'
Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon.' - Alexander Pope
As we prepare for the eve of a period many Union fans probably thought would be unlikely to ever happen, with the release of two Next-Gen Rugby Union ***les, I ask the question:
'What should Sidhe and HB have learnt from previous incarnations of Rugby Union, and the sports gaming generation as a whole?'
With sporting games you can draw an analogy with a Christmas No.1. If you make one that is good enough then you are near enough sorted for life if you have enough of a fan-base to exploit. Look at the Fifa franchise: Fifa 11 was reported in the first two days was to have sold 2.6 million copies in only two days, an incredible 29% rise on the previous ***le's record (Source:
http://www.apex-tg.com/2010/09/ea-released-sales-figures-fifa-11-breaks-all-records). Why? Because Fifa is an excellent representation of the sport of Football, and has all the major licences in world football. Simple.
Therefore all sports games should follow this mould to be successful in their field? Well, no. Licences, graphics, hundreds of game modes – these are not what makes a game successful. You may think it is, but it most certainly isn't. To get to the real core of why we play games we have to go all the way back to 1972 with the Atari release PONG.
Why was this fun?
No licences. No Borg v McEnroe being played at centre court at Wimbledon. No rippling muscles or sweat pouring down onto the player's rackets. So why did we enjoy it – after this is what makes a game great right?
Wrong. The core reason that will dictate the success of any sports game will be in its gameplay.
Jonah Lomu Rugby and ISS Pro Evolution Soccer are both examples of ***les that are hailed as classics through this one common denominator – gameplay. These ***les are still held in very high regard among many as still setting the benchmark for their respective sports and sport gaming in general.
So what sets the benchmark in sport gaming today? Seemingly ***les which barely improve year-upon-year, only to add superficial 'improvements' through updated teams etc. Is this really the stage we have got to in sports gaming? Where success of a game is dictated in this manner?
Two key examples of this that I would like to illustrate are in the tales of Fifa vs Pro Evolution Soccer and Madden vs ESPN NFL 2K5:
Fifa had for years been stagnating in the football games market, with very shallow gameplay but guaranteed sales through the interest in officially licensed teams and competitions, and the lack of a worthy competitor. Step up Konami, who for many years had been in the background with moderately successful ***les in their International Superstar Soccer series. Then in 2001 with the release of ISS Pro Evolution II heads really began to turn. Here was a completely unlicensed game that was totally relying on the underlying principle of great gameplay being enough to live off. It was. Not only did Fifa fail to improve year-upon-year, but recognition for the PES series from the PS1 to the PS2 began to mount, and in the twilight years of the PS2, signs were looking very ominous for the Fifa series on its transition to next-gen.
However, EA sports leapt on the Next-Gen creation not only ahead of arch-rivals Konami, but with a more solid plan, better implemented ideas and a complete overhaul of the previous generation system to make a real stamp of authority with their first ***le to be released across all next-gen consoles: Fifa 08; setting the benchmark for football games while Konami were flailing in their dust; unable to adapt to this new generation of gaming. Now three games on into the series it seems incredibly unlikely that Konami will ever be able to knock Fifa off its high pedestal it has created for itself.
That being said, EA has been forced into this position by the unnerving presence of Konami over its shoulder. The PES franchise, hailed by the critics for excellent gameplay, but over-looked by many due to scarce licencing, had always been catching up to the Fifa series. Of course many, including I, will always hail the PES games from instalment 5-7 were possibly the greatest football games ever, but the sheer inability for PES to adapt to the next-generation consoles in three incarnations of the game means that not only have Konami lost a lot of 'football-purists' to Fifa with their highly superior next-gen ***les, but also alienated a large proportion of their heavily committed forum fanbase who for years had been screaming out for needed evolution and improvement. Conversely over at EA, they understood they could seriously be overtaken by their competitor were they to transfer their ***le's success from previous to next-gen, felt the necessity to improve. Enter David Rutter, head game designer for the Fifa franchise on next-gen and self proclaimed PES fan. What did he understand? To listen to fans, to understand that in the gameplay department, if Fifa was in any way to succeed over PES, they would need to radically improve it, regardless of licensing or graphics. By doing this Rutter has managed to form a mould for the idea of what he envisaged of succeeding in Fifa 08, and developed and tweaked the game to the stage it is at now in Fifa 11 – a game of stunning gameplay quality.
