Clock management is a pretty big aspect of (American) football strategy and very much expected. I don't think anyone considers it gaming the rules. Just off the top of my head:
- Teams with comfortable leads tend to switch to conservative play calling. This keeps the ball safe and the clock running.
- Inside of 2:00, getting tackled on the field keeps the clock running. But running out of bounds or throwing an incomplete pass will stop the clock. So plays are always chosen to take advantage of this.
- Quarterbacks will spike the ball to quickly the stop the clock (incomplete pass).
- Calling a timeout stops the clock, so teams save these for the 2:00 drill. The 2:00 warning also stops the clocks, teams consider this a free timeout.
- Coaches will call timeout just as a kicker is about to kick a field goal. This is called "freezing the kicker". When timed right, it makes the kicker have to kick it again.
The difference, of course, is that basketball is a fast-paced, high-scoring game, and the entertainment value suffers mightily when it is slowed down. Soccer is about deliberately building to a scoring opportunity, so forcibly speeding up the game would simply ruin the structure. Obviously, "turtling" can be a bit of a problem as a result, but it's not hard for a team to sacrifice some defensive structure to press for a turnover.
Explicit clock management is part of the game.
But if you start messing around when the other team has ended pursuit, you are definitely breaking an "unwritten rule" (of which there are many in sports).
Behaviors like this will typically result in some variation of an on-field fight, which honestly seems like a pretty fair means of enforcement.
Conservative play calling with a lead, particularly on defense, is known to reduce your chances of holding the lead. Sticking to more balanced tactics leads to losses that look more spectacular, but fewer of them.
And depending on how you look at the stats, the "icing the kicker" timeout either doesn't really work, or only works if done before the offense is set, which is not when most coaches call it.
Football is a really interesting sport above/behind the field.
The existence of video games brings people together on a level playing field where they are free to explore their ideas and refine strategies over a length of time far longer than anyone can actually play the game in reality.
You see it to a more immediate effect in games such as Dota2, League, etc. Professional level players regularly play with amateurs and non-professionals and you notice that ideas propagate throughout the community readily.
Obviously there is a certain barrier to entry for physical sports and the online equivalent to share in ideas, but with how far sports-based games will go striving for realism (all the iterations of Football Manager come to mind), it wouldn't be hard to imagine that in the future strategies will be tested virtually before being employed in real.
Meet Max Verstappen[0], current reigning 2-time F1 world champion, who credits a lot of his success to how much time he spends playing racing simulators online. Seen here[1] doing something ridiculous, which works in the sim; he hasn't pulled this move on-track yet, but if he does it won't suprise me. Incidentally, most of the current generation of F1 drivers are also sim racers.
I think what these people are doing is creating goals for themselves in virtual spaces, to strive for in real space. The OP video couldn't have happened except in the exact situation that driver was in, his mind was habituated to trying to make that move, and he knew his car and track enough to make the correct call re: risk. The video game experience is only one part of that, but it's a crucial part. The rest came from real world racing experience.
[0] https://www.teamredline.com/work/max-verstappen/
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rC81KMPM9Q
Addendum to explain the video I've linked:
The streamer who is recording is close enough to the car ahead (Max Verstappen) that he gets pulled along by the slipstream effect (caused by the vacuum created behind the car ahead as it cuts through the air). This reduces the aerodynamic drag on the streamer's car, and allows him to accelerate more than the car ahead.
Normally (i.e. in meatspace racing), in this situation, the following car would wait as long as possible in the slipstream, until right before the next braking zone, then take a sharp turn out from behind the leading car, pass them (with the faster acceleration), and then try to brake later than the leading car before turning into the next corner, ensuring they'd go into the corner first, and thus come out of the corner first.
In this clip, Max anticipated all of the above, moved out from in front of the following car (breaking the slipstream himself), braked much earlier than a racing driver normally would (allowing the streamer's car to temporarily pass him), and used the time he lost to assess the streamer's racing line (read: vector) into the corner. Then he aimed his own car into the gap between that line and the corner of the track, and used the extra space to accelerate earlier than the streamer. By doing this, he negated every advantage the streamer had gained from the slipstream, and stayed ahead.
When coaches are able to find a loophole to burn additional seconds off the clock, they are celebrated for it [1], and the rules are typically amended for the following year.
[1] https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2020/10/19/mike-vrabel...
