If I would have to pick one life motto it would be ‘under promise and overachieve’. The concept is simple: You promise next to nothing and deliver a lot. If you tell someone ‘This will be done tomorrow’ and you get it done the day after tomorrow they will probably be pissed because you didn’t deliver. What if you had promised them it would be done late next week and you delivered it the day after tomorrow? They would be delighted! It’s as easy as that. Still, game developers can’t seem to grasp this easy concept.

I’m a gamer. So I check the news on game websites quite frequently. Everyday some news item pops up with a game developer (or executive) running his mouth claiming this game they are working on is the best we’ve seen yet. “You can do this and that and when you do this… this will blow your mind!” And it does! It’s truly amazing what they are promising, and in most cases the game does deliver. But the WOW-factor isn’t there any more. I already expected it to be in the game. I’ve already become accustomed to the fact that I’m able to do that kind of stuff. And most of the time it sounds great but when you’re playing the game it becomes boring pretty quickly. A great example is Assassins Creed. When the first gameplay movies were released every gamer was drooling. But when you play the actual game the features become repetitive and annoying. I understand there needs to be some kind of buzz about the game so that it can become a big seller on the day it’s released but please keep some features a secret. Let us gamers experience the WOW-factor when we are playing the game so we can tell all their friends. Leverage the power of word to mouth. Under promise and overachieve, I bet it will work out great.

Drama. It’s all about the drama. The football industry is one big Soap opera! Every where you look there is (possible) conflict: Team versus Team, Player versus Player, Coach versus Coach, Coach versus Player, Coach versus Team, Team versus Player, etc. The relationship between these parties is what makes football a great story. And we humans like a good story, it’s the way we are wired.

From our early years of existence we are telling each other stories, either by drawing on the inside of a cave, painting a picture, writing a book, directing a movie or developing a game. The world of football is filled with intriguing story lines. They become so dramatic that writers of Soap opera’s can’t even imagine that kind of misery. Without the story football becomes dull. Nobody wants to see two random teams kick a ball for ninety minutes. We want to see the internal battle. We want to see the player who got substituted throw his water bottle at the coach. We want to see two life long friends making hard tackles just because they play in the opposite team. We want to see players sent off because they couldn’t stop yelling at the referee. We want to see a player leave his club for the rival club on the other side of town.

So ladies, next time your man tells you he wants to watch a World Cup Football match: go sit next to him on that couch. And ask him about the players. Ask him about the ‘story’. And maybe, just maybe, football might not be so boring after all.