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GameCube (Games) PlayStation (Games) Entertainment Games

Sports Titles Named Misleadingly? 57

Posted by simoniker from the nbl-blitzball-2400 dept.
According to an accusatory column in the sports section of the New York Post, naming the 2003-season sports videogame titles as 'Sports Game Title 2004' is dishonest. The writer suggests that "..when it comes to selling video games.. Major League Baseball and all big-league sports eagerly sell their licenses and logos to manufacturers who can't or won't tell the simplest and most significant of truths.." Have you been confused by this naming method, or do you think it's fair and understandable?
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Sports Titles Named Misleadingly? More

Sports Titles Named Misleadingly?

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  • eh... (Score:1)

    by Wog ( 58146 )
    I worked at a used video game store for a couple of years, and saw thousands if copies of such games. I'd always thought of it in the same way as cars.

    Not that I really gave a hoot anyway... I was more of an RPG guy. Of course, I think slapping "Final Fantasy" on the front end of "Mystic Quest" was a blatant attempt to lead you into the lie that it was going to be a good game.
    • The game may not have been good, but it does have a fair amount of good music tracks (ie: the final tower song is really nice).

  • So _that's_ why (Score:3, Funny)

    by david duncan scott ( 206421 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @08:41PM (#5995450)
    Red Grange appears in Madden 2003!
  • Seriously though, this has been standard pratice in the sports gaming industry for over a decade. Everyone who plays these games is well aware of which season's rosters are included, and even if they aren't common sense should hold that if the league's draft hasn't even happened when the title is released, the rosters aren't going to be correct for the NEXT year's season.

    It's almost June, soon I'll be able to purchase a 2004 model car. Stupid? You bet. Confusing? Only to an idiot.
    • Everyone who plays these games is well aware of which season's rosters are included
      Sure. But the people who play the games don't always buy the games. Some kid's Mom who has absolutely no interest in the sport and no knowledge of the game could be the one doing the purchasing.

      • Re:so what (Score:2, Insightful)

        by bobgoatcheese ( 455695 )
        Even so, when I was a kid asking my parents to buy video games for me I made certain to give them the exact title of the game. I knew the difference between "Street Fighter," "Final Fight," "Streets of Rage," and "Street Fighter 2 Turbo," would be lost on my mother, so I made certain to point out which one was the right one. I think this would be the case with most kids who are far more interested in gaming than their parents. Even if the kid wasn't as thoughtful as I was (=D) the parent would more than lik

  • What about ChessMaster 4000? (Score:5, Funny)

    by ConceptJunkie ( 24823 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @08:48PM (#5995486) Homepage Journal
    I thought I was getting technology from 2 millenia in the future! Those lying bastards!

    What about Mystery Science Theater 3000, or even worse, the Gruntmaster 9000?! What about Warhammer 40000?!?!?!!!

    It's worse than you can imagine!

  • Ironic.. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Cyclone66 ( 217347 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @08:49PM (#5995492) Homepage Journal
    "YOU think it would make news if the salespersons at Bud Selig's car dealerships were trained to deceive customers into thinking that they'd purchased 2003 models when they actually bought 2002 models?"

    Isn't [acura.com] it [nissanusa.com] Ironic [msn.com].
    • You're forgetting that this is a known problem, and there are rules in place for when a company can call their car a year 200x model. Something about it not being able to be released until a certain month. There are none of those rules when it comes to software. You could see Madden 2009 next month if they wanted to release it that way.
  • E3's over and this is what gaming news has to offer?
  • When you buy your games from the bargain bin you get Big League 2004 in 2005 anyway so it kind of evens out.

  • Slow news day? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ctr2sprt ( 574731 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @09:00PM (#5995541)
    Who actually gets worked up about this stuff? The actual number doesn't matter; they could call it NHL 1, then NHL 2, then NHL 3, and it wouldn't matter. The important thing is quickly being able to tell which is the newest, with a minimum amount of thinking. The problem with "sequels" is that you have no way of knowing the endpoint. There could be an NHL 4 you don't know about. So we go with years. And here, the actual number doesn't matter, as long as the rule is unchanged. The game covering the (ongoing) hockey year could be NHL 2002, or NHL 2003. It doesn't really matter which you choose, as long as next season's game is NHL n+1.

