Does More Sim Equal More Sales?

[RaychelSnr]

As sports gamers, we often see an excuse so readily pumped out that it seems it has to be true: “a game needs to keep a certain distance from being a true simulation in order to keep 'casual' fans happy.”

That excuse has almost become cliché at this point. After all, “They’re just making it that way to appeal to the casual audience who makes up the largest demographic of customers.”

Unfortunately, this is becoming an excuse simulation gamers really hate to see, because it means that no change geared toward a more accurate simulation is even on the horizon for our favorite games. But I wonder if the excuse of catering to casual players and their needs is a justifiable excuse or not?

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[mestevo]

I'd think it would be a much easier case to make that some of these increases year to year are due in large part to more consoles on the market, marketing, and the popularity trends of those sports in that particular year. Especially with NCAA since it's a relatively small change. Not to take all of the credit from the games themselves.

[BenGerman]

That certainly has to be taken into account. Sony has done a fantastic job of marketing The Show over the years, so that almost assuredly has to do with the games success. But if we look past just sports video games, you'll notice a trend: people tend not to buy bad games. With reviews and information readily available to us, people aren't going to waste $60 on a game they don't think they will enjoy.

This is a hard correlation to make for sure. But you can bet that developers are going to notice when one game in a similar genre is taking off, when their own isn't having the same success.

[SHAKYR]

Yes it does.Many companies can't say different because they never made a game that they can say it doesn't sell. Marketing is BS! Sports fan like to experience their sports as realistic as possible. I have done over a dozen surveys and polls over the years on various sports and gaming sites. Sim/realistic sports gaming was overwhelmingly voted by many of the fans.
Companies are trying to be greedy by making hybrid sports games; by doing this they lose fans in the process. You can't market something as sim and it has a few things on the outside that resembles the sport but the inside is something totally different.
Companies like taking risk with gimmicks, but refuse to take risk with realism of the sport. This companies marketing departments are clueless or they are not trying to find out what fans want.

[onac22]

I switched over to PS3 this year just to play The Show and was not disappointed. Good read.

[Valdarez]

It's difficult to enjoy Madden/NCAA for many reasons, with simulation being one of them. They both suffer from hardware / design issues (they give us 21 to 24 frames per second, instead of 30, which has a visual negativity). The sound had been bad from hits, to commentary. Could go on... but for yearly game releases quality is what determines sales, not 'sim'.

[CM Hooe]

In isolation, a "sim" game is not going to sell well. The game must also have pretty graphics (a huge factor in AAA video game sales, for better or worse), the user must feel like he has a direct and obvious affect on the game's outcome, and the game must be accessible to the user via accessible yet deep controls and a reasonable (often adjustable) difficulty curve.

This isn't to downplay the importance of realism; it is an important factor, particularly as the games continue to look more lifelike graphically. My point is that one must not simply consider only that factor in isolation of all else which makes a game great.

[Gramps91]

I think it makes a difference, but maybe not much. There are a lot of arcade players out there including myself at times, but I've always been more of a sim guy and I think most are.