Top Spin 4

The sports gaming season is quickly approaching. We’ve got two hotly anticipated titles releasing this March in the form of EA Sports UFC 2 and MLB The Show 16. Golf and hockey have returned in very real ways. There are even sports that have multiple publishers vying for consumer dollars. What an exciting time to own a console.

But where's the love for tennis games?

The only place to play tennis on the current generation of consoles is in the parks, homes and country clubs of Los Santos in Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto V. It’s a very passable representation of the sport, but I would rather my post-match decisions dealt with upgrading my attributes rather than deciding what car to steal.

The last tennis simulation to appear on consoles was 2K Sports’ Top Spin 4 way back in 2011. It was critically acclaimed and 2K Czech won many awards for their efforts. So why are we five years removed with still no tennis game on the horizon? It seems to me that the problem is twofold: Tennis games don’t sell well, and development costs are very high.

Virtua Tennis 4

Tennis Games Don’t Sell Well

Domestic popularity of tennis ebbs and flows. As a result of it being an individual sport, its popularity is dependent on the personalities participating in the sport at the time. The '80s had McEnroe and Lendl. The '90s had Sampras and Agassi. In the '00s and '10s we have had the Williams sisters and Nadal versus Federer. The way to generate casual interest in the game is to make a recognizable face your cover athlete. Perhaps take it one step further and brand the game like Madden.

Serena Williams is unquestionably the greatest female tennis player ever. Creating a game branded with her face and likeness can do for tennis games what the Tiger Woods brand did for golf. You were not playing golf, you were playing Tiger Woods. When the most dominant player in a sport is an American, launching a franchise to capitalize on their popularity only makes sense.

Grand Slam Tennis 2

Development Cost

While there has not been a full featured tennis game released this generation, I’ve already mentioned you can play a fairly decent version in GTA V. Rockstar is owned by Take-Two Interactive, as is 2K Sports. Perhaps there could be a little cross-company development for a new tennis game.

Another alternative is having Rockstar develop a tennis game themselves. Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis was the game that debuted the Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (RAGE) -- and yes, it's still weird this happened. It was used as a proof of concept for Grand Theft Auto IV, Red Dead Redemption and GTA V. Quite frankly, it was a criminally underrated game. In theory, using this engine significantly reduces the cost of development. The engine has already been built, and a rudimentary version of the game has already been made using this engine.

A tennis game utilizing RAGE, made by Rockstar, and featuring Serena Williams sounds like the winningest of winning combinations.


What do you guys think? Would you buy this game? Let me know in the comments below.