wait for people to check them out.

Way Back When: Tired. Time to wash up and go to bed.

Now: As I watch the opening cut scenes again, something disturbing shows up on my laptop. How dare they say I’m exploiting the trade AI?! This deserves three real-life examples that prove a point that I have yet to research.

Way Back When: Falling asleep to thoughts of Yasmine Bleeth running in a red swimsuit in slo-mo.

Now: Finally start to play the game again. Wait a minute, some guy now is blogging that the potential "gamebreaker!" (© doomsayers everywhere) has not been fixed in the day one patch? Engage in a fruitless, 22-minute debate within my own head to decide whether it’s worth it to invest so much emotionally in this save, especially when it’s uncertain that the next patch will be compatible with ongoing franchises. They wouldn't be foolish enough to make the game saves incompatible, right?

Way Back When: Yasmine’s still running.

Now: Remember that last year the developers were exactly that foolish.

Way Back When: David Hasselhoff, get out of the way.

Now: Begin waiting for patch 1.2 like an addict waiting for his next hit. Getting the shakes, too -- but that’s just because I’m really tired. Developer tweets that the next patch will be available “in a few weeks.” Sigh. Turn console off in despair.

Way Back When: Bathroom. Yikes. One pizza pocket too many.

Now: Toss and turn in bed. Don’t know what to make of my few minutes of gameplay experience, which means I'm definitely in the right frame of mind to start the wishlist for next year's game. This is just going to take a few minutes. I swear.

Way Back When: ZzzzZzzZzz.

Now: I may have a problem.

...And Now Back To Reality

Yes, certain things have been exaggerated slightly to elicit a mild chuckle or two, but just slightly. For example, I didn’t write a 3,000 word essay on declining QA. It was more like 1,500 words, not counting footnotes.

On a more serious note, the shenanigans that one goes through on release day are symbolic of how much more complex and complicated -- more realistic, I suppose -- sports video games have become. And while it’s still perceived as a “leisure” activity, sometimes the commitment these video games demand from gamers is anything but relaxing. (I’m referring to the big-budget games here, of course. The Shows, the Maddens, the NBA 2Ks, the NHLs and the FIFAs of the world.)

Games used to be a way of disconnecting from life. To be fair, you can still do that today, but now the emphasis is on connecting. Being in the loop. Constantly updating to reflect what’s gone on in the real world, sharing to your friends what you have just accomplished in a game, and -- as I’m ever so grateful for -- discussing all of the above on sites like OS, so a hack like yours truly can remain gainfully employed.

Which means it has also become a lot more time consuming. No, you don’t have to edit the rosters, and no, you certainly don’t have to use 30-team control in MLB: The Show and monitor every transaction, but if you want to have the best time with it, you might want to do that. You, the gamer, have more tasks to accomplish than ever before if you want to maximize a game’s potential. It used to be that video games were like one-way traffic; the game delivers the content to you, and that was that. Now, it’s more like a series of interconnecting loops of high-speed thoroughfares.

For the record, I’m not objecting to the direction that sports games are heading. After all, it’s only natural to keep adding, and with the way they’re priced nowadays, they better. So I guess the conclusion I’ve come to, earth shattering as it may be, is that sports video gaming is just a different beast than before. Remember, we are living in a world where professional gaming is a legitimate career choice for some. As these games get more complex, the time, the effort and the amount of attention required have increased tenfold. To simply pick up and play a game doesn’t get me the same bang for my $60 anymore. Instead, I now really have to give as much as I take. And maybe block off a few weeks in the process.


Kelvin Mak is the soccer writer here at Operation Sports. Residing in Toronto, Canada, his favo(u)rite sport is -- surprise -- soccer, and he religiously follows the Premier League. You can find him on OS under the user name kelvinmak, or in a bar in Toronto, usually after 2 p.m., under the name Pukey.