World Cup 2010 is essentially FIFA 10 with a focus on national teams, the reduction in available sides hopefully compensated for by an increase in polish and incidental detail, making the most of that expensive FIFA World Cup licence.

It’ll be out in April, for the 360, PS3, Wii and PSP.

Video games aren’t just an escapist fantasy for working-class fans or talk radio regulars who agonize over their team losing a big game and can go home to make sure it never happens on their PlayStation 3. Sports simulations present just as much of an idealized landscape to the sports leagues they represent.

A video game offers a league the absolute best of both worlds.

The difference is, the leagues are assured of their vision before the first whistle is blown, in every video game ever played in their name. Because as a licensing partner, a sports league such as the NHL or Major League Baseball exercises extraordinary control over how its product is depicted.

And its product is, to millions of consumers, the sport itself.

We’re now in the sixth year of modern sports video game licensing, an era of exclusive agreements that are starting to resemble something like a league’s broadcast television rights held by one, maybe two partners on a nationwide scale. Both are powerful brand projectors and markers of a league’s legitimacy.

But licensed broadcast partners also brought us the Brawl at the Palace, Randy Moss pretend-mooning the Green Bay crowd, and Kenny Rogers assaulting a cameraman. Similarly, though every major sports league has established a league-owned news presence – a web site, if not also a cable television channel – their credibility depends on independent reporting, and leagues take pains to remind news consumers that this content is not subject to ownership review.

So in addition to the money a league makes off the licence, and the promotional effect it generates, the control it enjoys over a video game might be even more valuable. A television network will broadcast a couple hundred games a year, depending on the league and its schedule, and God knows what will happen in any of them. Fights, ejections, obscene gestures to the crowd, embarrassing celebrations, whatever. Video games will serve up millions more – each one in such a controlled environment that each game functions like an advertisement impression.

I’ve heard some wild anecdotes about what happens when the league comes into the room to approve a game. A game’s depiction of money can be a real bugaboo, largely because image managers know if anything keeps regular fans from relating to or embracing players, it’s a fat contract for playing a kid’s game, even though such deals have come to signify a player’s superstar status as much as an MVP or championship ring. You might get achievements or trophies for those awards, but I guarantee you David Stern will swallow a hairbrush whole before NBA 2K10 ever offers one for signing your first superstar deal in My Player.

We don’t even have to talk about such blatantly out-of-bounds, off the field subjects as criminal arrests or substance abuse scandals. Consider officiating. In the baseball titles, which release new version on Tuesday, arguments with the umpires are included for good-natured verisimilitude. None of the disputes carry any implication of incompetence. The most you’ll get is Matt Vasgersian deferentially asking what a fictional umpire might have been seeing. But MLB 10 The Show will this year gather up the umps to hash out a home run call, and Madden and NCAA have held their officiating up to replay scrutiny even longer. Yet the NBA is by far the most subjectively officiated game in North America, surpassed only by soccer worldwide – except in video games. Both are cleanly and consistently called there, without review. And, I’d argue, it’s because both sports suffer from enough controversy over how their rules are enforced in real life. What’s more, ask yourself how many technical fouls you’ve ever seen in an NBA video game.

In NCAA Football, the BCS Title game is controversy-free, usually because if you’re any good and playing with a major conference team, you’re in it. The BCS is a major licensing partner, after all. Even the suggestion that a team could get screwed by the formula in the game was carefully dismissed when I brought it up with EA Sports last year.

This doesn’t apply to just the major sports leagues and brands. Consider Tiger Woods, whose name has been on EA Sports’ golf title for the past 12 years. Gatorade just yesterday dropped Woods, and that’s an A-list product consumed by practically everyone who follows sports and tons more who don’t. But I’d argue that for image purposes, Woods’ arrangement with EA Sports is more valuable than the one he has with a sports drink. Since his return to the Tour still hasn’t been fixed, playing as him, or against him reacquaintances him with more fans – purely on his terms – more than any stage-managed confessional news conference ever could. Plus you’ll never see him slam a putter into the green or curse out a gallery patron for taking a picture during his backswing.

