Videogames Make Traditional Super Bowl Predictions

Thanks to Reuters for its article discussing videogame-based predictions for this weekend's Super Bowl. The piece explains: "Days before the real football championship is contested, Carolina Panthers wide receiver Steve Smith has beaten the New England Patriots' wide-out Troy Brown 29-21 in a head-to-head video game matchup." The match was played on Sony's NFL GameDay 2004, and it's noted: "In the first eight years of the event, the winner of the electronic showdown went on to hoist the Vince Lombardi Trophy as the Super Bowl champion." Elsewhere, 1UP has done its own Super Bowl predictions on four different football videogames, and the final results also favor the Panthers.

Comments

video game Tom Brady

[IncarnadineConor]

I suspect the video game companies have rated the patriots players a bit low what with the real life team being on a 14 game winning streak and all. I would guess that the reason the games have been fairly accurate predictors in the past is because they have done a good job capturing the varrying skill levels of the players, but for some reason the patriots I watch on TV seem vastly better then the patriots I control in Madden.

Results weren't supported by tests

[Imperator]

So I read the article about the 4 different games they tested with. The problem is that the games really weren't reflective of the real life teams. For example, in two of the games the Panthers were a passing team. Then they somehow conclude the Panthers are a lock? I don't think so. Video games may try to predict football games, but I still trust the predictions from Vegas much more.

Re:Results weren't supported by tests

[molafson]

but I still trust the predictions from Vegas much more.

Problem with this is that when Vegas sets the line, they're not so much predicting the outcome of the game as they are predicting the betting tendencies of the gamblers. E.g. "New England -7" is calculated to ensure that roughly half the bettors will take Carolina, half will take New England.

If they set the spread too low, e.g. "New England -6.5," too many people would bet on New England, so that if New England wins by a touchdown the Vegas books would loose money...

This is also why the line changes if too many people start betting one team. It's kind of like the stock market, insofar as the odds have *something* to do with the teams' projected performance, but have much more to do with the publics' perception of the value of the bet.

At least this is how I understand the system to work. (IANA gambler, though.)