    Besides, this is not exactly something people are unfamiliar with. I graduated from high school in the Class of '97, which means I began my senior year in the fall of 1996 and completed my senior year in the spring of 1997. This is exactly the same way sports games are numbered. Sports seasons are more formally called the "2002-2003 season," but if you want confusing, look at a couple of those next to each other. ("Do I want 2001-2002, 2002-2003, or 2003-2004?") Besides, "NHL 2k3" is much easier to say that "NHL 2k2 to 2k3." If you have to pick one year, at least for hockey, it makes sense to pick the second year, which is where the majority of games fall. Ditto for basketball, I think (but I'm not sure).

    The guy who wrote this article is basically an idiot. You know what? I have never gotten the wrong sports game. Nor have I even come close. I looked at the box, saw one number, and then thought "Oh, it must be like graduation dates." I then confirmed my guess by looking at the price tag. A game that's a year old is not going to sell for $50. If it is, you're shopping at the wrong store. The EA Sports games sell for about $20 6 months after they come out. So it's very simple, even if you don't understand the reasoning at all: the most expensive product is the newest. Anyone who's spent more than $15 in his entire life should already be familiar with this rule, since it applies to everything.

    • "So it's very simple, even if you don't understand the reasoning at all: the most expensive product is the newest."

      So, if brand spanking new games go for $50... that SNES cartridge for Chrono Trigger I bought for 80 bucks must have come out... two years from now!

      I guess it's called "Chrono Trigger" for a reason!

  • Oh come on (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RaboKrabekian ( 461040 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @09:03PM (#5995550) Journal
    If a gamer's buying a sports title in, say, 2003, and he's confused about which to buy, here's what's going to happen. He goes in to a store and sees:

    Madden 2003 - 19.95
    Madden 2004 - 49.94

    Which is he going to think is the more recent title?

    How hard is this to figure out? Please, show me one case where a gamer has been seriously swindled by this.

    In other news, EA Sports recently reset their baseball franchise back a year to correct this.

    To sum up: Yes, it's silly that sports games are usually named a year ahead of where they should. Is it really that big of a deal? No. Go find something more important to bitch about.

    • Re:Oh come on (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Squirrel Killer ( 23450 )

      This year, unsuspecting shoppers will think that two editions of the game - this year's and last year's - are the current versions.

      How hard is this to figure out? Please, show me one case where a gamer has been seriously swindled by this.

      I don't buy this moron's argument either, but I still have a problem with the naming convention. I just never thought to write it up and submit it to a nationally known newspaper.

      My problem is more historical nitpicking, expectation of league standings, and well,

    • After a loooong period of time where I played every FPS that came out, I decided I needed something different. Went to Fry's, and I saw Madden 2002 for $17.99. I knew that something had to be wrong- their current game is never under $20, so I looked further, and found Madden 2003 for $40. (By the way, my other choice was Asherons Call- does anyone have an opinion on this game? Haven't played it yet)

      They also had a boxed set of 2002 EA Sports titles for $19.99. But, being a First Person Shooter Frames
  • I don't know if it's true for all the sports franchises, but I think the naming has to do with what season the rosters in the game represent.

    So, MLB 2004 has what is supposed to be the 2004 season rosters... for college basketball where the season wraps the new year, the season is referred to as the ending year.

    It doesn't have anything to do with the year the game was released or developed in other than that's usually right before a season starts.

    This has always been my assumption and maybe I'm the one t

  • Storm in a teacup (Score:4, Informative)

    by grahamwest ( 30174 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @09:07PM (#5995565) Homepage
    The games are named after the seasons for the sports. The leagues all designate the season by the year in which the 'final' is played. This september will see the start of the 2004 NFL season because the Superbowl for that season will be played in Februrary of 2004. As such the NFL videogames coming out at that time will be Madden 2004, NFL2K4 and so on.

    • doesn't work for MLB (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MORTAR_COMBAT! ( 589963 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @09:33PM (#5995719)
      Acclaim released All-Star Baseball 2004 [ign.com] on just 28 February of this year. Unless Reggie Jackson was "Mr. January" and not "Mr. October", the World Series will be played this fall, in 2003. 989 Studios (PS2) has a current title: MLB 2004. 3Do's "High Heat 2004" is due out soon. Midway publishes MLB 20-04 for the GBA.

      Contrarily, EA Sports' current offering is "MVP Baseball 2003".
      • Interesting. I'm not a baseball guy so I didn't realise that season didn't cross the year. In fact I know almost nothing about US sports, being an ex-pat Brit :-)

        There's certainly less reason to use the naming scheme for baseball, then. There is some merit to having all the sports have the same year designator so gamers can expect that same-year games have similar features (eg. trading cards being new for all the '03 games) but it's not "correct" like the other sports.

