Lately I've been playing a lot of EA Sports' "NBA Live 2000" basketball game. Before I started my season I downloaded a "roster patch" from the internet. Created by game players, the patch updates the game's rosters to include all of the rookies, new players and trades made since EA Sports finalized their rosters for the game back in September.
The utility within the game that allows for the creation of new players allows the user to select from 24 different faces and 28 different hairstyles that can be combined to make distinctive-looking players. Nose and eye shape, facial hair, and other aspects are also customizable.
However, despite the wealth of choice in appearance the person or people who created the particular roster patch that I downloaded seemed to develop a preference for one particular face and hairstyle. Roughly half of the 150 or so user-created players have the exact same appearance.
Last night as I was playing the game a stray thought entered my mind about these many, many identical players: "They must all be Wilt Chamberlain's kids."