Open Letter to the IOC

By David Rasmussen
2nd Apr 06

Do Olympians lose sleep over inferior Olympics games on the market?
Does the lack of a Figure Skating event in any Winter Olympics games plague the thoughts of Sasha Cohen or Michelle Kwan (not to be confused with golfer Michelle Wie) as they sleep?
Does the lack of name worthy athletes in Winter Olympics games trouble people like Bode… wait, his lack of appearance in Torino 2006 the Official PS2 game is the least of Bode’s worries these days! My bad.
Does the IOC (the International Olympics Committee) really give a damn that their video game image sucks worst than their own present public image? Probably not, which is the problem with the IOC (probably just one of their problems but since I’m not experienced to talk about the other problems we’ll stick to their video game problems).

Considering that the IOC could stand to garner as much good PR as possible these days they could at least attempt to pretend they actually give a damn about their video game “face” that they put forward.
However it seems that they have no such worries, which is not good since they are not exactly riding high after the ratings for the Torino 2006 games came in only to show the Olympics sucking vacuum with shows like Dancing with the Stars and American Idol overthrowing the Olympics in the ratings, which is a bummer if you are high on the IOC food chain. Obviously they’ll have to hustle it majorly if they want to get things turned around in time for Beijing 2008 and Vancouver 2010... But how will they do that?

Their first line of defense in turning about their fortunes is, believe it or not, their video games.
With a good solid series of games the IOC can start a long chain of events that’ll solidify a strong viewing audience that’ll keep people coming back for each and every Olympics every two years… yes. But of course with a (bleep)y weak inferior series of crackerjack games put out for a quick buck rather than a long term plan and, well, the IOC will see how an equally long chain of events can undermine and cripple viewing audiences that have no desire to come back Olympics after Olympics.
In fact, if the IOC doesn’t snap out of it, they are going to be quickly runover like a Roman Legion being trampled by an elephant unit in Rome : Total War! And that, yes, is not a pretty thing.

First off let’s set aside the whole underachieving games of the 2002 Salt Lake City games game, or the bland lifeless Torino 2006 games game (both for the PS2), and let’s focus on what’s next.
And what’s next is the “off season” and what comes next, Beijing 2008 and Vancouver 2010.
Considering that the Olympics happen but once every two years (once per “season” every four years) you’d think that the people who make a truly memorable game considering the long gap that divides each game (2 years between Winter/Summer and Summer/Winter and 4 years between Winter/Winter and Summer/Summer) they’d at least attempt to make a good game.
Mind you I am presently only talking Winter Olympics games as failing properties since I have not tried out the Summer games (last one being Athens 2004) so I can’t say if these are worst or better… but from what I’ve seen of Athens 2004 I have a feeling it rocks over Torino 2006 just from what I’ve seen of it.
Anyway what the hell! The games they’ve put out recently with Salt Lake City and Torino are damn bad! You can’t recommend these to anyone because they’re so poorly made! What! Six events in Salt Lake City (which are vaguely forgettable) and 15 events in Torino 2006 with a lack of spirit or even the adjustable environment depth provided in Salt Lake City 2002? These games are worth what I paid for when I bought Salt Lake City 2002 new at Blockbuster… I.e. $2!! $2!! These games are only worth two damn dollars!! Even Torino because it is such a short forgettable game! Damn!

Of course even if the present Winter Olympics games are so bad we still have… wait, we have nothing.
The IOC only makes Olympics games, and nothing else. No Olympics Hockey spinoff, no Figure Skating Championships spinoff, no Skiing/Snowboarding Championships spinoff, etc! Damn! There are so many chances that the IOC could have exploited, and could have worked and yet didn’t! It’s as if they only “bother” with an “Official” game once every four years because, well, they don’t want anyone else making a game that might, heaven forbid, be worth playing (let alone owning)!

Let’s start off with now.
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, the IOC “wakes” up and finally goes back to the drawing board and has game makers whip up a base game, which will revolutionize and innovate the Winter Olympics gaming system to the point that it starts a rave amongst sports gaming fans. How will that rave start? Here’s a thought on that.