        Thanks for the info.

  • They CAN'T Rename Them (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Monday May 19, 2003 @09:09PM (#5995577) Homepage
    This was mentioned on X-Play (on TechTV) the other day. The fact is they CAN'T rename the titles. I don't know how it started, but there are two reasons they can't change it.

    First, if they change it, then what do they call the first title with the new naming scheme? The old one was "Madden 2k3", and the new one will be... "Madden 2k3"? That won't work. Will they call it "Madden 2k3 2.0"? I don' think that will work either. They can't call it "Madden", because most people would probably assume "Madden 2k3" (the older title) would be newer than the one named "Madden".

    But more to the point, if one company changes things and names it correctly (so the game that comes out in 2k3 is called 2k3, not 2k4) then they are at a LOSS compared to the competition. If Joe Schmoe goes to buy a football game for his PS2/XBox/GCN and sees the following three things, which one is he least likely to buy:

    • Football '04 (wrong)
    • Madden 2k3 (correct)
    • NFL 2004 (wrong)

    I say he will be least likely to buy Madden (all else being equal to him) because it seems "older" than the other titles. So unless EVERYONE in the industry switches at once, it seems like it's not in the best intreset of any of the publishers to correct the naming problem. I think this is just something that we'll all just learn to accept like the naming of cars model years.

    PS: Sorry to pick on Madden, it's just the name of the first football game to come to my mind, so I used it as an example. I haven't played ANY football games in years (not my thing) so don't go fanboy on me and take it as some kind of judgement.

    • I think you are partially correct, but I also think that people who buy video games generally know the scoop on what's the "newest". Not to mention the fact that they advertise like crazy during the season on television, etc. I don't see the naming as a problem, since most people are used to it, but I also don't think it's too tough to fix. People aren't going to shell out money for a game if they aren't sure of what they are buying.
      • I think you'd be suprised how often a mom or dad buys a game at wal-mart for their kid. Hopefully the sales person will know what's going on, but you can't always count on that. Personally, like I said in my origional comment, I think the naming is just something to live with. It's not like it's a real problem.

    • But more to the point, if one company changes things and names it correctly (so the game that comes out in 2k3 is called 2k3, not 2k4) then they are at a LOSS compared to the competition.

      There's some truth in there. However, I think that if I released Extreme Football 2005 not that many people tough it were better than the 2004 offerings by other companies. Using next year's title makes your product look "from the future" instead of "current". Lying it by two years makes your product to look fake. I've no

  • This is the first time I've ever heard of anybody complaining about the years in the titles of sports games. I was always under the impression that the year in the title referred to the year the game was released.

    I wonder if the author feels the same way about car manufacturers. After all, a 2004 Jetta actually first comes out in 2003.
  • It's too late to change... if there is already a "Sports Game 2003" from last year, they can't call this years game the same thing...

    "Sports Game 2003 - Really, We Mean It!"

    I'm not a sports game fan, but surely it's obvious what the new title is and what the old title is? Besides, why not just look at the copywrite date?

    Verne.
  • What this guy fails to realize is that when referring to sports you say the year after they begin the season...e.g. the Lakers won the 2003 National Championship, the Kings/Nets/Pistons/Rockets won the 2004 National Championship in the 2004 season.

    The 2003-2004 NFL season is about to begin, but the super bowl is in the year 2004 so 10 years from now they will refer to the team who wins as the 2004 season winners.

    I dont see anything wrong with what the game companies are doing.

    • Um...


      1. It's the Mavericks and the Spurs in the West this year, not the Kings and the Rockets.


      2. They're finishing the NBA season in 2003, and they'll be referred to as the 2003 NBA Champs (sometimes they'll even be called the 2002-2003 champs.)

      • Um...

        1)My point has nothing to do w/ who is in the playoffs or not, i made a mistake

        2)you actually support my conclusion here, the nba season started in 2002 but will end in 2003 therefore, the champions will be referred to as the 2003 nba champs. So if we call these teams as such in retrospect, what's the problem with referring to them in the future tense? (e.g. the upcoming 2004 NBA season; as such EA Sports NBA Live 2004)
        • HHELLLO ! ---interesting keybounce problem which I choose not to correct.

          I live in this crazy little backwater nation in the south pacific which I choose to call Australia because it is called that. We have a lot in common with Americans. Like Americans we watch American TV shows and American movies. We eat McDonalds even though it's horrible and we know it's horrible and nobody likes it. Middle class white kids here seem to get about in weird baggy clothes with rags on their heads pretending to be homeboy

  • I immediately knew that it was Phil Mushnick. Basically, the guy is the resident Sports TV critic for the post (which at any newspaper is a job they give the old fart who's effectively retired). He's complained about the hits in sports games being illegal.

