Thursday, December 16, 2004
Anti-EA randomness
-I was stunned about the announcement concerning EA getting NFL exclusive rights for 5 years. Yes, I heard the constant rumors, but when the NFL denies such happenings earlier this year I took it as a sigh of relief. I'm really depressed/ticked about the situation obviously because I'm a huge ESPN NFL 2K mark. Having almost always rate Sega's game higher than EA's every year. EA's game was getting so stale I couldn't even stand their game this year. I only clocked 2 and a half games before getting fed up with it, and decided not to review it for the first time since the 2000 edition. If I would've reviewed I probably would have scored it in the 7.7-8.2 range.
Admittedly, this is a big business move for EA, they will no doubt have a big sales in their NFL series for the next few years. I'd say this is probably one of the best business happenings since Sony landed Squaresoft exclusivity for several years. Sure, EA already has exclusivity deals with the PGA, FIFA, and NASCAR. While there has been barely any sim golf games competing with Tiger Woods PGA the past several years it hasn't been a big deal. And soccer isn't that big here stateside, especially considering Konami's Winning Eleven series is closing in the gap closer than before and it doesnt even have the FIFA license. I didn't like the NASCAR deal, as I loved Atari's Dirt to Daytona a couple years back, and shortly after the competition announced they won't be making new NASCAR games was when EA and NASCAR announced their exclusivity deal. I smell a behind-the-scenes deal where EA paid off Sierra and Atari to not make any more NASCAR titles and then paid off NASCAR for the license.
The big deal here is that EA actually was actually taking a hit in sales big time due to Sega/Take-2 increasing the competition this year by dropping the price of their sports games to $20, and EA finally succumbed to their untraditional price-dropping technique and lowered the prices of their competing franchises to $30, still $10 more. Make sure to take note that EA is still charging the full $50 for their exclusive licenses for their Tiger Woods PGA, NASCAR, and FIFA games. Expect to shell out the full $50 now, maybe even more, for the yearly Madden, and $10/month for premium online features. Not cool EA, not cool. Rumors are going around that EA has also been hard at it trying to get exclusive rights for the NBA, and MLB video game licenses.
Now if EA ends up with the exclusive rights of all sports mega-giants for their games, wouldn't this sound like an illegal monopoly? Why yes, while others argue that how NFL licenses things like Gatorade, and Reebok to be the official drink and sportswear of the NFL, respectively, and how NASCAR has Hot Tomale's as their official candy, video games is a whole different market that a large consumer base spends a hefty amount of money on each year. I wouldn't be surprised if game companies make a claim to this issue in the forseeable future, and heck they got a perfect case to back up their argument with.
For nearly 25 years, Topps trading cards had exclusive rights with the NHL, NBA, NFL, and MLB to exclusively produce their trading cards. Their main competition, Bowman, they bought out in 1955, and until about 1980 they were the only major player in the cards business. In 1980 card companies brought a class-action lawsuit to court against Topps declaring they had an illegal Monopoly on the business, and WON! If Sega and other companies so desired they can use this case much to their advantage in hopes of an overturn of EA's many exclusivity deals.
What now for football games for Sega/Visual Concepts and other former companies like Midway, 989, and Microsoft? Let's start off with the less popular. If you didn't catch the announcement several months ago, Microsoft first announced their NFL Fever franchise was taking a year off, than later put the axe on the entire XSN sports department (except saving the development studios responsible for their Links, Amped, and Top Spin franchises). 989 announced they're now not releasing yearly sports sequels so they can put fourth an effort of making the best out of their games as possible. This year they only released a Soccer, Olympics, MLB, and NHL game. They did release GameDay on the PSone for the 5 people or so who are dedicated to that platform, probably the only reason being they just want to say they outlasted EA on how could make football games the PSone the longest. I have heard nothing from 989 on weather or not they'll plan to continue their NCAA Gamebreaker college football franchise or not, or continue the already-disappointing-in-sales GameDay series minus the NFL teams and players licenses.
