For years, the only choice for skateboarding fans was Tony Hawk's best-selling franchise. Electronic Arts is giving players a choice this year with its new simulation-based videogame, Skate. Danny Way, one of the most popular active skaters in the world today, worked closely with EA Sports to bring the true spirit of the skate culture to this next-generation game.

"Skateboarding is addictive," said Way, and the 33 year old should know. He's spent the majority of his life on a board�having started skating at age 6. "It's a lifestyle. When you're in the skating environment, hanging out, it's hard not to be a part of that energy. It just pulls you right in."

Although he played a lot of the arcade and console game, 720, when he was a kid, there hasn't been a skateboarding videogame that has replicated this addictive nature of the sport he loves. Until now.

"There aren't too many videogames I'm interested in except for the one I've been working on," said Way. "I'm not like a gamehead where I spend all day playing games. I have a lot of stuff going on and I don't have much time to do that. The whole idea behind Skate was to create something that I could justify playing. I can see myself getting into this game and having some fun with it."

Way was the first of a roster of current skaters who fans of the sport follow today that EA enlisted to collaborate on its first skateboarding game.

"They wanted to make a true game that had real skateboarders in it who were respected because of their skateboarding and not just because they were on TV," said Way. "This transcended all the way through the philosophy of the game. It's as close to the reality of the sport as you can get. EA wanted to create a realistic game... something that guys who don't play videogames but skate will have to play."

Except for Paul Rodriguez, there's not a single skater in EA's new game that also appeared in one of Tony Hawk's games. "I think there's a place for Tony's game and there's a place for Skate," said Way, diplomatically. "Tony's game is more fantasy and more exaggerated, which is cool. It is a game, so there are no boundaries of what you can do with it. But when it comes to portraying the life a pro skater lives, that's where Skate differentiates itself. This game is endorsed by today's skaters. That's the one thing Tony doesn't have. He has a lot of mainstream customers, but the game's not blessed by the community of skateboarding."

While Hawk has made skateboarding a mainstream sport and sold millions of videogames and other merchandise, the core of skating has always been a rebellious counter-culture movement. It's that core that's never had a videogame to call its own.

"I think Tony found his niche in the world of merchandising and marketing and took himself and everything to that level," said Way. "His game's more of a replication of where he is in the mainstream. To this day, he's not that relevant in the core of skateboarding. Most people know him as an icon. Some people don't even know he's a real guy. They think he's a videogame character. It's a different mindset. Nobody's right and nobody's wrong."

Way said the purpose of Skate was to build a game that could satisfy the core and let that appeal spread out to the masses. He said that as long as EA has the blessing of today's core skateboarders, then the world is EA's as far as how big this game can become.

The development team at EA Vancouver had plenty of time to work with Way over the past year. He was in the motion-capture studio with full gear to perform some of his trademark moves, as well as general tricks and feats, for the new game. He also play-tested the game throughout the process.

"From the graphics of the game, which are awesome, to the movement of the controllers, this game is the closest you can get to the feel of real skating," said Way. "Making the left joystick control your left foot in the game and the right stick control your right foot really makes the game's movements on the skateboard just like the movement with your feet in real life. The techniques are the same you'd use with your feet, so it's more of a simulation of what we do."

Way is known to many people outside of the skate culture for his amazing stunts, which included his jumping of the Great Wall of China and his jump off the Hard Rock Casino's giant guitar in Las Vegas. Gamers will be able to replicate the spirit of these jumps in the game's megaramp.

"There's a megaramp in the game, which you can go to the X-Games and compete on," said Way, who invented the megaramp and has won several X-Game Gold Medals perfecting it. "We don't have specific Great Wall jump or jumping off the Hard Rock guitar. I actually don't know why we didn't grab the helicopter drop or something and put it in the game. We just went after what's next. I looked at what I was going to do next year."

Way has a lot of ideas for what's coming next and one of those ideas has been fully realized in the game before actual construction has begun for the real-life version.

"We have some exciting stuff in the game that hasn't even been built yet," said Way. "I'm in the midst of planning this crazy compound in Hawaii. We have that in the game. It's my mega compound, which is my fantasy, but which will hopefully be a reality soon."