Can Video Games Help MMA?
By Brandt DeLorenzo on Feb 19, 2008
WWE capitalized on selling 26 million copies of the WWF and WWE Smackdown video game series. The Madden football titles sell out annually at large retailers across the country; Madden ’07 sold 7.4 million copies before the end of the year. Fight Night, the boxing video game series, hasn’t sold an many copies, but has received great ratings by many critics. All three sports, professional wrestling, professional football, and boxing already had the ingredients to produce a great product before the video games became big hits. Can MMA capitalize on the video game market as well? The UFC seems to think so. After signing an agreement with THQ in 2006 to produce an Ultimate Fighting Championship video game series with similarities between both the WWE and Madden series for the next five years, we still have yet to see any real results.
THQ finally announced on February 9th that the first real preview of the game, titled UFC 2009, will premier during UFC 84 on May 24th. The video game itself is slated to be released sometime in the near future although release dates are still up in the air. What’s taking so long? Apparently the UFC has been taking some of the The Ultimate Fighter candidates like Matt Arroyo along with a slew of well known and up and coming fighters to produce a huge initial roster of fighters from the past and the present. Game play from the initial preview back on January looks very good, but there is much to be desired above the past UFC games which received many poor ratings. The Pride video game faired better, but Pride is gone and I can’t see a DREAM game being released any time soon.
Once the game is finally released, THQ has until 2011 to create roster updates and extra features, similar to how the Madden series is kept current. Once the initial contract is up, THQ may continue to create future titles based on the success of the game or the UFC may decide to scrap the video game series completely. What’s interesting is that the success is based on whether MMA fans are willing to buy a fighting video game and to be honest, as an MMA enthusiast, I would probably guy the game to stay entertained between the monthly UFC PPV fights and free MMA productions. But with considerably fewer casual MMA fans (and even fewer enthusiasts) compared to the WWE and the NFL, how can THQ and the UFC measure the success of this video game? Does the UFC expect to sell millions of copies or have they set their standards to a reasonable level to reduce any potential disappointment? I doubt it. The sights are probably set much too high, but I hope the game does well for the sake of the sport. Perhaps we’ll see a healthy growth of the sport with the thousands of 18-35 year old males playing the game around family and friends. I wouldn’t mind dishing out some brutal submissions on some of my friends who think MMA is just about “punching the crap out of people.” It’s still a good 90 day wait.
Confirmed fighters include:
- Chuck Liddell
- Quentin Jackson
- Joe Lauzon
- Michael Bisping
- Matt Arroyo
- Forrest Griffin
- Diego Sanchez
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Interesting article.
I’m not sure how I feel about the bringing in of a video game, as a hardcore fan of the sport long before all of the mainstream stuff came in, but I guess publicity is publicity, and this is about the best that it can get.
If the game does well, it’ll definitely help the sport out. I’m not sure how much it will contribute to the popularity of the sport, as I think that the guys who will be buying it will be fans already, but I can see how it might contribute to the spread of info through other groups, instead of just fight fans, and that seems like a good possibility.
That said, I’m a little bit thrown by who they are calling “in” the video game. I understand that it’s a UFC game, but the list of confirmed fighters looks a little bit wierd to me. I mean, the guys I expect to be on this list:
Tim Sylvia
Andrei Arlovski
Big Nog
Quinton Jackson
Chuck Liddell
Tito Ortiz
Anderson Silva
Rich Franklin
GSP
Matt Hughes
BJ Penn
Sean Sherk
But Matt Arroyo?
I guess the fact that he’s mentioned explicitly bugs me a little, while four champions and a half-dozen former champions aren’t. Anyway, it’ll be an interesting game, I’ll definitely pick up a copy.
I think its value will be based on it’s merits. Most fighting games have to offer a fun, long-lasting fight engine. By the latter I mean the two criteria such as easy to learn and Deep to explore.
If the game doesn’t at least meet that, it’ll get nowhere even within the hardcore market and even less outside. Most people will rent it once and then never speak of it again.
But if it can do those two things, there’s a chance for outsiders to try it, like and learn from it. As they learn the controls they’ll have to learn about grappling and the “boring” stuff.