It's amazing the things you will find at the grocery store.

So wifey calls me up the other day while I was at work and she asks me to go to the store on my way home. She needed me to pick up a couple of prescriptions for her, maybe get a gallon of milk, and, oh yeah, pick up an ice pack because she happened to slam her thumb in a drawer.

Wonderful honey, call the doctor.

So I get to Albertsons and pick up her prescriptions and everything else, and while I was at it I stopped by the magazine rack. I perused the different publications for the usual fare: WWE Magazine, LeAnn Rheims on the cover of Maxim (my God she's grown up), Christina Agiulara on the cover of Rolling Stone (since when did she decide she wanted to dress and live like a porn star anyway?), and…oh, what's this? The Holiday Issue of PCGamer is on the shelves. Oh cool, let's see what's new in the PC world.

Well I leafed through the magazine once I got it home and I didn't get too far before I found an article that is sure to make each and every one of us shudder. It is an editorial taking a look at the state of sports gaming for the PC, and in reading the article I did not like what I saw. Not for the fact that PCGamer found some reasoning behind the actions that software publishers have taken in the last few years, but that the reasons given were so alarming, and actually made everything else that has happened fall into place.

PCGamer gave some background into how the sports genre for the PC began to slide towards the precipice, and how it has been teetering on the edge ever since. They were able to give me a little more insight into what exactly what happened with the FBPro'99 debacle. It turns out that the executive staff at Sierra just wouldn't get on board to the proposed changes that the programmers were trying to implement. So the programmers did what they could with the game, only to have the rug pulled out from underneath them by the aforementioned executives who released the game upon the public, recalled it, and then put a bullet in the back of it's head a couple of months later.

They were also able to give us a glimpse into just how much of a percentage that PC copies are sold as opposed to console copies for a game like Madden. This is something that we here at Pcfootball.net have been asking for for several months now. We really wanted to know why EA kept saying that there was no interest for an NCAA game for the PC when people kept supporting Madden for the PC.

You know that old saying "be careful what you ask for, you just might get it?"

Well the numbers as gathered for PCGamer by NPD break down like this. Apparently Madden sells around 1 million copies for the PS2 every year. For the PC, Madden 2002 sold 82,024 copies, and Madden 2003 so far has sold 36,149 copies.

Ouch!

With numbers like that it is easy to see how EA can conclude that the PC market is limited. It is also easy to see how they can think that a port of last years console release would be good enough for the PC crowd, as has happened in year's past. Thankfully this year we got our own game and are on par with the console crowd. Also with those numbers it is easy to see why they would want to concentrate on selling copies of Madden for the PS2, Xbox and Gamecube.

It is also easy to come to the conclusion that this may be the last release of Madden for the PC that we might ever see.

I would like to wait until after Christmas before I star shoveling dirt on the grave of PC Sports games and the Madden series in particular. I have this feeling that as we get closer to Christmas the sales numbers are going to spike and we will see a lot more sales of Madden for the PC. I think that will be due to people who have held off buying the game because they were waiting for another patch, or for gamers to make other rosters and artwork, or they are waiting for the price to go down, or they finally got tired of their 10-year-old brother hogging the PS2 with yet another game of Final Fantasy X.

But I can imagine most of you are asking yourselves another question. If the sales for Madden are that bad, then how bad is it for the other sports titles out there? Well according to PCGamer it is bad all the way around, at least for PC titles. Sales for NBA Live, NHL, FIFA etc all suffer in comparison to their console counterparts. Sports titles for the consoles are in abundance nowadays, compared to the number of titles for the PC. In fact EA Sports is practically alone when it comes to making sports games nowadays. Sega, Sierra, Accolade, 989 Sports, Microsoft and Konomi have either gotten out of the PC Sports genre or have been bought out by other companies altogether.

Fortunately for us EA hasn't decided to abandon the PC Gamer altogether, unlike some of their compatriots. Sega, for example, wouldn't even speak to PCGamer because they were a PC magazine! If this is the attitude that Sega has about a magazine, what do you think their opinion is about you and me? If they think that the editors at PCGamer are trash under their feet, what does that say about their opinion of us? Not much apparently. They evidently feel that our money is not good enough for them since we are all a bunch of backwards Neanderthals who refuse to come into the 21^st Century.

