Fans of a sport who don't like video games based on that sport

I wonder if there's the opposite. Fans of a game based on a sport who don't really like the sport itself.

A friend of mine doesn't bother with pro wrestling but would buy every WWE game day one every year. He'd make me and his other friends as custom characters (with incredible attention to detail) and just make us all wrestle.
 
I like curling and wish we could get a really good game for it lol.
You know, with motion controls/accelerometers, that might just work. Because it's not about brushing as hard as you can, all the time, it's much more nuanced (even if it, admittedly, looks extremely funny).
 
I wonder if there's the opposite. Fans of a game based on a sport who don't really like the sport itself.
I love Sega Rally and I think I haven't watched a rally race in my whole life. Maybe an accidents compilation on TV but I don't think that counts lol.
 
Loved the original NBA Jam back when it launched in the 90s

I know nothing about the NBA apart from that Michael Jordan was a very good player.
 
Loved the original NBA Jam back when it launched in the 90s

I know nothing about the NBA apart from that Michael Jordan was a very good player.
They tried to revive NBA Jam a couple of times but IIRC the NBA Playgrounds titles were the last attempts at a similar game.
 
I boxed and kickboxed for over a decade and I've never touched a game related to it. Zero interest somehow.

Not a single game has simulated boxing foot works and movement correctly, which is the bread and butter of serious boxing. Fight Nights games were very good in simulate what a boxing match looks like on HBO (at the time), not on what a boxing match is as a fighter.

MMA games at least did some very interesting solutions for the ground games.
 
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We also don't get the arcadey games we used to. NFL Blitz, NBA Jam, NBA Street, Wayne Gretzky 3D Hockey or NHL Hitz, all these games were fun as hell and they're all gone.

I know that Midway is long dead, but I'd still take NHL HITZ 20-03, NFL BLITZ, NBA JAM, and MLG SLUGFEST over anything else modern in those game spaces. MLB The Show is pretty good compared to the other major NA sports franchises, for what that's worth. I watch MLB, NHL, and NFL but don't bother with the games for the most part.
exactly, EA (or EA-like) sports genres are trash now, but sports games used to be fun and varied

I've played a ton of hours of RetroBowl, and still play Super Tecmo Bowl every year (modders release updated rosters yearly if you didn't know). But Madden feels like bloated, slow corporate trash to me, no thanks.

Also, this is currently the best football game of all, if you know you know:
technobowl_setup_3.jpg
 
I'm curious about posters who are sports fans but aren't interested in sports games. If this applies to you, what is your reasoning? Microtransactions and the yearly cash in releases likely haven't helped, but what other factors limit your interest in this genre? Did you play sports games in the past and believe the genre has stagnated? Would you enjoy a renaissance of arcade sports games versus the sim type games that are popular now? Or do you simply not feel that your favourite sport is well represented by the current video games?
I'm always disappointed in tennis games because they're never even close to nailing the details of real tennis.. They are also totally lazy or incompetent in simulating an individual players strokes. They may get Nadals backhand to look pretty good but then they use Nadals stroke animation for every two handed backhand for the other pros. They may get Federers forehand motion capped and use it for 90% of other forehand etc etc

It would be so cool if they mo capped at least 15 different players strokes, serves etc so when I played as Federer, Djokovic, etc I'd actually feel like i was playing as those characters.

They also fail to have the right balance of risk vs reward so I can go for a winner like a real match and actually miss the shot sometimes. Instead, tennis games are just Pong with a tennis skin. None of the nuances . Oh, and why aren't these games really utilizing the Dualsense haptics in sports games?! Such a failure and proof of laziness (or that the devs aren't fans enough of a given sport). Feel is everything in sports.
 
Boxing is my favorite sport but I've never bothered buying a single boxing videogame.
Yeah, I do boxing myself and can't enjoy boxing games. Maybe I haven't found the right one, yet, but all I saw so far felt clunky and far removed from the dynamics of the real sport. I have yet to try the VR ones, though.
 
I stopped playing the FiFa games a long time ago, but when I first started gaming I was playing Kick Off, Sensible Soccer and especially Championship Manager non stop, now I don't play any Football games, still follow my team though.
 
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I've a story but it's the opposite, my cousin who passed away 3 years ago, he's a tech guy like me, at the same time he plays Dota II like a professional on steam with players from euro countries for decades. Some of them live near respected soccer clubs but choose to be setting on a disk half day working and half day playing Dota and other games on steam. I completely understand and respect their loyalty towards soccer clubs.
 
I am a fan of Boxing and Muay Thai. Regularly watch fights, I also pratices both for years.
I have no interested in playing any games of them since... I'd rather get in the ring and slip punches, or get punched in the face for that matter, than pressing a button to do it? lol
The activity itself, the thrill of fighting or sparring someone, can never be captured by a video game, so that's that.
 
A lot of sports games suffer the lack of competition.... NHL and NBA are the most notorious cases for me. Madden was completely obscure by NCAA last year.....
NBA 2k25 is "good" still with legacy issues, but Myera is still the most revolutionary mode that ever appear in a sports game. Offline the game is more than fine.

I will not even start with NHL.
That the best have is still NHL14 a good from PS3/360 era is completely ridiculous.... Although NHL 17 was the last solid game.

Saying this funny enough EA actually has been cooking with Ncaa, Madden got even more pressure now after the very solid return of NCAA ( the comeback story of the game is something else)

The show is solid, but is running so, so behind of Pro Yakyuu Spirits in terms of gameplay.....
But at least this year they did some improvement on the road to the show, the storylines is still great.

WWE is getting better each game.... But they really need to work on universe mode.


But I still buy all this games pretty much every year.... So in a way I'm not helping the situation 😂
 
Opposite for me, i hate watching golf or even remotely interested in pro/competitive golf but love golf games and occasionally playing the real deal.
 
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