I HATE EA...F**kin\' BASTARDS...

Originally posted by EviscerationX
And movies have jack-diddly-crap to do with this thread. We\'re talking about the affect of EA\'s gay decision on the NFL game genre as a whole and all it\'s developers, not how great you think Titanic was. That\'s a mute point relevant to nothing.

That wasnt the point.

The point was that mm uses sales to justify his point. Titanic, to many wasnt that great but the sales are so great anybody could say that its one of the greatest movies of all time.

Make sense?

[Evi]

Yes I got the point already But he never has a point. I think Titanic was crap, no matter what the sales say [which brings up another point, I know].

enter the matrix? thats a whole new genre.

Genre has nothing to do with it.  The point is the franchise name as that\'s what sells games, not the quality of the title.  ETM is an incredibly valid point.  It sold a ton, it uses a franchise name to sell copies, and it worked despite its lack of quality and consistantly poor reviews.  No matter how many times Madden is defeated review wise by the 2K series, it always sold more, not because of its quality, but because it\'s MADDEN.  Enter the Matrix did not sell well because of its quality, it sold well because it\'s THE MATRIX.  Be smart about this man.  It\'s really quite simple.

I think it\'s great. I love EA... y\'all sound nearly as bad as the kiddies at TXB with the EA hate. I somehow thought since PS2 is EA\'s favored console, it would be taken better. I guess I was wrong... it\'s just a franchise. Sega can still make ESPN games, they just can\'t use the names. Sure, Joe Public wants the names, but Joe Public has been buying Madden over ESPN anyways.

It has nothing to do with just the names, it has everything to do with the innovation and the new style of gameplay.  A refining and improvement on the series brought on by solid competition which will now be lacking.  Remember, EA lacked any real competitor with Madden from the Genesis and SNES days -- heck, they were just competing with sales of the game per console with themselves and that was just a friendly competition as all the money still went into EA\'s pockets.  It wasn\'t until the PSX days when NFL Gameday came out that EA finally woke up and found themselves needing to improve the formula before they lose all of their fanbase to a Sony first party developer.  Heck, the year NFL Gameday came out, Madden was being released on the PSX still in 2D confident their product was good enough for Joe Public and it clearly wasn\'t.

Now, people are actually happy this type of thing can and will happen again?  Please, without competition, EA is completely weaksauce.  They secure a franchise and then drive it into the ground.  Is it any wonder why all of their franchise based games are essentially flash in the pan quick hits?  Do you think EA would fall back to the house that Rare built with Goldeneye and make a Goldeneye 2 if any of their James Bond based FPS games were nearly as successful?  How many Sims games and Sims yearly expansions do we need until people realize what the hell is happening here?  How can any of this be good?  Someone please explain it to me.

[Evi]

OK...I get his ignorance now, Ryu Thanks...

[§ôµÏG®ïñD]

i have no interest in any football, soccer or Aussie Rules shit.. so i really don\'t care... but it is pretty low to do shit like that.

[Jumpman]

It\'s business, meh.

Originally posted by Ryu
It has nothing to do with just the names, it has everything to do with the innovation and the new style of gameplay.  A refining and improvement on the series brought on by solid competition which will now be lacking.  Remember, EA lacked any real competitor with Madden from the Genesis and SNES days -- heck, they were just competing with sales of the game per console with themselves and that was just a friendly competition as all the money still went into EA\'s pockets.

I still, to this day, hear ppl calling one of the Genesis Madden\'s (I don\'t remember which one, not really my kinda game) the \'best\' Madden to date. It has nothing to do with the names? Funny, because that\'s what EA bought. Show me where this deal stops ESPN Fantasy Football 2005 from being released. Please. I dunno if you noticed, but Sega dropped ESPN to ghetto prices and STILL was crushed by Madden; EA has had NO motivation this gen to \'innovate\'. This is no different from any other license, regardless of how popular the sport may be this is not \'bad\' for the industry - it will have no effect on it. Madden will still sell bucket loads, ESPN will still break the top 10 for maybe a month if even and then drop off, and the industry will continue on, uneffected. If EA somehow made it impossible for any other football game to be made, ok, I\'d see the problem. NCAA, Fantasy, generic arcade - all directions any game company could go in with their own football game, they just can\'t use NFL names. Ohhh, evil monopolistic EA! OMG, Activision has a Tony Hawk monopoly! Lets get the online petitions fired up!

