25 Events That Rocked The Sports Video Games World

Sports has played a huge part in video games ever since the early days of Pong. To think of how the genre has progressed over the years to the point where it's difficult to tell a video game from the real thing.

Let's take a look back at the events that helped shape the sports gaming landscape. Checkout this video for a quick look at how far sports video games have come. It's enough to make an 80s kid gamer cry. That is if they were a total wuss. There's no crying in sports video games.

Sports has played a huge part in video games ever since the early days of Pong. To think of how the genre has progressed over the years to the point where it's difficult to tell a video game from the real thing.

Let's take a look back at the events that helped shape the sports gaming landscape. Checkout this video for a quick look at how far sports video games have come. It's enough to make an 80s kid gamer cry. That is if they were a total wuss. There's no crying in sports video games.

In 1987 Namco became the first company to use real athletes from the pros when they made a deal with the players union to make a ten team, cult-classic game called R.B.I. Baseball. Than, in 1989 EA released a dreadful, horseshit game called Lakers versus Celtics in the NBA Playoffs. The other "big two" were soon to follow with games like: Tecmo Super Bowl, and the creatively named NHLPA Hockey.

No more did we have to play with one named players or athletes identified only by jersey number; now we got to be one step closer to the type of athlete we wished we were.

"The Madden Curse" is an example of our hobby that's made it into mainstream dialogue. The curse is supposed to afflict anyone on the cover and doom them to a terrible season or injury. Proponents cite evidence from stars like: Dorsey Levens (star is a loose term), Daunte Culpepper, Marshall Faulk, Michael Vick, Shaun Alexander, Ray Lewis and Barry Sanders (who mysteriously vanished).

But let's clear something up, this is football, it seems like 80 percent of players get injured. That's not evidence of anything except that slamming into a 6'4" guy who runs a 4.4. forty hurts like fuck. Most of the other evidence relies on cherry picked BS (more on that next slide).

So does the Madden Curse actually exist? Uh, no. It's just a scapegoat you use when you put guys like Vince Young and Peyton Hillis on the cover.

So when was the hex actually broken? You can't go wrong with this past year, Megatron (Calvin Johnson) was on the cover and set the NFL record for receiving yards in a season. But we'll go back even farther to oh....year two.

On the cover of Madden 2001 was Tennessee Titans' running back Eddie George (he was the second actual football player on the cover after John Madden's eleven year reign of terror) he had almost 2,000 yards from scrimmage that season. In the AFC playoffs he lost a fumble to future cover man Ray Lewis. That was the cherry picked evidence we were referring to in that last slide. One bad play does not a season make. Besides the standard to break the curse can't be that you have to win a Super Bowl every year.

Few games have ever received a nod from mainstream culture as a sign that they're acceptable. But Madden has received that pass which culminated when it's cover athlete was revealed on Espn2's SportsNation in Times Square back in 2012.

On ESPN alone they use MLB The Show for demonstrations on Baseball Tonight, NCAA demonstrations for College Gameday and making of special's on ESPNU. Espn2 even ran seasons of a show featuring the best Madden gamers called Madden Nation which was a joint venture with EA for a mutually beneficial relationship (if there's one thing ESPN knows it's how to make money).

Sure these are essentially paid ads; but hey if you're a Madden fan you finally have a reason to watch SportsNation besides the lovely Charissa Thompson and if you're a Show fan you finally have a reason to watch Baseball Tonight besides the lovely Karl Ravech.

You may think it's the dude from NBA Jam (a common misconception) but we'd disqualify him anyways because he's doing nothing but repeating "Boom Shaka Laka!" and crapping his pants at every dunk.

In actuality the first video game play-by-play guy was programmed in 1991 for Joe Montana Sports Talk Football (and he is as incoherent as the game's title). It was a rare instance where Madden didn't beat their competitors to an innovation. Sure the commentator sucks (even by 1991 standards) but is he really anymore robotic, stale and confused than Tim McCarver? Yes, yes he is. Besides, when commentary is your main selling point you're probably hocking (or buying) a total turd.

In 1999 Tony Hawk's Pro Skater was released to not just fans of skateboarding but to anybody who loved video games. The quick twitches required to string together huge combos was the type of gaming that could addict anyone who touched a controller.

The problem is pun-happy developer Neversoft released a successive game annually eight years in a row and it got to a point where even Donald Trump would be like, "tone it down." But the series' impact was both impressive and immediate and was met with an influx of skateboard purchases by youths who were misled to believe skateboarding was easy; there's no doubt several of them were hospitalized figuring out that it wasn't.