It is hard to see a way back for PES. Not only are they near-completely deprived of licensing and authentic game modes, they have also fallen short in their most valued commodity: gameplay. Now that EA hold all the cards, it seems ominous for PES to reach any of the heights it once did.
The price of excellent gameplay was equally illustrated in 2004 when rival American Football franchises in the shape of EA Sport's Madden series and 2K Sport's ESPN NFL series. The release of 2K's ESPN NFL 2K5 was such a surprising success that it literally destroyed Madden in every field of the game: gameplay, licensing (both shared NFL licence), stunningly slick ESPN coverage including half time and fulltime highlights (something I am yet to see done as well as it was here), as well as incredibly complex franchise mode and exceptionally deep single player game modes.
However, after the stunning success 2K5 had over its Madden counterpart, though maybe not in sales but in overwhelming critical acclaim, EA sports decided they wanted to suppress the competition and were amazingly granted an exclusive licence to the NFL – in teams, player names and stadiums. 2K sports would not be allowed to licence any future games. (How this is not an anticompetitive agreement is beyond me)
"gamers might be cheated of a more innovative product because EA Sports tends to put development on proverbial cruise control when it has control over a genre."
"Madden will not fall into such obscurity. There's too much of a fan base, too many of EA's resources pooled into the game's production. But what game company will come around to once again push Madden to unprecedented limits? Who can?"
(Source:
http://www.sports-gaming.com/editorial/ea-sports-exclusive-nfl-license.php)
Madden have reserved the market for themselves, and seeing that they were in a losing battle with 2K sports on gameplay, they flexed their wallets and simply pushed their competitor out of the market. The 2K Sport football franchise was rocked, and with the loss of the NFL licence ESPN soon followed. It was a further 3 years before another ***le was released by 2K Sports and expectations were high, as the gameplay was bound to succeed even without licensing. However, the game was a disappointment and scarcely improved on NFL 2K5 gameplay, and even actually removed game modes that were previously available.
Madden is now in the position of absolute authority. They can churn out the same game for years in a row with only minor improvements upon the last instalment, and people will buy it. This is not a reflection of its success though, and Madden is still roundly criticised by critics and on YouTube (see
http://youtu.be/n27G-7-N6Jk ,
http://youtu.be/RoCFfJ1Wul8 ,
http://youtu.be/k6BAdBZCMsk for in depth analysis) for still not surpassing the heights reached by ESPN NFL 2K5 back in 2004.
So what do these examples have to do with Rugby games? Considering the fact HB-studios and Sidhe are locking horns in a similar battle for supremacy over the expectant Rugby Union fan-base, there are many things that can be learnt from the successes and failures of sporting ***les over the past 20 years that could be the difference between a ***le being a one-off mediocre hit, and being the platform for a consistently improving franchise that would have players eager for more improvements year upon year.
It is obvious that the game that can come closest to replicating the touch and feeling of playing Rugby in their gameplay will undoubtedly win the battle of supremacy over its rival. After all that is why we play video games. But there has to be a balance. Complete realism would of course please a proportion of the target audience but would alienate a larger proportion, namely the casual gamers. But then of course a game that is too 'arcade' will do the converse.
Arcade sport games of course will appeal to a larger audience in the short term but once the initial hype has vanished and the lack of depth exposed then the casual gamers (which will be at least partly made up of people who understand little about the fundamentals of the sport) will diminish and then lower credibility of the ***le and interest for further ***les. Look no further than Fifa Street series, which, though some may describe as 'fun', very quickly lost its long term appeal. The Swordfish Rugby series (Series on the PS2 made by comprising of World Rugby Challenge and Rugby Challenge 2006) also died from a similar disease. I undoubtedly did have a lot of fun with my friends playing these but the arcade dynamics caused playing to become incredibly boring, simply replicating the same act over and over regardless of the opposition. Therefore it is desirable to at least be on other side of the spectrum of arcade vs. realism, if only to give long term appeal and loyalty.
The EA Sports Rugby series demonstrates this perfectly. The games were not exactly what you would call groundbreakingly realistic but realistic enough to draw some parallel with the actual game whilst, crucially, having a fun aspect to the gameplay. I, as well as many, repeatedly bought the new incarnations from EA and HB-studios because they gave some long term appeal while the second Swordfish incarnation only got a rent, and that was enough for the longevity to begin to disintegrate.