Midway recently announced the latest installment in their popular Blitz series, dubbed "Blitz: Playmakers." As one of the head writers of the controversial ESPN show signed with Midway to add on an intriguing storyline to the video game that contains a lot of the drug use, profanity, and other elements from the old television series that the NFL hated so much that they blackmailed ESPN into pulling the show after one season (or else strip ESPN of the rights of highlighting their football games and their valuable Sunday Night Football timeslot). Midway employees stated something to the affect of "To hell with the No Fun League, were designing Blitz on how we wanted it to be played from the beginning!" This sounds like the most promising of entries in the entire Blitz franchise history.
Now, it's just down to Sega/Visual Concepts. There's been lots of talk/rumors/hope that Sega resurfaces their old NCAA College football series. Sega didn't confirm a game in the works yet, but I know of a lot of people (myself included) keeping our fingers crossed. Of course, Sega can always make the same game minus the NFL teams and players, but who would buy that? This thing actually happened in the '98 football wars on the N64, when the now-bankrupt Acclaim (of all companies) somehow secured the NFL teams license for their QB Club franchise on the N64. As a result, 'NFL Quarterback Club '98' outsold 'Madden Football 64' tremendously, which they never managed to do again on the N64 in the rest of its lifespan. So if Acclaim managed to outsell EA with an exclusive NFL license, just look at how much of a grip EA will have on the football games market for the next 5 years. Whatever Sega decides to do, if anything at all, we'll all have our eyes glued to them when they make an announcement.
Let's not forget that now that there will be no more NFL sim games competing directly with Madden, I wouldn't be surprised to see if EA relaxes a bit on their new features for their games. The competition drove out the best of companies to make their games the best. The past three years of Madden saw it include awesome game modes like mini-camp, owner mode, and storyline central. Can you expect more of the same groundbreaking features in future Madden games? I wouldn't count on it. Remember when the Madden titles dominated the 16-bit console games for almost its entire lifespan? The only groundbreaking innovations Madden added during their run from '92-'98 on the SNES/Genesis was windowless passing and the NFL teams and player licenses. Other than other minuscule additions each year like updated rosters/teams, each yearly addition had no major improvements whatsoever. Don't be surprised to expect more of the same in the next 5 years.
Now go and get yourself a glass of champagne EA, celebrate this business triumph for the time being, but prepared for the aftershock of a lifetime if you don't make good towards the consumers who buy your product each and every year. And Sega please, give us something next year to play.
-I was stunned about the announcement concerning EA getting NFL exclusive rights for 5 years. Yes, I heard the constant rumors, but when the NFL denies such happenings earlier this year I took it as a sigh of relief. I'm really depressed/ticked about the situation obviously because I'm a huge ESPN NFL 2K mark. Having almost always rate Sega's game higher than EA's every year. EA's game was getting so stale I couldn't even stand their game this year. I only clocked 2 and a half games before getting fed up with it, and decided not to review it for the first time since the 2000 edition. If I would've reviewed I probably would have scored it in the 7.7-8.2 range.
Admittedly, this is a big business move for EA, they will no doubt have a big sales in their NFL series for the next few years. I'd say this is probably one of the best business happenings since Sony landed Squaresoft exclusivity for several years. Sure, EA already has exclusivity deals with the PGA, FIFA, and NASCAR. While there has been barely any sim golf games competing with Tiger Woods PGA the past several years it hasn't been a big deal. And soccer isn't that big here stateside, especially considering Konami's Winning Eleven series is closing in the gap closer than before and it doesnt even have the FIFA license. I didn't like the NASCAR deal, as I loved Atari's Dirt to Daytona a couple years back, and shortly after the competition announced they won't be making new NASCAR games was when EA and NASCAR announced their exclusivity deal. I smell a behind-the-scenes deal where EA paid off Sierra and Atari to not make any more NASCAR titles and then paid off NASCAR for the license.
The big deal here is that EA actually was actually taking a hit in sales big time due to Sega/Take-2 increasing the competition this year by dropping the price of their sports games to $20, and EA finally succumbed to their untraditional price-dropping technique and lowered the prices of their competing franchises to $30, still $10 more. Make sure to take note that EA is still charging the full $50 for their exclusive licenses for their Tiger Woods PGA, NASCAR, and FIFA games. Expect to shell out the full $50 now, maybe even more, for the yearly Madden, and $10/month for premium online features. Not cool EA, not cool. Rumors are going around that EA has also been hard at it trying to get exclusive rights for the NBA, and MLB video game licenses.
