Sports games are hugely popular. You have your Madden’s, your NFL’s, your Fifa’s – but for one reason or another, there is seemingly no successful cricket game thrown into the mix. Why is this? Well, some of it is down to luck (or unluck – if that’s a word?), but some of it is down to a handful of other factors.
Today, we will explore the aforementioned factors, diving into why cricket doesn’t have a successful game and what makes it less viable as a game than other sports.
Cricket Isn’t as Big as Other Sports
Let’s be honest: cricket might be big, but it’s still down there somewhere between football and basketball in terms of global popularity. If you look at existing sports games such as FIFA or NBA 2K, the developers have the luxury of being able to draw on sports with massive international popularity and fan bases that have a degree of crossover.
Depending on the sport, the title can tap into audiences that are willing to buy the latest version, or spend money on microtransactions, whose numbers stretch into the millions and sometimes billions across the world.
While cricket is huge in some parts of the world, it does not have the same ‘globe-busting’ appeal. You won’t find many die-hard cricket fans in the US or much of Europe (you barely ever see the latest cricket news being mentioned in mainstream media), and that obviously means fewer potential customers for a game of cricket.
It’s a smaller market and a bigger risk to the developer; why would they put effort into something that isn’t guaranteed to bring in the sales?
Did Everything Revolves around Gameplay?
It’s an unfortunate truth that cricket doesn’t necessarily translate well to video game format. For all the beautiful nuanced skills involved in cricket, matches (especially Test matches), can take days to complete. It’s just not what the time-poor, adrenaline-seeking, action-oriented gamer is looking for from a video game.
Compare and contrast this with a FIFA or the thousands of slot machine games that experience humongous popularity and it becomes evident why developers might not want to risk losing their investment.
Cricket is a much slower sport, and therefore one that requires more patience, strategy and concentration. A player of a cricket video game likely spends far too much time outside of his innings waiting, for example, or in a series of repetitive bowling and fielding inputs. It is difficult to keep the adrenaline up, for want of a better concept, and that is what video game players are seeking.
There is a tides-of-war element to a real cricket game that you can’t really feel in a virtual setting. No cricket game has ever quite worked, and this is why. They might be able to convey a representation of the game, of its mechanics, but I don’t think they’ve ever been able to represent cricket itself.
There Likely Will be in the Future
Okay, so cricket has never quite picked up the bat and studiously played the game as well as it should have while in the virtual realm – but this might not be the end of the road. If history is anything to go by, the gaming world is a burgeoning landscape with countless possibilities. That goes without mentioning that there are ample famous cricket stars that would undoubtedly bring players in from all across the world.
Second, and just as important, mobile gaming is destined to take off. As smartphones get more sophisticated, there are more people playing games on their phones than ever in history – and cricket is one of the most popular sporting games in mobile entertainment.
Recent cricket games have captured millions of downloads, proving that there is a market for cricket-based games – just not one that appears to conform to console or PC gaming.
It also opens up lots of possibilities. If developers and publishers put in enough money and creativity, a true cricketing experience could be created for mobile, with the strategic depth of the real sport, but adapted for the speed and ease of use demanded by mobile gamers.
That cricket game might not be far off. We could be looking at a game that provides the best of all worlds: a digital version of cricket that’s accessible, playable and addictive.
Conclusion
Well, there you have it – you now know why cricket doesn’t have a successful game. It’s not just cricket’s underwhelming popularity (particularly in Western countries) that makes it less viable, but it also doesn’t lend itself very well to exciting gameplay.
As we discussed, this doesn’t necessarily mean cricket is doomed to never have a popular game. If an enthusiastic developer manages to create a game that feels realistic, fun, and engaging, it has every chance of becoming successful. It's just that this will be extremely difficult to do, and given the chances of failure, no developer or company may be willing to take it on. Alas, the possibility is there. Only time will tell. See you in the next one!