Welcome to another edition of The Friday Five! Every Friday I cover a topic related to basketball gaming, either as a list of five items, or a Top 5 countdown. The topics for these lists and countdowns include everything from fun facts and recollections to commentary and critique. This week’s Five is a list of five realistic moments that are difficult to satisfactorily represent in basketball video games.

It’s stating the obvious, but we want to see realism in sim basketball games. Or do we? For many years, gamers enjoyed seeing NBA Live and later NBA 2K becoming deeper and more realistic virtual basketball experiences, but there has been some backlash in recent years. A vocal contingent of gamers – especially those in the online scene – have expressed a desire to see NBA 2K implement mechanics that are more about reflexes and competitive stick skills than realism. The word “arcade” is often used here, though I’d suggest it’s really more about a casual approach to sim.

Of course, it’s not just competitive online gamers and more casual hoops gamers who have quibbles with realistic moments in sim titles. Even dedicated simheads that are keen on seeing as much realism as possible have come to realise that this also means results that aren’t necessarily desirable. I speak from experience here! From outcomes that defy our expectations as gamers, to the concept of reality at times being stranger than fiction, it can be difficult for sim games to represent realistic moments in a way that’s satisfying and enjoyable. It’s a challenge for developers, and as these examples demonstrate, sometimes a few understandable breaks from reality may be in order.

1. Questionable & Downright Bad Officiating

When I was playing in my local junior league here in Australia, we had a couple of referees that didn’t like our team. It was weird because we were far from dirty, but they still took exception to us, meaning that we were bound to get a few terrible calls whenever they were assigned to our games. Naturally it stung, but my coach made a point of reminding us that we couldn’t rely on every call being correct to win. It was a tough pill to swallow, but he was absolutely right. It’s something I’ve kept in mind any time there’s been some controversy with officiating in the NBA. It sucks to see, but bad calls do happen – not always suspiciously – and there’s often much more to a loss.

To that end, imperfect officiating is a reality of basketball, and thus in theory, would make for realistic moments in basketball video games. The question is how do you represent that aspect of basketball in a way that doesn’t spoil the gaming experience? Obviously you can program games to occasionally get the call wrong, and recent NBA 2K titles have managed to reflect the challenge system with a chance to get a whistle overturned. However, having games be randomly poorly-officiated throughout would probably be way too frustrating, even though it would be realistic. As such, officiating on the virtual hardwood ends up being somewhat unrealistically accurate.

2. Careless Fouls & Accidental Turnovers

Similarly, players making errors such as careless fouls and accidental turnovers are absolutely realistic moments, but it’s difficult to represent them in basketball games without it feeling convenient and contrived. For example, NBA 2K17 nerfed long passes to counteract constant cherry-picking in the online scene, but the result was that too many competent playmakers – be they real players or MyPLAYERs – couldn’t make long outlet passes that we see all the time in basketball. Plenty of games have seen our CPU teammates commit a sloppy foul to give up free throws or an and-one opportunity, allowing our opponent to catch up. Annoying as it is, it’s still realistic.

Mind you, balance is still important. These moments should feel annoying, but also be logical and fair so that we appreciate that the game is aiming to be realistic. Needless to say, it’s easier said than done! Because these moments have to be manufactured to some extent, it’s impossible to guarantee that we won’t feel unfairly punished seeing as we did everything right and made the smart play. Indeed, this is a recurring motif with undesirable but realistic moments on the virtual hardwood. Virtual players need to make mistakes and fail, even when the person on the sticks makes the correct input. It’s why games need effective smoke and mirrors to soften the blow of a harsh reality!

3. Trades That Don’t Feel Realistic

This is a particularly interesting example to dive into, because when it comes to the trades that teams make, it’s difficult to truly say what’s realistic. Although it’s rare to see a generational player traded for a much lesser talent, or a team give up on their franchise player in the midst of a successful season, it has happened. Luka Doncic being traded to the Los Angeles Lakers is a great example of a very surprising trade that is likely to be rejected by the CPU if you propose it in a franchise mode, making reality stranger than fiction. It’s still an unusual situation of course, so even if games account for unexpected blockbuster deals, we don’t want them to be too common.

Ideally, we want to see some logic to trades in franchise modes. After all, even if deals in real life aren’t quite as fair or even as they are in video games, there’s usually some understandable motivation and reasoning. Nevertheless, we don’t want to see the Denver Nuggets randomly trade Nikola Jokic for Clint Capela when they’re one of the top teams in a MyNBA game! Too many moves like that would spoil the mode for most of us. And yet, franchise modes including questionable and downright bizarre trades would actually be more realistic than deals always being perfectly balanced! It’s an example of realistic moments ironically making sim games feel unrealistic.

4. Great Defense, Better Offense (& Vice Versa)

How many times have you played excellent defense on a player in a video game – particularly against the CPU – only to have them make the shot anyway? It never feels good, especially when you’ve forced them into an extremely difficult attempt as the shot clock winds down. The catch is that this is something that we see players do in real life, from lucky shots to all-time great scorers who frequently make seemingly impossible baskets. We’ve also seen top offensive teams and players who fill up the scoresheet come up short against a tremendous defensive effort. Even so, it’s still frustrating whenever the CPU or another gamer manages to lock down a great scorer.

The concepts of “great defense, better offense” and “great offense, better defense” are undoubtedly realistic moments to portray on the virtual hardwood, but they’re still bound to bother the most hardcore of hardcore simheads. Once again, it’s a bad result that can happen despite skilled input on our part, which goes against our expectations as gamers. Now, a lack of balance and poor tuning can result in these concepts being represented in a way that isn’t remotely fun, and that is a problem. If realism is what we want though, then we need to accept that just as in real life, we can make the right play but still come up short when facing the league’s premiere scorers and defenders.

5. Missing Layups & Easy Shots

Just as players commit silly fouls and make sloppy turnovers, great offense ends up being thwarted by better defense (and vice versa), bad calls happen, and weird trades will be made, NBA players can and will miss layups and other easy shots. Usually not as often as in lower levels of play, obviously, but yes, we do see players blow wide open jumpers and attempts at the rim alike. Unfortunately, knowing that doesn’t make it any easier to stomach missing those shots on the virtual hardwood! Not only does it feel like our skilful input isn’t being rewarded, but the CPU will often infuriatingly hit those shots and even more difficult attempts at the other end, screwing us both ways.

Again, balance and frequency are the keys here. As long as it’s not happening too often, and it happens to the CPU just as frequently in similar situations, and it’s not blatant and unavoidable rubber-banding, it’s easier to accept these realistic moments as part of the challenge in sim games; frustrating as they can be. Once again though, it does run contrary to our expectations of being rewarded for making the right input, so it’ll never feel truly enjoyable despite the realism, which is supposedly what we want out of the sim genre. Then again, as all these realistic moments have demonstrated, sometimes we like the idea of realism in games more than the reality…so to speak.

What are some other realistic moments that are difficult to represent in video games without detracting from the fun? What’s your take on the examples that I mentioned? Have your say in the comments below, and as always, feel free to take the discussion to the NLSC Forum! That’s all for this week, so thanks for checking in, have a great weekend, and please join me again next Friday for another Five.

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