The question of realism in sports games is always a tricky thing to discuss. Most of us want our sports games to be “realistic” depictions of what we watch on TV or experience in our day-to-day lives.

What that usually means is hoping Madden makes the passing game more diversified, or hoping you can botch your cap situation like a true Jerry Jones disciple. In many respects, what people are talking about wanting here at Operation Sports are “simulation” aspects that help keep a game dynamic and interesting. Repetition is the enemy.

But there’s another layer of “realism” in sports games, as well as another set of creative liberties that go along with it. I would classify this element of realism as visual realism. It’s one part graphics, but it’s also just one part physicality. Hockey games, football games, basketball games, even baseball games all have to deal with collisions and physics. What do these interactions look like? How do they make you feel? (Boxing games and MMA games are built around visual physicality, so I’m ignoring them here because combat sports are a whole other disucssion.)

So when it comes to Madden, something I see every season now is a frustration with a lack of “big hits” now in the game. The “feel” of using the Hit Stick is not as satisfying as it once was, and the act of “decleating” someone is not what it used to be. There is a longing for these massive, and yes, dangerous hits.

However, how acceptable is this desire to see dangerous hits, even if they have a “satisfying” feel? Knowing what we know about concussions and head injuries, is it awkward to want crippling hits in our football video games? Is it weird to see certain hits go unflagged even though they’re blatant head shots or late hits?

These are not simple questions to me, so let’s chat more after the jump.

(Side note: I know the timing is a bit weird here -- what with the NFL Draft coming up this week -- but Madden 17 coverage will begin in earnest soon after the draft, so it feels like one of the final times I can talk about this topic before everyone just wants to talk about the new hotness.)

The Role of Video Games

I want to say first and foremost that the NFL and its owners are the gatekeepers here as it relates to CTE and football. When you have a top NFL official saying football and CTE are connected, that’s a positive step towards admitting there’s a problem.

When Jerry Jones comes out and says there is no correlation between CTE and football a week after the original statement from the NFL, that’s a bad look. It’s an even worse look when another NFL owner, in this case Jim Irsay, comes out and makes an analogy where playing football is compared to taking an aspirin. Not only is it moronic and disingenuous to make such a comparison, it’s selfish and gross to put your personal brand above the well being of those you employ and supposedly care about.

NFL officials and owners still have a lot of work to do to show they truly care, and are trying to be genuine in their pursuit of admitting both the seriousness of head injuries and the magnitude of the problem at hand. Point being, it’s not on video games and the developers to “fix” football and the science behind bashing your head into stuff really hard every day.

But what video games may have some responsibility for is addressing the seriousness of these hits when they occur, as well as trying to avoid glorifying these moments. The “glorification” part is especially tricky when many, as I said, miss the days of the Hit Stick being a form of first-degree assault.

So About Madden...

As it relates to the seriousness of these hits, Madden is in a weird spot. It’s a game trying to be driven more and more by physics rather than canned animations, but what this leads to are hits like these:
 

I have a lot of problems with this hit:

-It’s a defenseless player
-The play is whistled dead
-It’s a helmet-to-helmet hit
-There is no flag on the play and nothing is said about the hit
-It’s also an unintended, but awkward coincidence that a “success” chime goes off for achieving a goal as the Cowboys player is torpedoed.

Nothing about that sequence is user-driven either. That is a CPU defender diving in late to take a shot at a receiver.

But do you care? Does this bother you at all? Should this bother you?

To put it another way, does it bother you that this is a dangerous hit, or does it more bother you that the tackling in this game resembles dudes just throwing their corpses at each other some of the time?

Here’s another example:
 

Does that look like good, safe, smart tackling to you? I have never played real football a day in my life, but that sure looks really dangerous and illegal. I’m not trying to sit here and say video games should teach kids proper tackling technique, but I also don’t know who is being better served by seeing stuff like the above in a video game.

And this isn’t about trying to say GTA turns kids into car-jacking, hooker-beating maniacs. What I’m simply saying is ignoring the issue, or making tackling look insanely unsafe is not a great look for the NFL, and it’s not realistic either.

The measured approach in my mind is embrace the danger of the sport and show off the outcomes. For example, whether it’s because the NFL doesn’t want concussions to exist anymore, or because the Madden developers simply took them out, I don’t think I’ve experienced a virtual concussion in Madden 16. I have not seen anyone go through a concussion protocol. Therefore, I have to make the assumption head injuries do not exist in this fantasy realm.

I don’t agree with that approach. Even if concussions are rare in the game rather than nonexistent, it would still be a phony way to address the problem. After all, saying nothing about concussions and pretending they’re not a big deal is a big part of the problem.

Regardless, from a logical and visual perspective, a lot of hits in Madden just look stupid. Most of the time, these are hits that are entirely driven by physics rather than canned “Hit Stick” animations. Some of the “best” hits in Madden are currently illegal in real life and look dumb.

I think the GIFs I have shown here are examples of what I would consider stupid looking, physics-based hits. In these cases, Madden makes the sport look bad, dangerous and unrealistic. Of course, the sport will always be dangerous, but at least show the danger in such a way that makes sense and is in line with the realism on the field.

There is still a place for “big hits” in Madden, just with caveats. If you want to show off a massive shoulder to chest hit where a player gets wrecked, go for it. After all, players do get hurt after being hit hard in Madden -- it just ends with a broken jaw rather than a concussion.

But the days of glossing over the results of these hits should be gone. The days of watching a defenseless player get launched into by a physics-based meat patty should be over. The days of defenders not even trying to protect themselves when diving should be behind us. And the virtual referees should do their jobs and step in when things go over the line.

As a sim-oriented community, it would be hypocritical to expect anything less.