Dumb Monday Tip-Off: Yes, It’s In The Game
We’re at midcourt, and the ball is about to go up…it’s Monday Tip-Off! Join me as I begin the week here at the NLSC with my opinions and commentary on basketball gaming topics, as well as tales of the fun I’ve been having on the virtual hardwood. This week, I’m tipping things off with some reflections on how after all these years, way too many people don’t know that EA Sports’ famous slogan is “It’s in the game”.
It’s Christmastime once again – aka the “silly season” – so it’s time for some merry, light-hearted fun in this week’s features! To that end, I’m combining my Monday Tip-Off “brand” with JaoSming’s old feature, Dumb Mondays. I did this last Christmas, in order to make a tongue-in-cheek comparison between the movies of John Hughes and the rise of the Chicago Bulls. It was a fun, silly “theory” that came to mind years ago. I ended up sitting on the rough draft of an article outlining the “connections” for a long time, before finally polishing it up and publishing it last Christmas.
Since the time has come for some more silliness, let’s talk about something that I find extremely silly: the sheer number of people who don’t know that EA Sports’ slogan is “It’s in the game”! More specifically, they believe that the slogan is something else that may sound kind of similar to that. Furthermore, they insist that they’re absolutely correct in thinking that EA Sports’ slogan is anything but “It’s in the game”. Now, this may not seem like something to get too riled up about, especially given the spirit of the season. With that in mind, I’m definitely not trying to be a Grinch here. This is all in good fun, and revelling in some silliness. At the same time though…come on, now!
If you’ve played an EA Sports game – and if you’re a long-time basketball gamer in our community, I’m assuming that you have – then you know the slogan/tagline that’s uttered during every boot flow: “E…A…Sports. It’s in the game!” This is a shortened version of the original advertising slogan, “If it’s in the game, it’s in the game”, which can be seen on old box art. It was intended to hype up the authenticity of EA Sports titles, suggesting that anything you’d see when watching a sport on TV could also be found in their video games. It may seem like a bold claim for what are now primitive titles, but they were more advanced and realistic than the ones that came before them.
It may sound like I’m explaining the extremely obvious in pointing out that “if it’s in the game, it’s in the game” is supposed to mean “if it’s in the real sport, then it’s in our video game based on that sport”. However, given that a number of people apparently believe that EA Sports’ slogan is something entirely different – and we’ll get to what in just a moment – I think it’s important to note the original full slogan and its meaning. It adds context that’s understandably lost when it’s shortened to “It’s in the game”. To that point, while the full tagline was used on box art and in commercials, even back in the 90s, “If it’s in the game” was usually absent from the splash screen during boot-up.
Nevertheless, I figured the slogan was common knowledge. I wasn’t aware of anyone mishearing and then misquoting what I believed to be a well-known tagline among basketball and other sports gamers. I was therefore surprised when I discovered that apparently a large number of people are certain that the famous EA Sports slogan is something else! I was made aware of this when YouTube automatically converted a bunch of eligible old uploads into shorts. This included my upload of a four second clip of the slogan – extracted from one of the PC versions of NBA Live at some point – over the EA Sports logo. After it became a short, it started getting a ton of views.
With those views came a flood of comments, many of which admitted to thinking that the slogan was something different, or continuing to insist that they were correct. A few of the commonly misheard versions of the tagline include “Set and game”, “Sit and game”, and “It’s in the name“. I can see how people might hear that last one, and “It’s in the name” does actually fit the intended message (“sports games are what we do; it’s in our name”). However, it seems that a lot of people think that the slogan is “To the game”. Not only is that an awkward tagline, but “to” sounds very different to “it’s in”. If “to” is what you hear, then I’d suggest getting your ears checked ASAP!
Again, the full version of the slogan – readily visible on so many game boxes over the years – should’ve cleared up any misunderstandings. Granted, it fell out of vogue in favour of the shortened version, but even then, a combination of careful listening and critical thought should’ve prevented any misconceptions perpetuating all the way into 2025. Of course, critical thinking is sometimes expecting too much, and people have a way of doubling down on being incorrect rather than admitting to a mistake! Besides, EA Sports’ tagline is in good company here. After all, it’s not uncommon for slogans, song lyrics, and even TV and movie dialogue to be misheard and/or misremembered.
