EA take a new approach with their sport games

EA, at times, can be exceptionally frustrating. Mass-producing their below-average games, it’s annoying that they dominate the gaming world as much as they do. This is particularly true of the sport genre. Buying up every licence under the sun, EA make it impossible for other companies to produce games with real player names, and they never do anything different with the their sports titles that play the same year in, year out. Finally though, there is hope. With a new trick that plans to synchronise real-life events with the game, it could change the whole way we play sport games.

EA have signed a new partnership with US broadcaster ESPN, it will allow EA to incorporate real-life events into their games. This will naturally work via a high-speed internet connection. The reaction has been mixed at this news, but let’s explain how it works first.

Starting in the next iteration of their American Football game, Madden NFL 08, the new technology will mean that should Matt Cassel break his leg in a real-life game for the New England Patriots, it will render the player within the game unusable until he returns to the field of play in real-life.

Similarly, if a Baseball player is hitting home runs left right and centre in real-life, within EA’s MLB games, that same player may receive a statistic boost for a few weeks in the game, meaning that the player in question will be fantastic for a short while.

It’s an interesting idea and certainly something different. However critics have suggested that merging the fantasy world with the real world could cause problems. David Walsh, a psychologist and president of the National Institute on Media and the Family said:

“For many people, that’s going to be very exciting. For some other people, it could become addictive and can have the same harmful effects that other addictions have.”

Whether this has any worth is up to the individual playing the game, but if Jack Thompson were righting this post he would naturally suggest that this could have detrimental affects on the children playing the game. ESPN have stated that they hope it will mean gamers won’t have to turn on the TV to find out the sports news; it will be directly fed to the gamer in-game.

Unfortunately, this may come at a price to gamers. EA have said that they are not currently sure whether it will affect the price of the games. Currently running at $60/£40, such an innovation may warrant a hike in price, which could annoy those not interested in the feature, or those without a broadband connection.

It remains to be seen how gamers react to this news, especially if it forces a rise in the price of EA games. There’s a limit of how much people will pay for a game, and EA don’t want to push out fans of their games. Hopefully this will be an optional feature, or a bonus addition, so those that want just the game can have just the game. Come on EA, you’ve shown you can innovate, now show you can be reasonable with it.