Fact is, EA paid $3 million. Sega, Sony, MS, Nintendo, Midway... any of them could have offered up that much; they obviously didn\'t, and the NFL/PA has no obligation to create or promote \'competition\' in the subgenre of football videogames. No one else has the LOTR license, and most people seemed to love Two Towers. No Harry Potter competition, and every HP fan I know loves EA\'s games (don\'t try the \'only kids like that crap\' either, every single one is a legal adult). The assumption that EA would just give up because they don\'t have Sega\'s (non-)competition anymore in the area of NFL licensed football games is retarded. EA spends large amounts of money supporting all three consoles with games that, like them or not, have some of the highest production values in the industry (esp. for multi-platform games) is stupid, and completely unfair.

It wasn\'t until the PSX days when NFL Gameday came out that EA finally woke up and found themselves needing to improve the formula before they lose all of their fanbase to a Sony first party developer.  Heck, the year NFL Gameday came out, Madden was being released on the PSX still in 2D confident their product was good enough for Joe Public and it clearly wasn\'t.[/B]

So... it sold poorly? EA can never conceivably learn from past mistakes? EA personally hates gamers and will abuse the fact that they have the license for a whopping (sarcasm) 5 years by making shitty football games that no longer get 9.somthing out of 10\'s in every review?

Now, people are actually happy this type of thing can and will happen again?  Please, without competition, EA is completely weaksauce.  They secure a franchise and then drive it into the ground.  Is it any wonder why all of their franchise based games are essentially flash in the pan quick hits?[/B]

I enjoy quite a few non-sports EA games, personally. The millions of people who have helped make EA the biggest 3rd party by buying their games seem to like their games too.

Do you think EA would fall back to the house that Rare built with Goldeneye and make a Goldeneye 2 if any of their James Bond based FPS games were nearly as successful? [/B]

EA is a smart business. GE is a bankable name. I\'m sure the platinum selling previous Bond\'s didn\'t sell in a way that \'forced\' EA into doing anything.

How many Sims games and Sims yearly expansions do we need until people realize what the hell is happening here?[/B]

Realize what? I\'m not a fan of the Sims, but if EA was to make expansions of their console games, I\'d certainly be very pleased.

How can any of this be good?  Someone please explain it to me. [/B]

Because... wait for it... *deep breath* not everyone likes the same games you like, and many actually like EAs games. Amazing, isn\'t it? We like their games, and don\'t fault them for being smart businessmen. Crazy as it seems. A million Sims expansions? Sims fans want them. Better graphics, roster updates and nothing else new in Madden? Guess what, sales indicate the people want that too. Could they be better? Sure, any company could. Could this situation be better? Sure, everyone could be happy if EA didn\'t get the contract. But lifes not perfect, and this isn\'t going to hurt the game industry, or even be a slight annoyance to 80% of gamers. It\'s just business as usual.


I\'m not arguing just for the sake of arguing, I really and truly just think that people are overreacting to this, big time.

Originally posted by EThuggV3
I dunno if you noticed, but Sega dropped ESPN to ghetto prices and STILL was crushed by Madden; EA has had NO motivation this gen to \'innovate\'. This is no different from any other license, regardless of how popular the sport may be this is not \'bad\' for the industry - it will have no effect on it. Madden will still sell bucket loads, ESPN will still break the top 10 for maybe a month if even and then drop off, and the industry will continue on, uneffected........OMG, Activision has a Tony Hawk monopoly! Lets get the online petitions fired up!

You don\'t know what you are talking about here. Before this year Madden outsold Sega\'s football games 15-1. This year it only outsold it 1.5 - 1. Sega did not lower the price with the mindset of immediately dethroning Madden. They knew that was impossible. They just wanted to cut into Madden\'s sales and gain market share. Mission Accomplished. EA took notice and did what they had to in order to stifle competition. This is bad for the industry. The only reason EA ever moved to 3D was competition from Gameday(Gameday was actually the top dog for a couple of years). NFL 2K on the Dreamcast was the best football game on the market when it was released and it caused EA to force their hand and step their game up for Madden 2001. Competition breeds innovation. That is a business FACT. If you effectively eliminate the marketability of your closest competitor you are stifling competition.

