It was December 1986. I was a mere lad of five, spending my third holiday season in our new family home in rural Illinois. My parents had requested that I construct a list of things I might want for Christmas. As my writing skills were not exactly eloquent at the time (and even now, they have only slightly improved), I enlisted the assistance of my eight-year-old sister to construct a hard copy of my holiday wishes. Sitting on the 1970s-style orange shag carpet of our family room, I rattled out a list of every single Masters of the Universe action figure I could think of. I had been to the Toys "R" Us in a neighboring town, and for a five-year-old, I had become remarkably familiar with Matel’s entire line of He-Man toys.

Then came the big morning. I had stayed up almost all night on Christmas Eve, lying in bed staring at the electric candle on my window pane, eager for sunrise so I could reenact scenes from my favorite cartoon. After opening every one of my perfectly wrapped presents, I sat in utter disbelief, as not a single Masters of the Universe toy sat beneath the tree. Not Beast-Man, Evil-Lyn, or the Castle Grayskull playset.

Now don’t color me ungrateful. I did get an excellent Tyco Lamborghini Challenge electric race track and a full set of Fisher-Price Construx, both of which were on my list and gave me a great deal of enjoyment for years to come. But I couldn’t help but feel a bit cheated. It was my first taste of that cruel truth that Mick Jagger had been telling the world about since 1968: "You can’t always get what you want."

Over two decades later, I still know this agony of dissatisfaction. Each year as of late, I am transformed into that same chubby-cheeked five-year-old, pouting in quiet discontent as my favorite sports games fail to meet my lofty expectations. And I’m not alone.

The next-generation era has been especially afflictive to the loyal sports gamer. Game franchises that were the model of consistency for our old Xbox and PS2 systems have sputtered in transition to our flashy new consoles. Graphics have improved, but at the expense of features and gameplay.

So why has this occurred? Have EA Sports and Take-Two decided to ignore their loyal customer base? Have league-exclusive licenses made game studios fat and sassy, content to line their pockets with our hard-earned cash while minimizing their efforts? Or are we all a bunch of five-year-olds, demanding the world and throwing a tantrum when we don’t get it? It’s a good question. I have some thoughts…

Turn Around Time

This should be fairly obvious, but sports game developers must operate at a much faster pace than traditional game studios. Some of our other favorite non-sports franchises, (Halo and GTA come to mind) had years to perfect their franchise sequels for the next generation of games. Sports game studios have a mere 12 months or less.

Add in the fact that the gaming industry was thrown a curve (albeit an expected one) with the introduction of the first next-gen console three years ago and it's not that surprising to find that some games sputtered early on. With the high demand for a year-one game release for some titles, corners were obviously cut. Since then, we’ve seen many of the studios’ efforts become a system of guess-and-check, as they scramble to meet their ever-approaching deadlines. Some new features are great, and we welcome them with open arms and salivating mouths. Others, we just assume excrete as soon as we taste them, hoping to be re-fed some of the last-gen features that are still strangely absent.

I will refrain from passing judgment on developer effort, as I am certainly not qualified to do so. Short of Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, iTunes, and some pedestrian Photoshop skills, I’m marginally computer illiterate. And I certainly have not been behind closed doors at EA Sports during game development. Like any other mass-produced product, however, I would assume that videogame development and production is a colossal chore. In our lust for the latest and greatest in sports videogaming, I believe that we are quick to lose sight of this fact.

I won’t BS you, I don't have a degree in economics. However, my 9-5 alter-ego spends his time in an office, heavily entrenched in the world of business. Thus, I have learned a few things about overhead, profit margin, and of course, supply and demand. Just so you don’t hit your back button right now, I’ll try to keep it light.

There is one fallacy that many a gamer falls into, and that is that game studios already make enough money and they should bite the bullet and spend more money on development to give us the games we have always dreamed of.

Sadly, no company will ever make “enough money.” Those of you who are already in the working world learned this quickly, and those of you who are not, soon will. Companies are always searching for ways to increase their year-over-year profits, even if it doesn’t seem to make sense to everyone else. Barring an overwhelming drop in sales, I highly doubt you will see a studio pour a noticeably larger amount of cash into development. That’s just capitalism.

However, it is my opinion that certain decisions in game development and direction are misguided. The best example of this is EA Sports decision to market some of their titles to the casual gamer, with brain-fart features like Family Play (motto: we'll just play the game for you! -- it's a wait and see when it comes to All-Play for now), Mascot Games, and Madden 09’s Rewind. It is obvious that EA Sports is using their monopoly of certain licenses to move beyond their niche audience, and seek out a fringe audience of non-serious gamers, highlighted by the recent success of the Nintendo Wii. In doing so, they have silently taken an arrogant stance that their sports titles (namely Madden) have become a commodity to their core audience. However, sports games are not electricity or heat. Therefore if pushed far enough or presented with an alternative, we can choose to go another route. I hope developers of exclusive-license games will take note; we are growing uneasy.

We live in an era of instant gratification. We see something we want, and we get it. It’s strange to think that I never imagined myself one to download an entire music album, rather than to drive to my local Best Buy to purchase the CD. I always placed some sentimental value on having the album case and booklet. I can honestly say that it has now been two years since I have purchased an actual CD. iTunes is just too damn convenient. Such a society has made us rather averse to inconvenience. And that’s alright. But in those instances when we don’t have our desires fulfilled, we can get rather pissy.

Another factor is that we live in time when technology is making previously unimaginable things possible. Only a decade ago, I never thought I could check my fantasy baseball team’s stats and adjust my team’s lineup, all while sitting triumphantly atop the porcelain throne. I now want for nothing.

Sports games have also come a long, long way in our short lifetime. Look at this video from Madden 96 (one of my favorite Madden titles from my teenage years) and then this video for Madden 08. Quite a step forward in just over a decade.

Factor in all of these snippets, and it’s easy to see why we have such high hopes. We are a fickle, fickle group of consumers. We harbor gargantuan expectations because we have been conditioned to do so. And we shouldn’t stop. There are things that games can do better, regardless of studios’ economic situations and corporate demands. But they won’t correct them if we don’t tell them to, so sound off.

So why do next-gen games disappoint so frequently? It’s a complex question. And just like any complex question, it doesn’t have a black-and-white answer. There are a lot of variables that have gotten us here. But, rest assured, there's a light at the end of this tunnel. There is a place where studios’ time and money meets our demands. All we can do now, is be patient, and vocalize.

And if anyone is selling any vintage Masters of the Universe action figures, please let me know.

Until next week (possibly NSFW), Adiós Turd Nuggets.

Note: I know I’ve linked to this video before, but it fits the conversation, and the fact that it’s damn funny, warrants a repeat. Just to give you some fresh (old) funny material, check out the sweet pelvic gyrations of Rick Astley here.