Sports games have essentially always been about role playing. Initially, with the earliest sports games, you were cast as the manager, making decisions for the entire team. Sometimes these games allowed you to only give directions or orders; others allowed you to directly control the team, albeit one player at a time.

The advent of franchise modes gave you a new role: general manager. Now, in addition to calling and executing plays, you needed to build a team for the future; free agents, trades, contracts, and drafts were yours to control. Your responsibilities increased, but so did the freedom to create a team tailored to your individual desires. The introduction of create a team (or school) only increased these freedoms. Some games, like Out of the Park Baseball, have even offered commissioner-like options, placing you in charge of an entire customizable league.

Recently, however, developers have reversed the trend: Instead of moving to a role that puts you in a place to make infinite unilateral decisions, they’ve put you in a position where decisions are made for you, based on your on-field (or off) performance. The goal is to simulate the lifestyle of an individual player.

First, Nintendo’s latest platform got something right with the creation of Miis, even if the only evidence is that Microsoft plans on implementing a similar system.

Think about all of the player-simulation modes that have been offered over the past five years: Road to the Show, NBA: The Life, NBA 24/7, Madden’s Superstar, various Be the Pros, MLB Life in Power Pros, Race Driver, increased personalization in Tiger Woods, etc. The attempt is to give you a taste of a lifestyle that you most likely will never have, complete with the accolades and hardships.

The freshness of these modes is starting to wear off, and we are left with either a stagnant mess (Superstar) or an innovative, if still flawed, system (NHL 09 online teams). At some point, these personal modes need to evolve into something more, just as franchise modes have done over the past 10 years.

My evolutionary suggestion borrows from the Wii, 2K’s VIP system, and a marketing strategy EA used during the last console generation.

First, Nintendo’s latest platform got something right with the creation of Miis, even if the only evidence is that Microsoft plans on implementing a similar system. And, while I feel that Miis are underused in games, the idea of a consistent virtual avatar is appealing. What isn’t appealing to me is constantly recreating my virtual self in various sports games; it simply becomes tedious. I can’t tell you how long I spent trying to get my scanned photo into Tiger Woods 08.

While I’m not typically an advocate of media that forces, or rewards, brand loyalty (comic books, games, etc.), a unified personalized athlete allows for a creative multi-game experience.

While it would most likely be a publisher-exclusive initiative, imagine creating one unified virtual athlete. The data is kept on a server or your console, so that when you stick in, say, NHL 2010, the game finds your “EA Cyber Athlete” (or whatever it’s called) from Madden 2010 and automatically inserts it into Be a Pro mode. I’d even encourage all developers to continue working on the photo recognition software to streamline this whole process.

Once the cross-sport virtual athlete has been established, developers should look to utilize cross-sport statistics. Much like 2K’s VIP system and online rating system, an advanced form of stat-tracking could give insight into how you “game,” not just whether you go for it on 4th and 5. It would give you textual scouting reports, such as “aggressive when behind” or “heavily utilizes star players.” If you wanted to dig deeper, stats could be displayed for multiple sports (winning percentage) or individual titles.

Finally, I mentioned a marketing gimmick EA tried (and then seemingly abandoned) for a few years. You may remember putting in an EA Sports game and getting bonuses for other EA Sports games you played. The more -- and the better -- you played in one game affected what bonuses you got in another game. While I’m not typically an advocate of media that forces, or rewards, brand loyalty (comic books, games, etc.), a unified personalized athlete allows for a creative multi-game experience.

It’s clear that avatars are becoming a common element of modern systems, especially with the advent of Xbox avatars.

I would advocate that your athlete evolves as you play, a la Wii Fit or Tiger Woods 09. Your position and play style would modify a set of universal attributes that transfer into other games. For instance, your huge blocking tight end with top-tier strength, later becomes a solid NHL enforcer. Throughout the hockey game you work on your shot accuracy; come NBA season, your player becomes a “big man” with a decent outside shot. During the course of an NBA career, your athlete increases stamina and agility, but loses some of his hulking strength. So when he “re-enters” the NFL, his increased accuracy, stamina and agility make him a McNabb or Culpepper QB (big but somewhat mobile), and the cycle continues. To top this off, your character could change visually, similar to a Fable hero: Every change could be seen by just looking at your player.

It’s clear that avatars are becoming a common element of modern systems, especially with the advent of Xbox avatars. And the influx of player-oriented modes continues to provide choices for how we play our favorite sports games. However, I don’t think we’ve seen the best these innovations have to offer. A creative, cross-game, role-playing system would sell games, add interest to languishing modes, and add an additional level of depth to online sports gaming. Essentially, everyone would win.