I’ve never been privy to a any licence negotiation or content approval meeting and if I ever were, I’d be no more influential than someone filling the water pitcher at the conference table. But I have to wonder just how much a video game’s positive promotional value does or should figure into the discussion. Especially considering there are in fact fewer credible competitors to deliver a quality product deserving a major sports video game licence than there are for a national broadcast contract.

Then again, sports leagues moved decisively into broadcasting in this past decade. Could publishing their own games lay ahead for them in the next?

Stick Jockey is Kotaku’s column on sports video games. It appears Saturdays at 2 p.m. U.S. Mountain time.

Get a look at those nostrils. They alone could almost carry the weight of England’s expectations. Almost.

On a side note, for USA fans, those won’t be the final shirts used in the game; for those, take a look here and here.

Featuring three game modes (World Cup, League and Versus), FIFA Online’s attempt at lowering the bar for newcomers involves the use of a “mouse-play” control system (which is surely optional for those with control pads) and “adaptable difficulty”.

Boasting upgraded graphics – based on the FIFA 10 engine – and containing all the leagues, licenses and players you’ve come to expect from the series, the new FIFA Online will kick off with an open beta in June.

It’s the latest in a long line of attempts by EA to shift to a free-to-play, pay-to-upgrade model of play on the PC, following in the footsteps of Battlefield Heroes and Tiger Woods Online.

The game, for Xbox 360 and PS3, will feature all 199 countries that competed in the World Cup qualification stage and allow players to take any of them through all stages of competition. Yay, alternate-reality-in-which-Ireland-beat-France!

EA announced the game on a Facebook page, then gave more details via an exclusive to GameSpot. According to producer Simon Humber, some of the details added for the World Cup edition include:

• A gorgeous new pitch: Our pitch simply wasn’t good enough, so we’ve made it look superb.

• Lighting of the players and environment: Clever changes to the lighting makes everything look more realistic.

• Camera flashes: You’ll see all the fans in the crowd using their cameras.

• Seat cards: Fans hold up cards to form national flags and emblems in a show of patriotism.

• Fans: Close-up shots on supporters cheering on their team or despairing in anguish.

• Confetti rains down from the sky in the team colours and stays on the pitch all game.

• Streamers create a carnival atmosphere as they glide to the ground.

• Populated benches: Characters sit on the benches rather than being empty.

• Broadcast graphics: The same captions you’ve seen in FIFA tournament broadcasts.

• Close-up celebration camera: To really feel the goal-scoring moment, the camera zooms in close to the player as he responds to your celebration commands.

• New players and managers: More content for star heads and many of the team managers.[England national team manager Fabio] Capello looks brilliant, and [notoriously tall English footballer] Peter Crouch no longer looks like a naughty elf.

Loads more details abound, such as home-pitch advantages and enhanced fatigue for teams playing at higher altitude venues. FIFA World Cup 2010 is due out April 27.

FIFA World Cup 2010 Q&A with Simon Huber [GameSpot]

Japan “is the cradle of our industry,” Moore writes, but “one of the frustrations of being an American company attempting to do business in Japan is the insularity of the industry that defends locally-made content and looks down on games from abroad.”

Moore mentions his experience with Japan while at Microsoft and acknowledges that factors such as genre, gameplay and art design have been factors in making a breakthrough. But, “with simulation sports games, these issues would seem much less relevant – it’s typically about the gameplay. So you can imagine my disappointment every year as we struggle to break through in Japan with our outstanding FIFA franchise.”

He goes on:

It is clear we still have work to do in Japan to more fully understand what drives that gamers attraction to sports titles. Let me be clear on this. I recognise that there are many factors that contribute to a gamer’s decision to purchase (or not) a particular game, I’d just hate for the gamers in Japan to not get as much enjoyment as the rest of the world out of the best sports game of this console generation.

Honestly, Moore could also be saying the same thing about FIFA’s acceptance in the United States. Granted, it sells much better here, but the U.S. is also very hidebound to its domestic traditions, especially the big four of major team sports. Soccer, football, kick-ball, however you call it, is a relatively new sport to Japan no matter its popularity. The J. League (1992), Japan’s top tier association, has been around about as long as the MLS (1993). Maybe an MVP Baseball for Japan’s Central and Pacific Leagues? Hell, I loved MVP in the States, I’d play that.