- Let’s start it off with the Olympics itself. The game would be have three Olympics : 1998... I can’t remember where that was…, Salt Lake City 2002 and Torino 2006. It would then combine all the events from every game (though I don’t know if they did a 1998 game) and make one game with the largest amount of available closable events, including maybe some of those “edited” events like Figure Skating and Short Track.

- The game features two levels of growth which forms an addictive desire to play the Olympics over and over again. First off is a point system where players earn points from competing which goes into an account. This account is used to purchase extras, unlockable alternate athletes/costumes and upgrades, and more. This would be done from an Olympics Village (one for each event) where you can buy and view extras or change things with alternate stuff you bought for your team (like alternate Classic athletes for the country of your choice, new or classic athletic uniforms or classic gear like classic bobsleds or classic bobsled tracks to play on).
The second thing you’ll get is experience points which you’ll use to level up your athletes which makes them better athletes (which you can take to future Olympics which I’ll go into shortly).

- Name names of all the big Olympians from past and present (past Olympians available for purchase). Considering the use of big name athletes works for other sports games like Football, Soccer, Hockey and more works for them then why couldn’t it work for the Olympics?

- Solid cinematic for the Opening/Closing Ceremonies (offered so far only for the Salt Lake City 2002 Olympics game from what I’ve seen of it) and a “Dynasty” mode where you run your team through all 16 days of each Olympics in “realtime” choosing which events to personally take a hand in and which to leave to the AI athletes on a daily basis.

- Easy to learn and master game mechanics that makes it easy for gamers to pick up the game and get into it quickly, making it that much more fun to get into the game when you’re not having to learn through the annoying means of “trial and error”, which sucks.

- And finally flaggable data which means you can transfer it to either “Off Season” spin off games (where you can continue to mature and grow your athletes through events during the off season between Olympics) and/or transfer it to the next Olympics game, which would be Vancouver 2010.

- Oh, and did I mention that this should have online play? I mean why have a series of games about the games of the world if you can’t actually compete against the world? That sucks.

And that, by the way, is just for starters… but a good start nevertheless.
The IOC has got to take their videogame “face” as seriously (if not more so) as other aspects of their public image, because (as I said above) a good game franchise can only reflect well on the IOC, while a (bleep)y franchise can only reflect poorly on the same IOC.
OK. Enough preaching from me. Let’s round this up with a final rundown of what the IOC needs to do.

1-The Winter Olympics game franchise needs an Resident Evil 4 sized innovation infusion that’ll bring the entire franchise back to joyous life, and at least drag their games back into gold medal standard (depending of course whether or not the games ever had a gold medal standard to begin with).

2-While I haven’t heard smack talk about the Summer Olympic games, it would be nice to bring some innovation into this franchise to match the innovations of the Winter Olympics games.

3-How about they actually do something during the “off season” to keep people’s interest on their franchise. Off season is NOT a time to rest on thy laurel & hardies, IOC, you have to hustle your brand during the off season just as vigorously… actually more vigorously… as you do during an Olympics year.
Games like Olympics Hockey, Championship Figure Skating, Championship Skiing/Snowboarding and so forth is something worth looking into. Keep the Olympics brand in the public eye as much as possible, and keep interest in it going year after year instead of every 2 years.

3a-And don’t forget the three points of game evolution and improvement.
Game points to purchase extras and unlockables in the Olympics Villages.
Game experience to level up your athletes which can carry from game to game.
Finally flagged data ability which allows you to take your Olympics team from competition to competition, complete with their leveled up abilities and unlocked alternate stuff and costumes.

4-The IOC could actually try to pretend to give two damns about their tarnished unflattering image that they presently tout about as if they couldn’t care what the heck they look like now. Give a damn, people, give a damn already!!

Otherwise that’s it.
You can take the IOC to water, but you can’t lose the dead weight of intellectual death in their organization if they refuse to “evolve”… if that was possible for the IOC. Sure, I guess short of hearing a batch of original Olympics games coming out in the coming months the only way we’ll know whether or not the IOC learned it’s lessons is by waiting for the 2010 Vancouver games… if we were actually patient enough for that. Anyway it’s not like I care. The IOC want to be backwards hey, be my guest, just don’t complain when your ratings drop lower and lower and lower and you don’t know why… losers.

-- David Rasmussen 2nd Apr 06