It’s almost inverted. The expectation is often for gamers to be as exploitative as possible. There is a lot of hilarity to be had by all with a play that gets a win in ann unexpected way, and it has quite a culture around it. It can go too far to be sure, but in good measure it’s often what is best about multiplayer games.
Live sports are with people and people don't like watching others be manipulated.
The problem is that these kinds of strategies are boring to watch, have little counter play, and only interesting the first time around — as soon as it enters the meta, it’s just boring. In this case it’d probably be fine, but if you spent two minutes doing it? It’d be awful.
Exactly the same as it goes in video games — it’s fun to see people exploiting elements the game, when it adds complexity to the match. When it reduces it, like an infinite combo, regardless of how mechanically complex or novel a puzzle solution it might be, it just detracts.
Good examples of this are bunny hopping and rollout doomfist.
I'm pretty sure I've seen lots of deceptive and misleading strategies and tactics in football and other sports, not to mention multiple forms of "faking." Also a core part of sports like football seems to be putting pressure on the person with the ball - up to and including physical tackling.
Clock/time management also seems to be a thing.
This is part of why the NASCAR move is so interesting. The driver himself notes that he was putting himself in real actual danger of crashing his car and possibly hurting himself, but he was willing to take that risk.
I would not be surprised to see this outlawed in the very near future before someone can cause a major crash trying it.
In single-player games, given the opportunity, gamers will optimize for all kinds of cheese and hilarity never expected by the designers. Doubly so with the modern Internet, where sharing videos of your silly play confers social status in relevant on-line groups.
Don't know about current state of WoW, but the other two games you mention, and games like Overwatch or even StarCraft 2, are hollowed out and devoid of substance, because the competitive multiplayer makes everyone focused on meta.
The transition from elementary school sports to middle school sports is pretty jarring. By the time you get to high school they've started weeding out anyone who enjoys the game versus dominating other people in preparation for college and the few who become pros.
Video games just make this obvious to kids who don't like sports.
The only real distinction between single-player games and multiplayer games in this manor is that in single-player games players can choose the 'category' they are currently playing, whereas in multiplayer it is chosen for them. This let's them pick the categories with environments that are most fun optimized which is where the hilarity comes.
> The only real distinction between single-player games and multiplayer games in this manor is that in single-player games players can choose the 'category' they are currently playing, whereas in multiplayer it is chosen for them.
Yes. That's the distinction that matters.
Certainly not true, it's a game design issue that comes up all the time. Even in the context of casual solo play, players will generally be driven by the very human instincts of risk aversion, resource accumulation, and seeking efficiency. It takes good design to make this behaviour be in line with having fun.
If anything, it's multiplayer environments that are easier to steer towards that, and also allow room for just horsing around.
For example, the "Sean Avery" rule in hockey.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Avery#The_Avery_Rule
That was a neat "exploit" and much respect to him for trying it, but it was outlawed literally the next day.
The incentive to pull off this kind of move,
running the clock down a bit, that was already
present. But there's a certain social
expectation that you won't game the rules so
blatantly, so that's a disincentive.
In basketball, football, or basically any sport with a time limit there is absolutely zero stigma or shame with regards to running out the clock if it benefits your team.
In fact, that guy would have been raked over the coals if he didn't run out the clock.
I also assure you his coach was exhorting the team to win the game by running out the clock rather than scoring with time remaining on the clock which would have given the other team another chance to score and perhaps tie/win.
I'm sure that player definitely did pull that move off in a video game, but so has everybody else, because it's also super basic football strategy!
I can probably best explain it this way: that play does not have a name, because it's pretty basic and that guy didn't invent it. Clock management is so integral to gridiron football.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_out_the_clock#American...
You probably see that move a little bit more in video games. In real life there's more that can go wrong; you have eleven guys chasing you and you do not have 360-degree awareness. The ball could be knocked away from you, etc. Worst case scenario you hurt your teammates, lose your job, etc. So you will be more conservative.
I think video games have influenced football in a lot of ways, just not that one. Particularly TV coverage - the "sky cams" on high tension wires crisscrossing the arenas, mimicking the unfettered virtual cameras in video games. Also, the superimposed CGI first down lines on the field.
http://insightreplay.com/the-story-behind-nfls-magic-yellow-...
