The Future of Online Sports Gaming
 

Today, OS writer Robert Kotsaka takes a look into his crystal ball to see what the future of online sports gaming is. Be sure to check out his thoughts in his article, The Future of Online Sports Gaming.

So your saying this is the future of online sports game...........right? I thought you would go into more detail about what to expect in the 'future" of online gaming or what you want as a hardcore sports gamer.

This has always been the direction I felt online gaming, with respect to sports games, would go. Once sports games started adding "signature styles" and deeper, single position controls per sport, you would begin seeing more co-co-op online modes arise. I thought Madden would have jumped on this eventually with their creation of Career Mode (camera angles, button configs mapped specifically for a specific position) but it seems they're taking their time. Eventually, though, it wouldn't be a surprise to see 11 vs 11 on the gridiron and maybe even further down the line, gamers who are "all pro" at their positions they choose to play and being validated by it from in-game kudos (points system?) and player feedback.

The closer we get to completely removing the AI from the gaming experience, the better.

If Madden (or All Pro Football, if 2K puts out a new one) doesn't have 11 vs. 11 football up and running next season, it will be a missed opportunity for sure.

Especially since Football is the sport that's hurt the most by idiotic AI, even more so when it comes to competitive play.

The way I see it, the article is saying that, based on the current iterations of EA sports franchises, not only this is the future for these type of games, but also that what we should expect in the near future is a more polished version of what we are experiencing now. It's also clear that the author likes this current trend, since he praised these modes from start to finish.

FIFA 09 is coming with a 10 vs 10 online game mode and the word is that next year's version should also have the goalie as an option. IMO that is great news, although I'm not too hot about having like 50 people per team (not too sure how they will handle the bench warmers). The other option I do like, is the one that will let you scout for good players world wide.

Re: The Future of Online Sports Gaming
 

The way the "50 players per team" works is that all of them are a part of the club, but only 6 players (in NHL '09's case) can play a game at one time. I'd imagine that FIFA '09 will do the same, only with a maximum of 10 players being able to play at once.

However, multiple games can be going at one time, so theoretically, you could have up to 8 different games going at once, all of which count towards your team's record.

That is an unrealistic scenario for most people, though.

For the average gamer, the large team rosters are just a way to make it so that you have a larger pool of people to help you get a game (meaning, "one") going at any given time of day.

For example, my EASHL team has about 15 people on the roster to date, yet most of the time, we have trouble getting more than a 3- or 4-man team together for a game.

Nice article. I wish NHL 09 had a face creater. Where you can mold and mess around with his different facial expressions, like in Tiger Woods. I see a player look like my guy once every 5 games or so. Not bad, but it shouldn't happen.