    The guy's a crackpot troll...

  • Retarded (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pudge ( 3605 ) * <slashdot.pudge@net> on Monday May 19, 2003 @10:49PM (#5996146) Homepage Journal
    "Madden NFL 2003" was released before the 2002 NFL season. "MVP Baseball 2003" is the 2002 version. "NCAA Football 2003" was released in July, 2002. "NFL 2K3" should've been named "NFL 2K2."


    First, MVP Baseball 2003 is not "the 2002 version." That is a lie. It has 2002 stats because the 2003 stats do not exist. Duh.

    As to the others, they *all* take place in the 2002-2003 season. The seasons are all 2003, and the name of the game is 2003. He could say, "well, but the stats are 2001-2002," but that has already been dispensed with (and in the case of Madden, it isn't even true, since you can update the stats on the PS2 version to BE the 2002-2003 stats).

    Yes, he has a point with High Heat 2004. That leapfrogs an entire season, and literally makes no sense. But logical arguments can be made for all the others mentioned.

  • Industry Standards (Score:2, Informative)

    by windowpain ( 211052 )
    They do this in the magazine industry too. The copies of Newsweek and Time that came out today are dated May 26. Monthly magazines are dated a month or two in advance. So I just think of the cover date as the date the magazine will be pulled from the shelf.

    And of course the hard disk industry insists a megabyte is 1,000 bytes, not 1,024.

    Just assume they're goosing the stats and you won't be pissed off when they do.
  • With the exception of baseball, all sports games are named depending on when the season ends. Madden 2004, while it comes out in August of 2003, is replicating the season that finishes with the Super Bowl in January/February of 2004. NBA Live 2004, while it comes out in November of 2003, replicates the season that ends with the NBA Finals in May of 2004. The only exceptions are baseball titles, which, by the way, EA Sports is trying to curb. They tried to do the same back with Triple Play Gold for the S
  • Or sport.
    You know what I like ? Beer and pizza. Where are all the beer and pizza games ? Remember that one where the kid delivered papers ? That was a stupid game, I hated that game and you could never quite control him properly and he kept hitting the mail box and I think there were little dogs maybe I don't know but sports games I know about and I don't care for them at all, didn't I used to get beat up by sports guys at school ? And now I'm supposed to relive my worst memories of high school by immersing
  • ...is trying to explain to customers that MVP 2003 and MLB Slugfest 2004 came out at about the same time. And for those of you who think the average consumer is intelligent, work in retail sales for six months and see how you feel then. :)

    My job is only easy when you aren't doing it right....
  • How is this different from selling a 2004 car in 2003? The 2004 Acura TSX came out last month (-ish). It's a brand new car! They couldn't call it a 2003?!?
  • Sports games make absolutely no sense to me. People play FPS games because it's illegal or too expensive to shoot people in real life, or RPG's because there's no such thing as magic. But sports? Someone please explain this to me.
    • Sports games make absolutely no sense to me. People play FPS games because it's illegal or too expensive to shoot people in real life, or RPG's because there's no such thing as magic. But sports? Someone please explain this to me.

      Because it's too time consuming to actually go to the gym, train for years just to make a sports team and play the real thing. It's a lot easier to plop Madden into your PS2 and play it for an hour.

      That and gamers are too lazy to go outside and play sports!

  • Cars for the next year were offered for sale the year before (EG: '57 chevy offered for sale in '56) because it took longer to make cars back then and it was a matter of pride to be one of the first people to own that 57 chevy at the begining of 1957.

    Cars are now made extremely quickly compared to the 50s and available before the year is half over but the original concept still remains (even though the ideals are long since dead).

    As for the sports game naming it's completely pointless. There is absolutly
  • I used to sell these things. When you're out of 2K3, if someone buys 2K2, you're happy as a clam because old editions don't sell. The article is right on the money when mom is in charge of the Christmas list. Yep, she'll be confused.

    The real way out of the dilemma is to create downwardly compatible software that can read the players and stats of the previous year's edition. Throw in things like collectible uniforms (they change), insignia (they change, too), and special game-only features (different fo
  • Cars, magazines, video games -- everyhting is dated forward for appeal. It doesn't matter, and anyone that gets confused easily by the dating of a video game is really ****ed.
  • The newspaper journalists are only bitter about this because today's newspaper only has yesterday's news.

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