Reality Sports Online is another layer of Fantasy Sports
In past posts, I discussed fantasy sports giving sports fans a chance to pretend to be general managers and owners, drafting players and swinging deals. I also talked about how fantasy sports allows players to further shift their admiration towards the leagues, their affiliates, and the decision-makers rather than the players themselves. Sometimes traditional and daily fantasy games don’t hit that imaginative sweet spot. Luckily for those fans, Reality Sports Online exists. What is Reality Sports Online you ask? Well, I’ll let them tell you:
“Reality Sports Online (“RSO”) is designed for the avid fantasy users seeking to emulate professional front office operations and a realistic general manager experience. RSO offers the most sophisticated and realistic fantasy game in existence. However, our revolutionary software and clean interface makes negotiating contracts, signing players, managing your Salary Cap, simple and easy whether you are a dynasty expert or a re-draft player.”
How are they different from traditional fantasy games? For one thing, as they say, “Every element of RSO is based on reality.” Players can select and sign athletes to one or multi-year contracts. Just like in real life, the athlete weighs his options using an A.I. algorithm and makes decisions based on real life tendencies. Additionally, the league offers an offseason, a rookie draft, and free agency. Players can even construct a full roster as opposed to the restricted number of players you get in traditional fantasy games. Basically, RSO operates just like a franchise mode in Madden with more integration into real life. Of course, the players are actually like GM’s in the sense that their success depends on the performance of players that they have no physical control over. In sports video games, players can draft and sign the players, max out their ratings, and win every game playing on rookie mode if they wanted.
In Andan Pandian’s “Reel World”, he discusses films as an extension of dreams, a world viewers can get lost in. “When you watch a film, it should relieve your unconscious.” In, theory, films can serve as an escape from reality, allowing the viewer to immerse themselves into the experience. Features like IMAX only serve to further engage the viewers.
RSO gives participants the best of both worlds. They get to live the experience of being a general manager while keeping one foot in reality through following the games. They offer that extra bit of immersion that traditional fantasy games have not covered yet. They try to live up to the tagline “Your seat at the front office is waiting.”
This plays a bit into what I wrote last week, with the shifting of the adulation from players to GM’s. When I was younger, I wanted to play baseball because of Ken Griffey Jr., not the person who drafted him. Still I played plenty of franchise and dynasty modes as well, so I see the appeal. RSO is a fantasy game that can appeal to a person who feels they are not getting enough out of their current fantasy league.
