TV to Video Games to TV - part 2
The last post was just a setup for today’s brilliant (hopefully) thought.
As previously mentioned, I’m not a big sports fan - I don’t watch a lot of sports. I do get into 4-year sports - the kind that only show up once every 4 years, like the Olympics and the World Cup.
And I’m not a big fan of sports video games. No knowing much about sports is actually a big handicap when playing sports game - especially in multiplayer matches against people who actually know that they are doing.
But like my interests in the 4 years spots, every 4 years or so I do like to bust out the latest version of FIFA. True to form, during the last World Cup I did play a few matches of FIFA on the Xbox 360 and found it quite enjoyable.
And the TV to Games to TV cross pollination mentioned yesterday is quite evident in FIFA 2006. For example, in FIFA 2006 you have many camera options, one of which is a “broadcast camera” which uses a camera style similar to what you would experience when watching a game on TV. I haven’t tried playing many matches with this camera style so I’m not sure how it’ll work during actual gameplay, but it’s a great example of video games adapting to user expectations based on their experiences with traditional media. Not to mention (too late!) the real world broadcasters that provide the in-game color for the game. I could go on and list various other ways in which the video game borrows from TV broadcasts to make the experience more exciting and “realistic”.
But what I really want to talk about is the in-game Heads Up Display (HUD) and how TV could borrow from it to make the viewing experience a bit more enjoyable, especially for us quadrennial fans. (And hopefully, these ideas won’t detract from the more frequent viewer … unlike the horrid super puck from back in the day.)
In any case, as can be seen in this image, the HUD in FIFA displays various bits of information. Some of these you’d see on a TV broadcast, like the time remaining, the score, and the teams playing (duh). Some of these are specific to the game, like the player’s name (and his stats) who is currently being controlled by the video game player. The final bit of the HUD is an image of the pitch (that’s the field to you yanks) with colored dots representing the players and the ball and their location in the pitch.
And THAT’S the bit that I think broadcasts could borrow from the FIFA games (if EA hasn’t patented that, which they may have). With RFID technology, it’s possible to put a chip on each player and the ball (which they did in the last World Cup anyway). When viewing the game you’d get to see the action near the ball, but you could also glance at the pitch overview graphic and see where the defenders of the attacking team were, how far up their goalie was playing … generally, you’d get a sense of where all the other off-screen players were. Personally, I think this would open up the TV viewing experience greatly … making it somewhat more similar to watching the game at a stadium where you can decide to follow the action or focus on the other players to see how they’re setting up for the next play.
Here’s an in-game clip that shows a bit of the gameplay and the HUD in action: FIFA 2006 Gameplay Video. Take a look at it in full-screen mode and see how that little graphic gives you a fuller appreciation of the entire pitch.
So …all you all footballers out there … would this add to your viewing experience or is this another Super Puck?