An Open Letter: Rugby Games Are Good So Keep Making Them

A lot of people like rugby union. Maybe not as many as those who like football, baseball, basketball or monster trucks but there are many out in the wide world who live and breathe heterosexual men jumping on top of each other and throwing each other to the ground for 80 minutes.

I myself am not one of those people but I do like the sport. There’s a ferocious and electric atmosphere on the rugby pitch that is very rarely matched in any sport outside of ice hockey. Thirty men throwing an egg-shaped ball around may not sound very interesting but the same could be said for football which is 22 men kicking a round ball around. In all seriousness I think that sometimes rugby is actually a better sport than football as it is a greater exhibition of sporting athleticism, and the level of technical skill is probably more complex too.

There are hundreds of sports in the world though so me trying to convince you that rugby union is one of, if not the best sport in existence is a lost cause. However, I’m writing this from a videogame perspective trying to convince you that what was started shouldn’t be stopped: don’t stop making rugby union games.

Admittedly there have been only eight retail games produced since Codemasters released Jonah Lomu Rugby on the Sega Saturn as well as the PlayStation and PC back in 1997. However, I know more than just a handful of people who have played one of those games and I’m betting they would love for another one to come along in the future. There’s an online petition on Facebook with over 72,000 members that seemingly want the same thing I do. I’m asking for a next-generation rugby union game for both the PS3 and the 360. That’s all. Well, a PC version would be nice too.

I recently invested in Rugby 08 on the PC when browsing the EA Store. It cost me just £2.49 but I would easily have paid upwards of £10 for the game. Although it was released in July 2007 for the PS2 and the PC, it still holds its own when it comes to entertainment value and realism. The only issue I’ve found with Rugby 08 has been with the running direction, which for some of the players is reduced to just left, right, backwards and forwards. That still doesn’t take away from the fun though – I reckon some people still play video games from years and years ago that have rudimentary movement controls.

I have several suggestions for what would be welcome in a new game which I’ll quickly outline here for your delectation. Much like the FIFA Soccer series, having the main English rugby union league – the Guinness Premiership – in the game would be a must for me. Also, a Tournament Mode that featured both the Six Nations and the Tri-Nations as playable competitions would be a worthy addition. The World Cup would almost certainly feature regardless as it did in Rugby 08 but I’d like to see the Challenge Mode make a return too.

I’m thinking that for this to be done properly the amount of content available on the game should rival the likes of Tiger Woods PGA Tour and FIFA Soccer which both offer in excess of six or seven game modes, an in-depth online mode and downloadable content.

Player likeness is another suggestion I’m making. It would be harder to compile the facial likenesses for the researchers who would work on the game, since rugby is not as prominent or world-renowned as football for instance. But it wouldn’t be impossible, especially if only a handful of main leagues were included.

My other main suggestion would be to tweak the game controls, most specifically player control. Referring back to FIFA Soccer, the latest version has an intuitive, realistic player movement system and this quality of control should be reciprocated. With motion control systems being introduced for the 360, the PS3 and PC this year if a next-generation rugby union game were to be created within the next two years motion control integration would fit very nicely, especially Project Natal.

There’s a groundwork game model which can be worked from, but I think that any developer that has the cajones to take on the development would have to include content rivalling FIFA Soccer and not Vancouver 2010 to ensure that any user base it wins back or creates isn’t perturbed by the lack of stuff to do.

Final Thoughts:

I had played Rugby 08 several times before but I never purchased it so perhaps I’m not in the best position to lead the charge for the wanting of a new rugby game. However, with my interest in the world of rugby piqued only in the last few years I find that much like any sport I’m interested in I’ve looked for video game simulations so I can reciprocate my interest outside of the sport. Surely that’s one of the biggest reasons why people buy and play sport simulation games: to simulate the real experience and connect on an alternate medium to a sport of preference?

This leads me to the crux of my open letter: Rugby 08 is a great game and I will certainly find myself putting many hours into the game now that I own a copy. I can’t say that I’ve played most of the other videogame iterations (the other rugby union games I’ve ventured on to were Rugby (EA’s original rugby game) and Rugby 07 on the PS2) but I can say that if another one were to be developed I would be there on launch day to pick myself up a copy.

If any developer were to take development of a new rugby game on, I’d expect it to be EA as they did develop the main rugby union series and have a large number of sport simulation franchises already. As long as a developer looking to make an arcade/internet rugby union game is not the big gun driving this forward, I’d be happy with any ambitious developer to take on the project.

Oh, and a rugby league game would be nice. Sure, why not.