Now if EA ends up with the exclusive rights of all sports mega-giants for their games, wouldn't this sound like an illegal monopoly? Why yes, while others argue that how NFL licenses things like Gatorade, and Reebok to be the official drink and sportswear of the NFL, respectively, and how NASCAR has Hot Tomale's as their official candy, video games is a whole different market that a large consumer base spends a hefty amount of money on each year. I wouldn't be surprised if game companies make a claim to this issue in the forseeable future, and heck they got a perfect case to back up their argument with.
For nearly 25 years, Topps trading cards had exclusive rights with the NHL, NBA, NFL, and MLB to exclusively produce their trading cards. Their main competition, Bowman, they bought out in 1955, and until about 1980 they were the only major player in the cards business. In 1980 card companies brought a class-action lawsuit to court against Topps declaring they had an illegal Monopoly on the business, and WON! If Sega and other companies so desired they can use this case much to their advantage in hopes of an overturn of EA's many exclusivity deals.
What now for football games for Sega/Visual Concepts and other former companies like Midway, 989, and Microsoft? Let's start off with the less popular. If you didn't catch the announcement several months ago, Microsoft first announced their NFL Fever franchise was taking a year off, than later put the axe on the entire XSN sports department (except saving the development studios responsible for their Links, Amped, and Top Spin franchises). 989 announced they're now not releasing yearly sports sequels so they can put fourth an effort of making the best out of their games as possible. This year they only released a Soccer, Olympics, MLB, and NHL game. They did release GameDay on the PSone for the 5 people or so who are dedicated to that platform, probably the only reason being they just want to say they outlasted EA on how could make football games the PSone the longest. I have heard nothing from 989 on weather or not they'll plan to continue their NCAA Gamebreaker college football franchise or not, or continue the already-disappointing-in-sales GameDay series minus the NFL teams and players licenses.
Midway recently announced the latest installment in their popular Blitz series, dubbed "Blitz: Playmakers." As one of the head writers of the controversial ESPN show signed with Midway to add on an intriguing storyline to the video game that contains a lot of the drug use, profanity, and other elements from the old television series that the NFL hated so much that they blackmailed ESPN into pulling the show after one season (or else strip ESPN of the rights of highlighting their football games and their valuable Sunday Night Football timeslot). Midway employees stated something to the affect of "To hell with the No Fun League, were designing Blitz on how we wanted it to be played from the beginning!" This sounds like the most promising of entries in the entire Blitz franchise history.
Now, it's just down to Sega/Visual Concepts. There's been lots of talk/rumors/hope that Sega resurfaces their old NCAA College football series. Sega didn't confirm a game in the works yet, but I know of a lot of people (myself included) keeping our fingers crossed. Of course, Sega can always make the same game minus the NFL teams and players, but who would buy that? This thing actually happened in the '98 football wars on the N64, when the now-bankrupt Acclaim (of all companies) somehow secured the NFL teams license for their QB Club franchise on the N64. As a result, 'NFL Quarterback Club '98' outsold 'Madden Football 64' tremendously, which they never managed to do again on the N64 in the rest of its lifespan. So if Acclaim managed to outsell EA with an exclusive NFL license, just look at how much of a grip EA will have on the football games market for the next 5 years. Whatever Sega decides to do, if anything at all, we'll all have our eyes glued to them when they make an announcement.
Let's not forget that now that there will be no more NFL sim games competing directly with Madden, I wouldn't be surprised to see if EA relaxes a bit on their new features for their games. The competition drove out the best of companies to make their games the best. The past three years of Madden saw it include awesome game modes like mini-camp, owner mode, and storyline central. Can you expect more of the same groundbreaking features in future Madden games? I wouldn't count on it. Remember when the Madden titles dominated the 16-bit console games for almost its entire lifespan? The only groundbreaking innovations Madden added during their run from '92-'98 on the SNES/Genesis was windowless passing and the NFL teams and player licenses. Other than other minuscule additions each year like updated rosters/teams, each yearly addition had no major improvements whatsoever. Don't be surprised to expect more of the same in the next 5 years.
Now go and get yourself a glass of champagne EA, celebrate this business triumph for the time being, but prepared for the aftershock of a lifetime if you don't make good towards the consumers who buy your product each and every year. And Sega please, give us something next year to play.
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