It is that attitude that Sierra had about the fans of their Sports franchises, and Sierra has suffered for it. What was the last game you bought from Sierra? Yeah, I know, I got played with FBPro'99 too. And because of the mishandling of the recall and the shut down of the franchise I have never bought another Sierra game since. That's the same reason that I won't buy a Sega product - I am not good enough for them apparently. They only want to talk to you if you own a console, and if you are a PC Gamer, then you obviously must be a Godless Communist in their eyes.

Look, the reason I won't buy a console system is one of economics. Say I got an Xbox, and all the hot titles that I wanted along with it. Well in a year or two the next version is going to come out. It is going to be better than the current Xbox and it will cost around $299.99. But, if I want to play my old Xbox games on the Xbox-Mark II then I'm out of luck because the format for the Xbox-Mark II is different than the Xbox. So that means that I have to go out and track down all of the titles that I bought for the Xbox and buy those for the Mark II. So by the time I've spent $800.00-$1,000.00 for the same titles that I had before and the Mark II I've spent nearly as much as I would have spent on a brand new PC. On the other hand if I wanted a brand spanking new game for the PC and my hardware wasn't quite powerful enough, then all I might have to do is upgrade my Video card and my Sound card. If I played it right I might be able to upgrade my rig for around $400.00 total. So by upgrading my PC I save myself $400.00-$600.00 and a lot of heartache.

Besides, if I want to edit the names of the players on my classic teams in Madden, I don't have to buy a shitload of memory cards in order to do it. All I have to do is make the change and then save it onto my hard drive. So for all you 10-year-olds out there who keep chanting "consoles rule, PC's suck" all the time, just remember this - while you are handing the ball off to HB#34 on the '85 Bears, I am handing off to Walter Payton! Scoreboard junior, now put down the controller, turn off the TV and go do your homework! It's a school night!

But what of EA and the future of the Madden franchise? Would they decide that it just wasn't worth it to try to attract the PC Gamer any longer and just concentrate on games for the various console platforms where most of their profits apparently come from? Somehow I don’t think so. Read the words of EA spokesman Jeff Brown as quoted from the PCGamer article: " EA is more than happy to pick up the business from any developer who foolishly believes that the PC market is shrinking… So far, the console competition with Sega has been great for EA. It fired up everyone from our studios to our publishing group, and as a result, EA's Madden and NCAA games have captured 85 percent of the football market. If Sega can give a similar boost to EA games on the PC, we're happy to have them try."

Besides, I don't think EA really wants to alienate a part of their customer base, no matter how much of a minority it might be. Remember, the same people who buy Madden for the PC are the same people who plop down their hard earned caysh for Sim City 4, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, and Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2. The backlash from the Sierra furor is still fresh in people's minds. EA really doesn't want the same thing to happen to them.

So what is the future of sports games for the PC? Oddly enough the future of the genre may lie in the hands of the fans. There are currently two games in development that will give PC Football fanatics an alternative to Madden. Division Rivals allows you to simulate or play as a created player and track their progress from High School to the pros. It will also contain a 3D play editor, and it will allow for the development of 3^rd party utilities to enhance the overall gaming experience. Maximum Football is made by David Winter and will allow you to choose between NFL rules and CFL rules. It has a distinctive FBPro'99 look to it, but it will no doubt play much better than it's counterpart!

In addition to fan developed games, there are also games that are termed "abandonware". Games that were published years ago, but that are no longer supported by the companies that put them on the shelves. Many of these games can be found at sites like www.the-underdogs.org and others that feature downloads of games past. They usually provide a manual for you to use along with the game, but if not you may be familiar enough with the game to not need it. That was where I was able to pick up NFL Challenge by XOR Corporation. True, the players are nothing but a bunch of X's and O's, but it is still a lot of fun to play.

Sports games, particularly football, on the PC may in a perilous position right now, but I don't think that we will have to face a gaming Armageddon. Not as long as there are fans out there who love to play the games, or developers who want to outdo the big boys at EA. I would love to see EA's NCAA Football released for the PC again, as well as Knockout Kings, but until it is determined that the market is picking up, that is not likely to happen anytime soon. That is a shame not only for us, but for the publishers as well. They are missing out on an important fact: today's console gaming kids are tomorrows PC buying parents, and they will be making the buying decisions for their households.

It would be wise for companies like EA, Sega, Konomi et al to cater to those customers and keep them happy. If they don't, the publishers themselves will be the unhappy ones as they watch their profits shrink.

Until next time…