The Sports-Gaming Stimulus Bill
 

With President Obama passing a $787 billion stimulus bill last week, I really started thinking about how much the sports-gaming industry is in need of a bailout as well. Sure, financially developers seem to be struggling like the rest of us, but it is the lack fresh ideas, common-sense programming and attention to detail that really seem to be hurting the industry as a whole. With games at $60 a pop, and with many gamers cutting back for their own economic reasons, it is truly a time for your average taxpayer/sports gamer to stand up and demand more from their games.

Imagine a world where we the gamers had a say in how our games were developed. Imagine a world where we could say what our hard-earned gaming dollars would be appropriated towards within a sports-gaming development studio. Today I am going to pretend that we live in this world, and will explore exactly what could be done to give us the best possible sports games on a yearly basis.

Without further hesitation, I give you the first ever Sports Gaming Stimulus Bill. This is my attempt to boost gaming quality, eliminate consumer spending on sports titles that collect dust after a week and promote consumer confidence and spending in the sports-gaming sector during these troubled economic times.

Read More - The Sports-Gaming Stimulus Bill

Great article. A couple things that hit home with me are: 1) better online league play and the ability to fill a league with CPU teams against a few friends. I too do not want to join a league with players of difference skill levels and playing mandates. and 2) Better franchise modes. Developers really need to spend time immersing us in our franchises. More editorial content (recap shows, comentated highlights, out of town stuff, speculation, impact, news, storylines) are needed to make it feel like a real franchise. Its not just simply a string of games we're playing in a season.

Actually, the gaming industry is one of the few that are not suffering the effects from this current recession. GOD only knows how long that will last, but I do agree that people will be demanding more bang for their buck the way things are going.

re: CFav

Tell that to EA, TakeTwo, Activision, and the now bankrupt Midway. The recession has hurt every one of those companies.

Re: The Sports-Gaming Stimulus Bill
 

the companies need money

They might not need money raiders if they had strong and viable business models that didn't involve cheating customers out of $60 every year and if they didn't have such short-sightedness. This is mostly geared toward EA and some of Take-Two's sports games. Activision is unfortunate because call of duty is such a good series.

What an innane, whiny article.

All that needs to happen is to STOP the yearly release of each game. Personally I'd like to see 3 years between each game release. I rarely buy sports games more often than every 3 years anyway. In between can be a $15 dollar (or whatever is feasible) roster update and any minor game upgrades the company wants to offer each year. Meanwhile, the team is hard at work on pretty much exactly what you are talking about in this article. A game that truly seems like an upgrade over the previous version.

When I buy a new sports game after 2-3 years, it definitely feels different to me. I bought NHL 09 this year... my previous hockey game was NHL 2k5. That was a pretty big jump in technology. The games you are comparing to the sports games have their 3-4 year development cycles, Halo and Call of Duty, both. (I know CoD seems to come out more frequently, but there are 2 studios releasing the game alternately).

Anyway.. the point is.. the main problem with gamer perception of sports games is the yearly releases. But if so many morons would quit buying them EVERY year, the game companies might realize that there is a better business model out there.

Re: The Sports-Gaming Stimulus Bill
 

Youve got to be kidding right? Each year these "roster updated" games sell millions. In what virtual world are you living in where a business would forgo tens of millions in revenue, possibly well over 100 million in revenue ( given 3 years between games x all the sports games ) just to put out a product every 3 years. There is no way, not even a remote possibility , that this would make economic sense for any video game publishers.

As long as companies keep releasing their updated games, people will continue buying them