It might be a little nearsighted to chalk this up to insularity. It could be other things, such as sports preference and the tradition sports games have in Japan with which I will confess, I don’t have much familiarity. Whatever the case, it’s clear EA Sports is not exempt from his company’s efforts in that market.

FIFA in Japan [Peter Moore's Official Blog]

After losing three games of FIFA 2008 against his younger brother and a friend, James Callaghan, 17, polished off a bottle of vodka, armed himself with an axe and a knife, and stormed into the night near Yorkshire, England.

Callaghan attacked several teens with the axe, knocking one to the ground, threatened a cyclist and finally attacked a 65-year-old widow, bludgeoning and stabbing the woman to death before trying to break into a neighbour’s home while demanding alcohol.

The court heard that Callaghan had a history of undiagnosed schizophrenia, and that he was known by his friends to be violent after drinking alcohol. The Daily Mail article also points out that FIFA losing-streak and that Callaghan “also played the computer game Grand Theft Auto, which sends the player’s character on a violent crime spree”.

It’s a terrifying and sad story, but it sounds like anything could have set Callaghan off — it just happened to be a video game.

Teenager killed widow with axe in drink-fuelled rage after losing a computer game to his brother [Daily Mail]

To give you a taste of the changes included in this year’s update—most important of which is full 360-degree dribbling—EA Sports will be releasing in Europe a demo of the game on Xbox Live, the PlayStation Network and PC later this week (September 10).

North Americans have to wait a week; the demo will arrive there September 17.

You’ll have six teams to choose from, those being Chelsea, Barcelona, Juventus, Bayern Munich, Marseille and…Chicago Fire. What, no Villa? No Sydney FC? Disappointing, EA, disappointing.

We get it. A lot of you hate sports games. Hate Madden, hate FIFA, hate NBA2K, hate Pro Evo (Wii Sports doesn’t count; it’s a party game). Hate them so much you even go and upset the people responsible for making them.

“For many on the Madden NFL team it can be a source of frustration” says Phil Frazier, senior producer at EA Tiburon (i.e. the Madden guys). “Just about everyone on our team are hardcore. We have many that continue to play World of Warcraft, many that attend midnight sales for games like Call of Duty, and many that play the card game versions of Magic the Gathering or Bloodbowl. The fact that the ‘hardcore’ group doesn’t give sports games a fair shake can be frustrating.”

But have you ever taken a step back and wondered why you hate them? We do, especially since some of us are die-hard sports game fans. And for the most part, it baffles me. So I went and spoke with a couple of the guys at EA Sports, and decided to play devil’s advocate for a day in defence of sports games.

We’ve gone back through old posts and read many of your complaints. Heck, they’re the same complaints we often have with sports games. That an annual update promotes lazy development, that people are being charged $US50 for what amounts to a roster update, etc. etc.

Some of those points are valid, particularly the roster updates. But others? “In my opinion, an uninformed, non first-person shooter fan could make a similar argument about games in that genre” says Frazier. “I’ve heard sports game fans say, ‘It’s just new guns and maps’, but the gameplay itself is the same.”

Ask yourself this: How different were Call of Duty, Call of Duty 2 and Call of Duty 3 at the end of the day? They were released on (roughly) an annual cycle, all featured the same factions, the same war, the same control scheme, the same display, the same engine.

Sure, even the most generic shooter sequels often at least feature new maps, giving them a fresher appearance than another football game on another football field. But his basic point is a valid one.

Then you’ve got to consider why an annual update for a sports game is so wrong. After all, it’s a sports game, and sports run in seasons. Clear, truncated episodes, with a beginning and end, each of which tells a story and creates villains and heroes.

“Yearly cycles make a lot of sense for sports games” says Dave Littman, the producer of EA’s NHL series. “After all, professional sports do the same thing. You pay a lot of money for season tickets before the season starts. You go to all of the home games and cheer for your team until the season ends. Then…you do it all again the next year”.