That brings us to the topic of mondegreens. A mondegreen is a phrase that has been misheard or misinterpreted in a way that gives it new meaning. The term comes from a 1954 essay by Sylvia Wright, who recalled mishearing the final two lines of the Scottish ballad “The Bonnie Earl o’ Moray“. Rather than “They have slain the Earl o’ Moray, and laid him on the green,” Wright thought the lines were “they have slain the Earl o’ Moray, and Lady Mondegreen”, thus imagining it to be a tragic but romantic scene of two lovers being together in their final moments. And so, mondegreen came to be used as a term for misheard verses and lyrics…or indeed, a video game slogan.
Appropriately for this time of year, Christmas songs and traditional carols have also produced their share of mondegreens. “All of the other reindeer” becoming “Olive, the other reindeer” is a popular example, even inspiring a children’s book and animated special. Interestingly, the “four calling birds” in “The Twelve Days of Christmas” was originally a mondegreen of “four colly birds”, but the misheard lyric has since become the official one. And of course, there are many other infamous mondegreens, such as “Hold me closer, Tony Danza“, “There’s a bathroom on the right“, and “‘Scuse me while I kiss this guy“. Indeed, they’ve become staple gags and pop culture references!
And, for that matter, contentious internet debates. As a fan of professional wrestling since the Attitude Era, I remember the discussions of “My Time“; the theme Triple H adopted in 1999, which begins with “One, two…is this on?” Even though it’s clearly meant to be a mic check, and is easily distinguishable with CD quality audio, some people insisted that it was “one self…is this on?” Others weighed in with explanations of what a “dun” was in the lyric “keep your finger off the switch, dun”, as well as the meaning of “the monster suits McMahon”. In fact, the first line refers to former WWE producer Kevin Dunn, and the second lists “the marks, the suits, (Vince) McMahon”.
In all fairness, the mention of Kevin Dunn was one of many insider references in the lyrics that weren’t necessarily obvious to everyone back in 1999. Misinterpreting the mic check at the beginning, and the notion of the on-screen Vince McMahon enjoying the monster that Triple H was becoming – while the two future in-laws were kayfabe feuding, mind you – is much harder to defend! Once again, it’s understandable that the insider references flew over our heads, but listening closely and engaging in critical thinking should’ve cleared up the other misconceptions. However, those people were absolutely certain of what they heard, and it was impossible to tell them otherwise.
That appears to be the case with so many basketball and other sports gamers when it comes to EA Sports’ “It’s in the game”. Even with a correctly-labelled clip with clear audio that can be listened to over and over, plenty of information out there about the original tagline, and basic common sense, there are still tons of comments claiming to hear “To the game”. I’m assuming that some people are just doing it as a meme at this point, but as I said, it’s not uncommon to double down rather than admit that you were wrong. If you’ve believed that the slogan that you’ve heard booting up so many games over the years is something else entirely, clear evidence and logic may not be enough!
Speaking of memes, I’m not counting any comments that intentionally twist the slogan to mock the quality of EA Sports games, the use of microtransactions, or any of the company’s other practices. That’s fair game, and more to the point, I’d suggest that it demonstrates knowledge of the actual slogan through the wordplay being employed. As for the other comments, while some of them may be joking in an attempt to mock the mondegreen, I think we have to take most people at their word when they say that they thought (and maybe still think) that EA Sports’ slogan is “To the game”, “Set and game,” “Sit and game”, or anything other than the actual tagline of “It’s in the game”.
Does this really matter at the end of the day? I’ll concede that it’s a silly thing to care about – peak “someone is wrong on the internet“, to quote a classic xkcd strip – but in my defense, it’s also a silly mistake to believe! Look, the last thing I want to do during the holiday season is to be a Grinch, or bah-humbug like I’m Ebenezer Scrooge, all because a vocal group of people are wrong about the tagline of a range of sports video games. Still, it’s the season of giving, and my gift to the internet at large is the gift of knowledge! If you ever need a source when arguing over what EA Sports’ tagline is and where it came from, link to this article. I’ve laid it out and done all the research.
Alright, maybe I’m like Homer Simpson in “‘Tis the Fifteenth Season”, and selfishly giving myself a gift: using my platform to correct a misconception that keeps popping up whenever I check the comments on our YouTube channel (and also getting in the last word on Triple H’s old theme song while I’m at it)! Seriously though, it is funny that one of the most iconic slogans in gaming has apparently been misheard by so many people for over three decades now. I suppose if you still believe it’s something else after all this time, one more article won’t be enough to convince you. But for the record, yes, when it comes to EA Sports – or at least their slogan – it’s in the game!
The post Dumb Monday Tip-Off: Yes, It’s In The Game appeared first on NLSC.