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EA hasn't changed everything - extends NFL exclusivity till 2012
cloudeagle
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Yeah yeah, two EA topics in a row, but this is a big bit of news that may contradict the image of the newly modest EA. Peter Moore says EA has locked up the NFL license till 2012, continuing to effectively hobble the competition.
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/851/851316p1.html
In the interview Moore also says EA needs to make more casual football games, but that they aren't really going to change Madden.
I really can't decide if this is a good business decision that doesn't contradict company's new openness, or a good business decision that continues EA's tradition of being jerks.
Also, how has football gaming fared in the four years EA has had the exclusive rights? Has Madden suffered? Has anyone else managed to make a viable football game without the NFL? I don't know, I'm honestly asking.
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/851/851316p1.html
In the interview Moore also says EA needs to make more casual football games, but that they aren't really going to change Madden.
I really can't decide if this is a good business decision that doesn't contradict company's new openness, or a good business decision that continues EA's tradition of being jerks.
Also, how has football gaming fared in the four years EA has had the exclusive rights? Has Madden suffered? Has anyone else managed to make a viable football game without the NFL? I don't know, I'm honestly asking.
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But yeah, a lack of competition is bad news for the Madden series and the Football sub genre as a whole. I wish other companies would get creative and make a wholly new football game with a vivid, imaginary league, but the reality is that the target demographic is definitely buying this game for the NFL license.
It's great for EA. Bad for gamers and (I argue) the NFL. They just don't know it.
Yes it is. You can't compete against a real license with real players in the NFL arena.
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This too.
That's one of my questions. It's been four years... why hasn't anyone created a rival football franchise? Is it truly impossible? With the way the market demands their men conform to actual football players, it very well may be impossible to create a competing product that turns a profit.
You're half right.
EA started putting the idea into the NFL's head, started lobbying for them to consider exclusivity deals. They then submitted the best proposal.
So yeah. The NFL may have considered others, but it was EA that caused this exclusivity deal to come around in the first place.
does anyone remember mutant league football (and no I'm not talking about teams from San Fransisco)? That game was the shit and it didn't have real teams.
I see it as more like a genie that the old EA administration let out that can't really be put back into the bottle. Tying up NFL exclucivity for x number of years may not fit in line with the new ways of thinking, but if EA didn't sign an extention to the contract, then another company sure as hell would have.
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Also can someone explain the hatred towards madden (the game not the person)? Personally I believe some competition would (hopefully) force more innovation/better games but sometimes it comes across as if madden is some kind of abomination that disfigures you just from thinking about it.
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edit: To throw in my own $0.02 on the Madden hate: I think a lot of it stems from blatantly whoring the franchise. Now that console patching and DLC are becoming more and more prevalent, I think it's going to be even more grating for the driving force of a sequel to be a roster update. Instead of coming up with a feature that they thing warrants a new release, EA seems to scramble to find a new gimmick (hit stick, QB LoS) each year so they'll have a new bullet point in their marketing.
There's been Midway's Blitz: The League, which was basically a parody of the NFL and is due for a next-gen sequel this year, and 2K's All Pro Football 2K8, which featured retired "football legends" who could be contracted without haivng to deal with the NFL. Neither game sold particularly well or was very well recieved by critics.
There was a whole bunch of shit planned for Madden 06 that got cut from the development plan as soon as the exclusivity deal was signed and EA knew they could cheap out. Competition is always a good thing.
EA would have to be stone cold retarded not to sign this deal, anyway.
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So it's inconclusive as to whether non-Madden titles won't sell without real-world players, since the games were shitty. Hm.
I'm not going to go further because EA has done some good things for the industry, but for that period of EA's existence Madden is the one and only shining token of their. . . well, for lack of a better term: Satanity.
I thought Blitz the league was a pretty fun arcadey football game. In fact, my buddies at college only started playing Madden at all because our League disc broke.
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Or perhaps the critics were a bit harder on them because they didn't have the actual rosters. Also, Madden doesn't usually get reviewed very well either, and that's never stopped it from selling. It's really hard to say.
A lot of NFL-lovers chose the NFL 2K series. At least enough to make EA worried and subsequently go after exclusivity.
From what I understand, many of the competition try to blame failings in their game design on not having the license. Which seems more than dickish.
Considering that Madden's only REAL competition was the NFL 2K series, EA should have bought the fucking studio (I mean, they do that all the time). Then incorporated that studio into their own to help make Madden better. Instead, they went with option B: Destroy the 2K series and NOT make Madden better. Its the classic lose-lose for gamers.
I personally don't play the games, but have co-workers that do, and they all say Madden has just felt lazy the last few years.
EA should prove this once and for all - by developing a football game that doesn't have real players, then launch it aside the Madden flagship. See if it sells at all.
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I don't really believe that. I believe the bit about some people choosing the 2K series, but not the bit about it making them worry. Even when 2K was alive, didn't Madden still have the highest-selling game like pretty much every year?
Compare them to Wal-Mart. A lot of people might choose other places to shop, even boycotting Wal-Mart outright, but I wouldn't say Wal-Mart was actually worried about this. And if they got a chance like EA did, they'd simply eliminate the competition so that the consumer had no choice. That I can see as being kind of dickish, but really, I'm sure that like eight out of ten football gamers chose Madden anyway.
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More like six out of ten, which is a good chunk of market share.
# Madden NFL 2005 (PS2) - 3.2 million
# ESPN NFL 2K5 (PS2) - 1.5 million
2K5 actually outsold Madden on the Xbox, as well. If I was EA, I'd have been worried.
Hmm, I stand corrected. But wasn't the 2K series much cheaper as well? Surely that's got to count for something in those figures.
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That's true, the game was $20 to Madden's $50. The price difference probably had an effect, but it was still eating up marketshare like candy. If people kept moving to the 2K series, it would've been trouble for the Madden franchise.
I still think that NFL 2k5 is still easily one of the best football games released and well madden 08 is really good but it's still not as good as NFL 2k5 but I have hopes for Madden 09, but I don't like this exclusivity contract, it's really bad though that Madden is still playing catch up on the 2k series after all this time.
because that means they're evil!
let visual concepts work on their all-star franchise. it needs work, to be sure.
It's a shame it will continue as I preferred the 2k series as well, but at least the license is in competant hands - Madden is a very good game and as much as people bitch they've done a decent job keeping it fresh given they are required to do yearly updates.
another good point. the NFL wanted exclusivity. EA could afford it, why the hell wouldn't they ensure their most valuable franchise would stay alive?
As long as the NFL demands exclusivity, Madden will be the only game in town.
Despite the fact that mutant league football comes up every time football games are mentioned, real football fans don't want to play mutant league football, and it would sell like shit.
Re: why haven't people made an alternate game, they tried. APF is a great game but didn't sell.