Last year we sat in our the conference call for NHL 2K8, a game that we rated higher than most other websites and print magazines, and it was telling to listen to this call and compare it to last year. Once again Ben Bishop of Visual Concepts led the call along with Jay Iwahashi, the game’s online producer.

Last year we wrote: One of the first questions asked had to do with the fact that today’s sports games are just too darn realistic, and “fun” and playability have been sacrificed because of it, and what did they all think of that? The questions were sent privately so there’s really no way of knowing who sent what question—but I wanted to break the fourth wall and yell out, “Say what?!” Thankfully, Ben Bishop replied with the level of professionalism that was needed by saying, “I’m not sure I agree with that.”

Well, what a difference a year makes. Today, Bishop was all about the “fun” factor and making the game supremely easy to pick up and play. It’s a common thread amongst sports game developers these days; the Madden and NCAA teams both towed the same line, pounding home the notion that the glory days of sports videogames are gone and things are just too darn complicated for Joe Gamer to get a grasp on what is going on.

In fairness, NHL 2K8 took a beating in the press for its less than elegant control scheme so it’s not at all surprising to hear that 2K9 is bringing back controls that are a bit easier to manage. Still, whenever I hear “casual gamer” and “easy to play” and “bring the fun back” I get a tad nervous as that is usually developer speak for “we made the game really easy.” For an example of this just take a look at NCAA 09.

Truth is, I’m all for easy control schemes. I don’t like having to press three buttons and hold down a trigger and do a rain dance to perform a basic move – and I‘m about as hardcore as you get when it comes to sports games. Easy controls is as important in a sports game as they are in other genes – the reason console RTS games have yet to take off is for this very reason. The call really focused on how easy the game is to play now – although you can choose an advanced control scheme but there are no custom options this year.

The fear is that this focus on “fun” might come at the expense of a realistic, competitive game. Bishop didn’t go down that road and the game at least sounds like it’s still trying to be a simulation over an arcade slapshot fest but we’ll have to wait and see how it shapes up next week.