EDITORIAL: EA & the NFL
EA is one step closer to conquering the world.
Tags: Madden NFL Football 2005 Categories: Features, GBA Features, Game Cube Features, PC Features, PS2 Features, PSP Features, Tech Features, Xbox Features
Posted by David Hinkle on Dec 14th, 2004
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You may have noticed a certain tidbit of news run here at Digital Entertainment News, pertaining to Electronic Arts’ recent acquisition of all licensing relationships with the NFL and Players Inc. What this allows is for EA to have access to exclusive game footage, music, and players from the National Football League. While this might seem great if you’re a fan of Madden football, it could very well spell disaster for the rest of the sports-gaming world.
This decision couldn’t come at a worse time for fans of Sega and Take-Two’s football franchise, ESPN NFL2K5, who have seen the latest installment pass all expectations and offer a very solid experience. Giving Madden stiff competition this year, the title not only included online play and a deep franchise mode, but also a slew of unlockable content. Debuting with a $19.99 price tag, it gave the full-priced Madden 2005 a good run for its money. Take-Two Interactive’s Ed Nebb had this to say in a recent press release:
“We believe that the decisions of the National Football League and Players Inc. to grant an exclusive license for videogames do a tremendous disservice to the consumers and sports fans whose funds ultimately support the NFL, by limiting their choices, curbing creativity and almost certainly leading to higher game prices.”
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The fact of the matter is that competition is great for all apsects of business. Without competition, we wouldn’t have seen the vast improvements in console gaming over the last few years. Imagine if Microsoft had made Nintendo and Sony go bankrupt, and they alone controlled the console market. With power like that, they could very well control the flow of the industry, limiting advancements in technology and slowing the incredible rate we’ve seen things improve in the gaming world over the last decade. Applying that same ideal, every year now instead of trying to one-up their competition with changes to their play engine, EA could just put a facelift on Madden and call it a day. I don’t know about you, but that idea strikes fear in my heart.
Not only from a technological point of view, but also financially this may lead to disaster. Without competition, we could see EA jack up the price for its football games, as with no other officially licensed football title on shelves diehard fans would be hard pressed to not pay the price. This is more than likely one of the things we could see happen as early as August (when the next Madden title is released), and if we did I wouldn’t be surprised in the least.
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Another key area this could affect is the upkeep. You enjoy playing football online, right? Well, regardless of what your favorite title is, the developers maintain rosters and update injury lists based on what is happening in the real NFL in order to offer a more realistic experience than their competitors. Madden already does this, but if there were no competition, why would they need to? One of the reasons Madden does this is because their competitor does, and to draw in more players they want to offer a more comprehensive experience. Say goodbye to that now, though. Honestly, it’d kill profits for them to have to employ the manpower to keep up with these changes, and now that there is no competition raising the bar, they won’t have to.
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This all isn’t anything new to EA however, who already control all rights for making games based on FIFA and NASCAR properties. These, however, don’t hold the same relevance as the NFL licensingdoes. In the U.S. only a tiny percent of people actively watch soccer and buy the video games. Enough to warrant EA to make the games, this isn’t too big of a deal. NASCAR has a humongous following here, but not many of the fans actually purchase the games. However, too many people to count watch NFL here and just about all of them that are gaming enthusiasts purchase the appropriate year’s game. That is a staggering amount of sales, that up until now was almost evenly split amongst EA and Sega. Imagine now how much EA will make if it controls that entire market. Scary, isn’t it?
So, while this may seem like a great thing to those that enjoy Madden over the 2K titles, the fact of the matter is that it is very bad for the gaming world. No company should control an entire market that vast, and while I myself play Madden online every weekend (honestly I do), I cannot approve of this.
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Tags: Madden NFL Football 2005
Posted by David Hinkle on Dec 14th, 2004 and is filed under Features, GBA Features, Game Cube Features, PC Features, PS2 Features, PSP Features, Tech Features, Xbox Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
