Videogames Make Traditional Super Bowl Predictions

Thanks to Reuters for its article discussing videogame-based predictions for this weekend's Super Bowl. The piece explains: "Days before the real football championship is contested, Carolina Panthers wide receiver Steve Smith has beaten the New England Patriots' wide-out Troy Brown 29-21 in a head-to-head video game matchup." The match was played on Sony's NFL GameDay 2004, and it's noted: "In the first eight years of the event, the winner of the electronic showdown went on to hoist the Vince Lombardi Trophy as the Super Bowl champion." Elsewhere, 1UP has done its own Super Bowl predictions on four different football videogames, and the final results also favor the Panthers.

I might add...

[Anonymous Coward]

that as a lifelong and often suffering Seahawks fan, I have made it my mission to find the quirks of whatever football game I get so I can utterly dominate with them. Like racking up so many yards that I'm ranked last because they used signed shorts, the stingy bastards! No need to cheat really. All the games I've ever played had wierd quirks that are easily exploited.

Typically the cycle is go through the list of plays, find your money defensive and offensive plays, possibly designing new ones to enhance the flaws they expose. Practice them to a finely honed edge. Set the most reliable anti-blitz, and most likely to sack versions as audiables. Then go to town. Oh in the case of maddens' it's often helpful to practice against the all madden, or all time, or cheat teams once you've got the idea of what you'd like to do to get your skill up.

No: video game BILL BELICHICK

[kisrael]

It's just a repeat of our New England complaint "we don't get no respect".

If the primary way one ingame NFL team differs from another is uniform look and player stats, then Virtual Patriots are probably going to look a lot less good than they do in real life...a video game player as "coach" is no Bill Belichick, and its gotta be hard for a video game designer to model the cleverness that makes the Patriots a standout team.

And I'd wager, if the player models were set before this season, they still underestimate the Pats, given how many injuries they've had, and how many "second string" players have gotten the chance to prove their worth on the field.

Stupid

[pudge]

How many of these games would have predicted the Patriots would win 14 games in the regular season? Not a one. And if they can't do that, why trust them now?

GameDay 2004 has wrong stats

[Theaetetus]

I suspect the video game companies have rated the patriots players a bit low what with the real life team being on a 14 game winning streak and all. I would guess that the reason the games have been fairly accurate predictors in the past is because they have done a good job capturing the varrying skill levels of the players, but for some reason the patriots I watch on TV seem vastly better then the patriots I control in Madden.

Dead on - I asked about this prior to purchasing the game (I ended up getting GD2003 - which has the stats of the last Superbowl-winning Pats). It has the stats from the preseason and first couple games... when the Patriots were doing poorly. It doesn't include the stats from their later 14 game winning streak.

-T

Re:LIONS IN 2006!

[li99sh79]

Yeah, you head me. Detroit Lions.

Assuming Millen and Mooch can inject some life into the moribund Lion's offense (ie draft Winslow in round one), and the defense can stay healthy the Lions will be a far improved team next season, and in the current NFL a run for the title in 2006 is not that far-fetched, though improbable.

-sam

Re:LIONS IN 2006!

[li99sh79]

The defense would likely be able to stay healthy if they werent' playing 3/4s of every game. For the last few years the Lion's D has been essentially playing twice as much as the average nfl team. Of course they're going to start falling apart.

Essentially true except that the two most greivous injuries to the lions this season (Cash and Stewart) occured in the preseason.

What they need, is more talented targets for harrington, and a credible running threat -- alot of which is in play calling

Kellen Winslow Jr. a reliable tight end would make Harrington that much better. The running game's a bit tougher because of Stewart's over-large contract, and the lack of top-flight backs in the draft this year. However, upgrading the middle of the line would help the running game as much as a new back. Pinner showed some spark in his limited playing time, he might be a stop gap answer. Ideally I'd like to see the lions draft Chris Perry in the second round, but that probably won't happen. If that is the case drafting a solid offensive guard to replace Ray Brown would be nice.

that said, the Lions will only see the superbowl in 2006 because it'll likely be in our backyard.

Uhm what's likely about it, the 2006 Super Bowl(XL) was already awarded to Ford Field.

yes, I check The Sporting News's mock draft on a weekly basis, can't you tell? -sam