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Old 05-01-2013, 03:18 PM   #11
Only1LT
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Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: NYC
A sports gaming being more realistic can definitely increase sales. I say that from a marketing standpoint and not even from a hands-on playing standpoint.

Another poster mentioned that sim is just one aspect and that graphical quality is another. I think that in terms of a sports sim, that they are intertwined. You can not have a game that plays realistically, but looks like a Dragon Ball Budokai game and still have it be sim. The players need to look as real life as possible. The only thing that can accomplish that is graphical excellence.

Case in point. How sim can increase sales through marketing alone is by showing a video of the game playing in a commercial. If the game looked like real players, the players moved like real players do, and they were doing things consistent with their real life counterparts, who would not by that game for themselves or for any loved one that has an interest in that particular sport?

If Madden had a commercial of in game footage and you had to scrutinize the video to tell if it was real or a game, would you need to know anything else about the newest version of the game, or would you basically be sold right off of that?

This is basically what Sony's marketing strategy is with the Show. Every commercial is showing footage of the game and has an interviewer talking to an MLB player and asking what it was like to win the Series, win the triple crown, or what ever the case may be, and the MLB player says that didn't happen, it's just a game. Now the Show does not look so real that you can't tell it apart from a real game of MLB, but the implied hook is genius and I think that the way they market it's realism, is one of the biggest reasons that the game is doing better and better each year in sales.

So yes, being more sim will increase sales for a sports game even on the most basic level of capturing the real life essence of the sport in the way that the game looks and moves, before you ever even dive into any realistic aspects in strategy or gameplay.

Even casual fans are not easily fooled. When they look at a commercial for Madden, they might think that it looks pretty good considering it's a videogame, and will chalk up any deficiencies to "this is the best they can do with these systems", but even they know at a glance that the tagline of if it's in the game, is just that, a tagline.

More realistic player models and ESPECIALLY animations in Madden, when seen in a commercial, would do wonders in getting the title back to the sales numbers it used to enjoy as EA's premier title.
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