[1]https://www.nhl.com/news/hockey-world-reacts-to-flyers-light...
Back in the day, the AI for opponents was often fairly stupid. Rather than spreading out intelligently to prevent an opponent from reaching the goal line, they would just sprint towards your current location at all times. So if you run in a bit of a loop from where it makes sense for you to actually go, you can get the opponents to chase you in a long line. Not hard to dodge them almost indefinitely in this case, allowing you to take an arbitrary amount of time off the clock. Real players won't behave like this.
> I don’t think it’s the social expectations that are at play here.
I agree, mostly, but there could be a slight effect here. It's widely known that coaches choose to punt rather than go for it on fourth down (in American football, failing to take the ball past a "first down" marker in five downs results in a turnover) much more often than they should if motivated purely to win the most games. It's speculated that coaches are disincentivized to make high-risk, high-reward choices like going for it, when trying and failing it will result in embarrassment versus taking the safe option.
Thanks for clarifying.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K3EpLn77JdQ
In this case, the rules say that if a kickoff is handled first by a player who has established themselves as out of bounds, a penalty is assessed and the ball moved to the 40 yard line. The intent is for a horribly miskicked ball to be penalized.
What you see is a special teams player knowing the rule, carefully and clearly establishing himself as out of bounds, and turning an excellently kicked ball at the one yard line into a ball 39 yards down field.
I’ve seen the commentators confused by this play before!
It took quite awhile for that logjam to break.
Imagine seeing someone pull off THAT tactic in a real game!
There's also the concept of good sportsmanship. Doing this kind of "move" could be considered disrespectful and a show of bad sportsmanship.
The other football has its time honored ways of wasting time, keeping the ball in the opponent's corner, the keeper waiting until the last second to pick up a ball, someone getting "hurt", nobody open on a throw-in, walking off for a sub, etc. Then there's the sportsmanship thing of kicking the ball out of play for an opposing player to receive treatment. How much of the time wasting is good/bad sportsmanship vs good stratechery?
Under-arming was done in modern international cricket once and ruined sporting careers.
Rolling the ball along the ground when a six was required to win made what was an exciting game into a farce. You want your team to win, but not like that. You have to question whether there wa some money put down on the side...
Same can be said for the batsman who walks. It's the right decision when you consider you want to win with no doubt as to the validity of the result. Maybe if sponsors required sportsmanship as part of their contracts you might see less of ball tampering and other dubious practices in the name of winning.
Having spent several years playing amateur football in my youth, I can attest that the game would be vastly improved if the clock never stopped and the teams had set time limits between the end of one play the beginning of the next. Christ I got so tired of the dicking around.
For example, if its 4th down and you are leading by more than 2 points with very little time left on the clock, what do you do? One option is to punt and have the punter run out of the back of his own endzone. It gives the opponent 2 points, but is a very safe play.
I've also seen teams run a punt play, but the offensive linemen intentionally commit holding to maximize the amount of time that the punter (or qb) holds onto the ball in the backfield while the clock runs. The clock doesn't stop until the ball hits the ground if a qb throws, so a high long pass just out of bounds can burn a few seconds too.
Hmm, lets see... also letting an opponent score a TD happens somewhat regularly. And often the player will slide instead of scoring. Video game players do that, but the idea didn't start there.
Another way to put it is that in American sports like baseball, basketball, and football, the rules are considered part of the game, and using the rules to your advantage shows respect for the game. With soccer, by contrast, people often talk about an essence of the game that transcends the rules, which the rules only approximate, and it seems like there is a different relationship to the rules as a result. Rules are a necessary evil that serve the higher essence of the game, and if you are too concerned with the rules people might feel like you are disrespecting the higher essence that they serve. At least that has been my impression from spectators and amateurs, in my experience. Competitors at higher levels of play might approach it differently.
There any many examples of players who thought they were in the clear and celebrated early, only to get tackled and fumble.
I’ve watched the QB take a knee hundreds of times to run down the clock. The difference here is his play was riskier because it would have been easier to lose possession.
The incentive to pull off this kind of move, running the clock down a bit, that was already present. But there's a certain social expectation that you won't game the rules so blatantly, so that's a disincentive.
What the existence of video games does, is allow people to do things like this in an environment where social expectations and pressure don't really exist. It's like a psychological primer. You do it so many times in the video game, more and more you think, gee, why not do this in real life?