Game Changing

Wired reports on the apparent influence of video games on the next generation of sports stars.

This is an interesting feedback loop. The history of sports games has been dominated by the race for greater and greater realism, and this has reached such a degree, that the real games are now being influenced:

Then Brandon Stokley snagged the ball on the play that would soon be dubbed the Immaculate Deflection and pulled his astonishing did-you-see-that Maddenball maneuver. Donny Moore, an EA designer who was sitting to Madden’s left, leaped to his feet. “That’s what happens in the game!” he screamed, ecstatic. Moore knew that an experienced gamer would never run right into the end zone and give his opponent time for a comeback. No coach taught Brandon Stokley to drain the clock like that. Madden the game did.

When asked to explain this maneuver, Stockley wasn’t sure what prompted him to make the decision on the spot, but he was certain that he had performed it hundreds of times in videogames: