Sports Games in 2013: Stepping off the treadmill..

With the recent release of MLB: The Show 13 for the PlayStation 3, we enter the downtime between sports games between the 2013 and 2014 "Game Year", and it's time to look at sports games and how they're evolving, or more accurately, how there's two camps in the sports world. Those games who make large jumps from year to year, and those games that run on a treadmill, seemingly going forward but all they're doing really is running in place.

I would put The Show 13, and NBA 2K13, at the top of the "large leaps" list. They are the undoubted leaders in the sports game category, and not only do they lead the category, they seemingly work very hard to stay in their lofty spots. They have little competition (we'll deal with MLB2K13 further down the post, and as for the NBA Live series, has a game ever gotten this close to completion two years running only to be cancelled each time), and no one could really blame them for coasting.. but each year the game is more polished, and seemingly plays better each year.

Also in the large leaps category is EA Sports NHL series. EA took a fairly big risk in 2012, not only putting out a game for a sport that at the time looked like they would lose their second full year in less then a decade, but completely revamping the skating engine and making the game play very differently. Again, they have no competition, and could coast, but they took a risk and it seemingly has paid off.

Then we get into the treadmill category. Each game offers a bunch of new shiny bits from year to year, but somehow, the end effect is that they end up running in place. Or in other terms, after you play it for a while, you get the feeling that the only thing that's changed gameplay wise is the number after the main title.

That's your FIFA, That's Tiger Woods. That's ESPECIALLY Madden and NCAA Football.

You notice a trend here? This is generally because in most cases, the rights fees are so high that cautious executives aren't willing to make wholesale changes, because they have a built in audience (for all except FIFA, there's no real competition in the sport), so its simpler to coast and offer a new game with a new coat of paint (a couple new features each year), then to be daring. So each year, the games are not quite there, the same flaws appearing year after year after year.after.. well you get the point.


Hopefully the success of NHL 13 will give EA some courage to change around their other games, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

And then we get to MLB 2K13.

This is the very definition of a treadmill. No new features, no new graphics, nothing but a data update and a fresh new $60 price tag. Blatant money grab from a company that couldn't care less (they had announced that they weren't going to be releasing a baseball game this year, only to reverse course a few weeks before a release date).


Hopefully the transition to next-generation systems will force treadmill companies to take a hard look at their aging gameplay engines and decide it's time to step off the treadmill and take a long hard look at getting back to innovating.