Realism and gameplay ties in with another key aspect of any great sports game: a steep learning curve. One thing I love about playing EA sports latest Fifa incarnation is that it is an incredibly hard game to master. I consider myself an average enough player but even in my friendship group there are better players than me constantly making our games competitive and exciting. Online I am always challenged and outcomes of games are never a certainty. Likewise offline, EA have managed to craft AI that is challenging enough on the highest level to be a real difficulty to break down and score against, and inventive in attack, scoring all manner of goals against me. It would be naive of me to say Fifa is perfect and has no flaws, but one thing that keeps me coming back to Fifa ahead of all other games is the ability to constantly get better and constantly improve. I know that every game I will play will be different and pose new problems.
This steep learning curve is an absolute joy as a player because the replayability of the game is almost unlimited, given you have the time to play - just like a real sport. Apart from Fifa and the early PES games there is no other sports game that I know of that makes me feel this way. The reason for this being little or no learning curve present, leading to a plateau of ability and learning saturation that means games become a stalemate, only ever decided by mistakes or inherent gameplay flaws within the game. Take for example the EA Rugby franchise; against the AI it became far too easy to beat them by exploiting the dual flaws being that their defence bunched up around the breakdown with every line break and there was always a gap between the centre and winger. Because of these flaws (that were never addressed in a multitude of ***les) it meant even on the highest difficulty you could beat any team with any team. Similarly when playing against someone the lack of coherent defence and fast ball either ended the game in an outrageous try-fest or a stalemate, neither of which are exactly realistic, or very fun.
The Fifa learning curve means that you encounter all styles of play suited to the team and/or the player. Fast wing-play, Long ball, Midfield possession etc giving increasing challenges depending on the team you play against and the person controlling. This is so integral to a sports game that it cannot be stressed enough. The ability to control and adapt a style of play to cater for a type of opposition or situation in a game is something that would happen in real life. Rugby games forever have given little or no ability to change tactics, formations or plays. The EA Rugby series had an incredibly poorly implemented set play system and slow defensive formation change function which both were pretty useless. The Swordfish ***les and JLR on the other hand had nothing.
If smaller, innovative game companies are to succeed in the sports gaming market they need to be prepared to grow small acorns into big trees, and focus their priorities correctly. As the Rugby market has been abandoned for some time (presumably EA sports considered it not lucrative enough) this is an exciting time for two emerging ***les which are, uniquely, both locked in competition without a monopolistic giant such as EA looking over their shoulder. The market and fanbase is there in front of them waiting in desperation, so why let such an opportunity slip by for one of them to establish themselves as the leading Rugby Union ***le?
In my opinion, this market is Sidhes for the taking. All we know of their Rugby credentials are their Rugby League ***les. I never played these, but opinion seems fairly polarised on them. We know nothing of their Union game or what it will be like so they really have the opportunity to producing something brand new, introducing gameplay and dynamics yet to be seen in a Rugby game, revolutionising the genre.
Conversely we know at lot about HB, though admittedly on the previous-gen. Many people, including myself, thoroughly enjoyed their games, but lack of major improvement over the course of the ***les meant the gameplay was repetitive and longevity limited. As well as this several key elements of what make Rugby such a great competition were overlooked (Rucks, mauls, lineouts, forward play, defence, set plays) and implemented in very basic ways. A slight worry is with the HB ***le is that there may have been an inclination to simply port over the previous-gen gameplay, update the graphics, and ship it out as a next-gen ***le. I, for one, hope this is definitely not the case, and I would be amazed if HB would turn down such a great opportunity in a Rugby World Cup year to establish the name of a great Rugby Union game into the minds of millions across the world.
I hope this is a great year that we have all been waiting too long for. I personally hope both companies have put as much thought into their priorities as I have, and not overlooked the key area of gameplay for the cosmetic and aesthetic shot term appeal of graphics and licensing that may grab numbers in the short term, but will diminish interest in the long term. Build a lasting impression in your inaugural ***le, grab your audience with both arms and then improve the smaller aspects year upon year to establish a fantastic series. I wish good luck to both companies and wish them the very best in their gaming ventures.