Another, seemingly more reasonable complaint from people who despise sports games is that, well, they just don’t like sports. And on the one hand, that’s cool. Not everybody is going to like everything.

But on the other…what about the emotional rewards on offer in a sports game? “Sports games provide personal access to the emotion of sports and many of these emotions are the exact feelings you get when playing other genres of games”, says Frazier, digging a little past the context of the Madden series and into the gameplay itself.

“The satisfaction of a head shot in an FPS is very similar to a big play in football. Being the point leader after a battle in an FPS feels very much like winning a game of football. Making the tough decision about going with a frost or fire spec in WoW feels very much like the choice of signing the hot new rookie quarterback or the speedy running back, as it greatly impacts the way you’ll play the game.”

Moving beyond the innate “experience” you feel playing a sports game—and I think Frazier is right on the money with that—there’s also the mechanics of a sports game to consider.

For example: Let’s look past the fact you’re playing a sports game for a second. Like any other video game, the “sports” setting of a sports game is just context. Window dressing, giving a purpose to a game that under the hood—where the 1s and 0s live—is there to test your strategy and reflexes via a series of challenges.

Like Mario. He’s a plumber, but in Mario, you’re not plumbing. You don’t care he’s a plumber. You care about the timing of your jump, the brilliance of the level design, the challenges inherent in progressing from beginning to end without dying or running out of time.

Now take that line of thought and apply it to sports games.

A centrepiece of both Pro Evolution Soccer and FIFA in recent years has been a game mode where you create a single player, then assume the role of that player (and that player alone) during games, guiding them through their career, from benchwarmer to superstar.

You pick his name. His height. His facial features. Which position he favours. Then you assign him attributes from a pool of points, which will determine how well he performs at various tasks. Once created, your skills as the person controlling the action will cause those attributes to improve to over time, in turn making him a better player.

Sound like an RPG?

Most major sports games these days, from Madden to NBA games, feature “manager” modes, where you assume the role of the head of a team. So not only are you controlling the action on game day, you’re responsible for training regimes, sponsorship deals, the buying and selling (or drafting) of new players, that kind of thing.

Taking place off the field, these modes normally involve the distribution of allocated or earned resources across a variety of fields. The attention you pay to those fields can determine whether, in the larger scale of things, your team is successful. The process is often number-based (i.e. you’re spending money). It’s also usually abstract, in that the moves are represented not by literal handshakes and glasses of champagne, but by little more than text bubbles and positive or negative outcomes.

Sound like a strategy game?

One final example is online play. Those who take their Madden or FIFA online gaming seriously will, as I’ve described above, soon look past the “context” of the fact they’re playing a sports game. They’re not actually playing sport. They’re playing a video game, and a video game has its own sets of rules and exploits which can be learned, mastered and then applied. Strategies, timing, specific characters or teams that are better than others…

Sound like a fighting game?

So if, like Frazier says, the emotions in a spots game match those found in other games so closely and if, like I’ve shown above, the mechanics in a sports game can match those found in other games so closely…why the hate?

Is it because you can’t relate to an NFL or a Premier League or an NHL team as well as you can ancient Romans, aliens or vampires? That you prefer learning the move-set of a large-breasted Chinese girl to that of a pro sporting team?

If so, that’s fine!

I’m not saying you have to like sports, or sports games for that matter. Some people hate sports. Others just won’t find the kind of action on offer to their liking. That’s cool. I’m not trying to force anybody to play or enjoy something they don’t want to.

All I’m trying to do is show you that many of the criticisms of the sports game genre are unfounded, and that if you’re willing to give them a chance (as opposed to spitting hatred upon them at every mention), you may actually find something you can relate to. Maybe even enjoy.

More authentic manager modes, a different practice set-up, and 360-degree dribbling—because I didn’t suck enough with just 45 degrees of it—also go into FIFA 10. Looks like you can customise set pieces too.

In addition, they put out three screenshots featuring Frank Lampard and Chelsea cavorting on the pitch with Barcelona and Xavi.

FIFA Game Updates [EA Sports]