The VOLTA Blueprint
Simulation sports gaming, in its current form, is the natural result of studios and publishers investing substantially in league licenses. As a result, gamers do not have variety in their selection of sport titles — the majority of games attempt to simulate real-life.
VOLTA is a fictional, global street league in EA Sports FIFA 20 and FIFA 21. VOLTA is the blueprint for studios to break the simulation trend and compete with the major sports gaming publishing houses with fantasy gaming.
Firstly, sport is about freedom of movement, self-expression, culture, and community. These characteristics translate well in a digital format, and sport can share many traits with the philosophy of digital open-source. Collectively, we can use this “content-creator mentality” to develop the genre of sports gaming further.
Second, reimagining the sports we love into battle-royal inspired games will allow non-licensed sports games to not only enter the marketplace, but thrive. VOLTA is a re-imagined form of futbol, and offers a glimpse of what the sport genre can be in a digital format.
Open-source
Sport is open-source. EA Games does not have a monopoly on the sport of futbol and 2K Games does not have a monopoly on every basketball play-ground. Further, sport is about freedom - there are no intellectual property rights to physics, locomotion, or competition. Sport in the purest sense is non-discriminate. Yet as gamers, we are playing within the shackles of a framework dominated by the likes of EA Sports, 2K Sports, and others who dictate what games we play, and how to play the sports we love.
Sports gaming excels with community-generated leagues and players. If we think beyond licensed logos and teams, there is a digital world we can create on our own. The modding community is doing this now. We can simply dispense with the licenses and still enjoy the street-style game modes currently offered.
Gamers and creatives are paying publishers for the tools to build our own leagues and worlds that we love and wish to be a part of. The licenses have nothing to do with the enjoyment and the success of “street” game modes.
Street sport is an entry point for major studios who have been on the sidelines for years. Granting gamers tools to build and traverse their own non-licensed leagues is possible. VOLTA’s success is the precedent.
VOLTA represents what the game futbol is on many levels yet remains fictional. It has global culture, fascinating court designs, and fun character building. The physics, locomotion and animation are ported directly from 11-versus-11. VOLTA is simulation ball in a fantasy-league.
With the right mix of world-building, quality create-tools and strong sport-culture elements, a game similar to VOLTA would thrive on its own as a stand-alone title.
Secondly, sport is made for battle royal. Battle royal is about accessibility to the masses, paired with character customization. There is tremendous opportunity for studios to develop 100-player competitions for many sports — it just takes some imagination.
Creating sports competitions that allow millions of players to drop in and compete will open up the genre to gamers across the spectrum. Capitalizing on battle-royal is not novel, yet the sports genre has been slow to adopt such enjoyable, massive multiplayer game modes.
Fortnite, developed by Epic Games, has reportedly had over 400 million gamers in its lifespan. In 2019, Epic Games earned over $1.5 billion from the game. Capturing a small percentage of market share of the battle royal space is an assurance against the risk of launching a non-licensed sports game in a licensed-sports gaming world.
Conclusion
Sport gaming can exist in many forms — and simulation sports gaming is still simulation in a street setting, with or without licenses.
EA Sports VOLTA may have very well created the idea of sport that may end their own dominance. Dependence on sport league licensing is not necessary when gamers are the designers. All we need is a platform of tools.
