Novel way of dealing with the hockey strike may accelerate use of gaming as tool of prediction
When the labor dispute between players and league owners began earlier this year... basically, hockey fans got hosed out of seeing how this season would develop. I myself like to play competitive hockey pools on Yahoo!, so I am missing a major Fall pasttime.
Of course, when there are problems, usually someone always comes up with a fun solution. In this case, Tom Blink and canada.com have decided to "play the season that could have been," using NHL 2005 on the PS2 and post the results. Of course, since its based in the Toronto area, it is very Maple-Leafs centric, but they do post the updated standings every Tuesday, so you can follow how well your own team is doing in this odd simulation of a season that never was.
EA, whose NCAA Football games have been used in the past by TBS to try to predict the results of their Saturday night matchups, might also benefit from this kind of exposure, as the idea of playing the season that never was may appeal to other players who may not have bought this year's title. If anything, the present labor dispute started, EA probably took quite a hit on this title, but it might also be beneficial for them in the long run.
And if this little experiment produces credible results... who knows what might happen. We may soon see games being used more often to predict future results of other sporting events amongst other things. Like perhaps Superpower 4 being used by the State Department to test the potential consequences of a foreign policy decision, or a variation of an RTS tactic war game to help plan an offensive in a war. Of course, chance would play a huge factor in that too. But when in life doesn't luck play a part. As an experiment, it is very interesting. Then again, we are less than two weeks from seeing if the Political Machine has correctly projected the winner in the upcoming election, which if it has would proved to be a wetshed moment for gaming.
Are we too far from the days when we might not entirely need professional athletics if the simulation gets better and better every year?