Originally posted by EThuggV3
Fact is, EA paid $3 million. Sega, Sony, MS, Nintendo, Midway... any of them could have offered up that much; they obviously didn\'t, and the NFL/PA has no obligation to create or promote \'competition\' in the subgenre of football videogames. No one else has the LOTR license, and most people seemed to love Two Towers. No Harry Potter competition, and every HP fan I know loves EA\'s games

The terms of the deal were not released but it has been said to be closer to a billion dollars than $3 million. I don\'t know where you got that number from.

The LOTR and Harry Potter are considered intellectual property. Things that were created and copywritten. A player\'s name, likeness, and stats are not intellectual property. This is what puts this whole deal on potentially shakey legal ground ESPECIALLY if EA does not sub-license the contract out to other developers.

I am interested to see how Take-Two and Microsoft work around this. They can still put out games that fudge the truth(New England instead of the New England Patriots and #12 instead of Tom Brady) which was done many times during the SNES and NES generations.

If EA took all the licenses to use name brand cars in games I\'d set fire to Initech.

Imagine driving the TURBO MONSTER 3000 in Gran Turismo 5.

Apparently EA is in talks with the NBA and MLB for similar deals. Which REALLY sucks because NBA Live is GARBAGE compared to ESPN and EA\'s MLB games were so bad they had to change the name to get people to start buying them again.

So... it sold poorly? EA can never conceivably learn from past mistakes? EA personally hates gamers and will abuse the fact that they have the license for a whopping (sarcasm) 5 years by making shitty football games that no longer get 9.somthing out of 10\'s in every review?

EA buys up the bulk of franchises when it comes to games and you can tell me with a straight face that all are gems?  Think of it this way, Goldeneye, a Rare property, sold millions.  I remember how many years it was in the top 10 for sales, but has any Bond game since matched that?  Look at the LotR games and name how many of them are easily excellent and how many need definite work.  Look how many games there are in just that franchise!  EA is hugely responsible for people thinking that games based on franchises are horrible and to be avoided at all costs -- is it any wonder why Riddick was such a huge surprise from reviewers?  

Realize what? I\'m not a fan of the Sims, but if EA was to make expansions of their console games, I\'d certainly be very pleased.

They already do, they call them sports titles and they charge 49.99 a pop for them, but that could change very quickly since there isn\'t any real competition to be offered anymore.

Because... wait for it... *deep breath* not everyone likes the same games you like, and many actually like EAs games.

Oh for sure, everyone does like Madden, but only because EA was actually forced to update their games in the face of excellent competition and a competitor willing to go all out on its individual product to compete.  Finally, ESPN was becoming a well known property and people were starting to realize Madden isn\'t the end all be all of football.  With ESPN finally being sold at a damn reasonable competitive rate, EA got scared and secured a billion dollar contract.  What\'s a billion dollars over five years if you\'re the only football game on the market that can be sold as the *official* NFL football game?  With minimal updates, cutting more corners with development time, and simply changing names on jerseys, EA can sell Madden 2006-2011 at 65 bucks a pop and never think twice about it.  What choice do consumers have when they want a football game with their favorite team\\players?  You still think that\'s a good thing?

Better graphics, roster updates and nothing else new in Madden? Guess what, sales indicate the people want that too.

This is probably the most horrible thing anyone has written in regards to videogames and their evolution and uniqueness.  Thank God no one truly believes that crap.  Otherwise, we never would have gotten what we have all come to know and love as Street Fighter II.

I was really angry when I heard about this but then I read this.

GameSpot was told the league put the license up for bid and that EA was among as many as five software publishers competing for it.

Apparently EA wasnt the only one trying to monopolize the sports gaming industry. Wonder who them other 5 publishers are.

Originally posted by PSX_J
I was really angry when I heard about this but then I read this.



Apparently EA wasnt the only one trying to monopolize the sports gaming industry. Wonder who them other 5 publishers are.

I was just gonna post something myself about that...... What the hell did you expect them to say NAH THAT WOULD BE MONOPOLIZATIONATIONG (GW Would be proud) of course there gonna try and outbid or they would be the ones looking out