Visual Concepts was originally brought in by EA to develop Madden's for the Sega Genesis. When they failed to complete Madden '96 for the newly released Playstation, EA fired them. EA refused to make Madden's for the Dreamcast which led to Sega starting their own sports line. That rivalry may have led to the greatest sports games we've ever seen when both EA and Visual Concepts produced critically acclaimed sports games ranging from tennis to football. Visual Concepts went on to continue making video games under the name 2K Sports which still produces annual releases; some crappy (MLB 2K series) and some amazing (NBA 2K series).

Take a look above if you don't believe us. Does the quality of the picture suck? Yes, but those numbers don't lie.

The rise of EA Sports was a boon to the entire industry. That's because sports gamers are people who aren't what you'd consider a traditional gamer, EA tapped into that segment of the population and BOOM! All a sudden you saw jocks waiting outside Gamestop at midnight. They've given us countless AAA titles in every sport and if you ever liked MVP, FIFA, Madden, NCAA, Fight Night or the Tiger Woods PGA series, (among many others) you have EA to thank

No question their name has taken a hit over the past few years; but remember you have to earn a reputation before you can lose one.

Let's just outline some basic facts here:

In 2001 you had five NFL football games: NFL Fever, Madden, NFL 2K, NFL Gameday and NFL Quarterback Club.

In 2001-02 you had five NBA games: NBA Courtside, NBA Live, NBA 2K2, NBA Inside Drive and NBA Shootout.

Also in 2001-02 you had four NHL games: NHL Hitz, NHL (Series), NHL 2K2 and NHL FaceOff.

And finally, in 2003 you had six MLB Baseball Games: MLB Slugfest, All Star Baseball, MVP, MLB (Pre-Show era), World Series Baseball and High Heat.

Now due to a combination of exclusivity deals and poor business your decision gets made for you. We'll cover those exclusivity deals in a second but we just wanted younger gamers to realize that we once had a choice in a time so long ago that Tom Brady hadn't won a championship yet and even Steve Bartman's parents had no idea who the hell he was.

Unlike a similar lawsuit for Madden, the NCAA litigation is still occupying the courts. If you want to know how severe it could be, some have speculated it would be the end of the NCAA Football franchise (and thanks to their own exclusivity deal that would be the end of video game college football).

In 2009, former Arizona State and Nebraska quarterback Sam Keller sued EA for the use of amateur athlete's likeness' (probably had something to do with being waived by the Raiders in 2008). Over the course of the next couple years several other athletes (including Bill Russell) added their name to a class action suit. It hasn't officially rocked the sports gaming world yet, but it is an issue that isn't going away. It also could help explain your confusion in the future when Johnny Heisman is black and Kain Colter is white.

In 2005 Take Two (the makers of 2K video games) retaliated against EA's Madden monopoly (coming up in a moment) with a strike of their own. They secured third party rights (companies that make games for multiple consoles) to exclusively make Major League Baseball games. That meant MVP Baseball, the best selling MLB game from 2003-2005 was dead. So much for democracy ruling, this was business.

Now we have a choice between MLB the Show (which hasn't changed in six years) or MLB 2K which is so good it has to hold a million dollar Perfect Game contest to get people to play it.

Pong was one of the first games released (back in 1972) in arcades, a few years later for home consoles, and of course one of the first games to actually become popular. It simulated table tennis about as well as you'd expect back in 1972. It's also far less advanced than even the crappiest cellphone game you can find today; but it's cultural impact was dinosauric. in 1972 this game was more mind boggling than any gaming event of the last twenty years (let alone sports gaming events).

How would Pong hold up today? Let's put it this way, that screenshot up top perfectly captures the game in all of its excitement.

Wii Sports was the technological demo that came packaged with the Wii. The system was a Renaissance in a stale gaming world where Nintendo, again, proved themselves to be the masters of innovation. The motion controls were fun even for punks who thought gaming was dork exclusive. But the problem was Nintendo didn't expound upon them much afterward, we were amazed to see no new attempts at an established Mario Sports franchise (like Tennis or Golf) that truly capitalized on the hardware's specs.

Eventually someone will perfect this concept and run with it. We envision a world where people play an entire baseball season with a bat controller or an entire football season where you wear a helmet that authentically simulates brain trauma.

The single biggest and most infuriating development of 21st century sports came on December 12, 2004 when EA received exclusive rights to make NFL video games. It was a move initiated by the "No Fun League" that crushed the very essence of sport, competition. Several years into the move EA still had the balls to promote themselves as the No. 1 selling NFL video game.

Now what does that mean for the virtual gridironers of this era? Sure, you don't have to stare at the visual diarrhea that was ColecoVision, Atari or whatever; but if you don't like Madden's career mode or find the game growing stale after a decade well, you're completely S.O.L., unless of course you want to get back at them in some small way.