A Sporting Chance

Lets talk about Sport games.

I don't play them.

Okay seriously, I'm not into sport games but I don't disregard them completely: they fulfill a function and I have played sports games (to mixed results). But sport games aren't something I go out of my way to try. Maybe it's me but there's something about doing something on a computer that can easily be done outside is off-putting: You want to kick a soccer ball? Then go outside and kick a soccer ball!

But here's something I've been pondering recently: What is the place sport games occupy?

Whenever someone discusses the greatest games there a number of usual suspects each from a particular genre. Everyone has an idea as to what makes a collective of the greatest games EVAH and most often than not, such a collective is represented with RPGs, Shooters, RTS, platformers and driving games. But where do sporting games fit in?
I can imagine whenever it comes to, say, best RPGs, people will point to Skyrim, Planescape Torment, Baldurs Gate 2, Secret of Mana or Final Fantasy 6.  But ask someone to mention the greatest sporting games ever made and what would they say? A far less passionate response maybe?
Have some great, era-defining games come from the sport genre? I recall Tecmo Super Bowl, NHL 94, NBA Jam, Punch out, Virtua Tennis, Baseball Stars, the Madden series, and the Tony Hawk series all being big in their day but no one seems to talk about them with the fondness and passion of, say, Half-Life or Starcraft. Why is this so?

I guess gaming has, until recently, always been considered a 'geeky' activity. And as is the case with geeks, anything related to sports is territory both foreign and forbidden. Speaking from experience, I have seen very few instances where both the sport and the geek camps intersect. Sure I've meet geeks who've also been interested in sports but they're very few and far between.
And of course, this mentality seeps into gaming. Yes gaming offers a form of escapism but somehow  playing cricket for Australia seems slim pickings when compared to saving the universe from a massive, army of aliens armed to the teeth and blinded with hatred. And those who are interested in sports will have little patience for sporting games because, as stated above, they're already playing the sport in question for real!

But then again it is also possible that everyone grew sick of sport games largely due to EA's policy of releasing a new iteration of their franchises on an annual basis. Yeah lets go with that