I am a big football fan (American Football) so I say this purely from a gamer's perspective despite wishing the season to continue from a sports fan's perspective.

Unilke other genres in the videogame industry, the sports genre tends to be the least creative.  They often have massive repitition in sequels and are based largely on the thrill of a new season and roster that coincides with the enjoyment of actually watching the season games on tv.  It is a very straight-jacket kind of genre where imagination is sacrificed for realism.

I'm not just talking about realistic graphics though in this case.  This is beyond something like shooter genres where although realism is important, developers have the ability to create scenarios that don't have to coincide with reality (look at Halo for instance).  In sports games the whole BASIS of the genre's  existence is developed from reality - the roster, the rules (very specific), the environments (weather, jerseys, stadium), everything!!!  This means that the audience comes to expect and wants no deviation from reality (even more so than realistic shooters).  And developers will adhere to it because the basis for the reality is always present - the upcoming NFL season.

The purpose of this thread is this:  If the NFL does not come to an agreement and the lockout stays indefinitely then maybe for the first time, in a looooong time we might see some really big creative privileges taken within the genre.  Yes there are some off the wall sports games every now and then but they are far and few between compared to the EA Sports games (which there is another thread now talking about their unfair autonomy on the genre's main games).  And furthermore they are outshined by their "Professional" counterparts.

I'd like to see some more games like NFL Blitz, NBA Jam, and Mario Strikers Charged, and things to that affect.  And of course Wii Sports may be the begginning of a sports genre reinvention.  Does anyone else feel that this genre has been doomed to stagnation since its inception?  Both in content, and in audience?

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It's pretty hard to innovate with sports game since the game itself and the rule associtate with it never changes. The control must be accessible since a very large portion of the audience aren't what the industry would label as core gamers and deviating too much from your previous iteration or introduce too much complexity to the control and you risk alienating your fanabse. I'm essentially resigned to the fact that sports game simply have reach the limit of innovation. The only thing that can bring superior exprience to this genre is alternative control method.

NFL madden =/= sports genre 

i dont see the NFL lockout affecting the fifa or nba titles, but will EA studio try to add new features for there next game, most likely not. 

see when locked in the yearly cycle basically what ever features you were planning you start planning and development years before even when working on an past title then implement into there next installment when complete. Very rarely would you see the designers go to the drawing board when they finish there latest installment becasue they dont have the time stop and must work staight on the next title.

for example they proberly have an engine team they proberly design an engine that may take 2-3 games cycles before implementing it which would be used on the next titles until the next engine is used. etc etc

You see were i am going. You are most likely not going to see any major changes with or without the lockout because the new improvements/features lined up for 2012 were most likely started during or before 2011 was being made. 

I'm not from the US so I don't understand this at all, but if the season is over four months away why is there any danger it would be cancelled? Isn't negotiating for slightly less worth more than losing a whole season's revenue?

That makes sense, and I wouldn't doubt it even happens with some other non-sports titles, but if there is no new season coming up then would they not be forced to cancel their existing sequel?  I mean they will have no roster to work with.

Secondly, at best it would at least create room for some of the off the wall sports games to shine.  @Mibuokami:  Control scheme is definitely not the only thing to innovate with this genre.  Just think about if each team had like a super special attack, like the Giants literally transformed into actual Giants for a whole down, or maybe the Jets would have Jets fly over head and drop bombs, etc... Just something outside the professional sports league realm of what is acceptable...

Well, my fingers are crossed that if a lockout must happen (shame cause I am a fan) then it will help give some leeway for a reinvention of the genre, the stalest genre ever imo.

btw i noticed an typo in my opening sentence it should be NFL lockout not Sports genre. 

i really can't wait for next year's madden.  i've always wanted to play a game centered around going to washington DC to protest unfair treatment.