Generic Football 2k19: Now is the Time - kennylc629's Blog

kennylc629's Blog

Generic Football 2k19: Now is the Time

Posted on June 25, 2018 at 12:04 PM.

Back in 2007 when APF 2k8 came out, gamers were thrilled about the possibility of no longer being held hostage by EA. So the game was released and while there continue to be a small following a decade later, the game was ultimately shelved because of lack of sales.

2k's primary assessment of why the game bombed: gamers do not want to play a generic game. Sadly, 2k, you could not have been any more wrong. These are the primary reasons the game did not work and why it is time for Generic Football 2k19.

1) You basically released this game with the intentions of going head-to-head against EA. That is like a mom and pop grocery store opening next to Walmart. You were competing directly against EA.

You should have released the game March-May. Why? Football has one of the most exciting off seasons. We love following the action of free agency and the draft. If you released the game during this time, you're capitalizing on that. You're filling in for that "football fix."

2) Lack of franchise. I totally understand that you wanted to go w/ the all-time greats. That's ok, but that's not enough to make a gamer play one season and that's it. If you wanted Barry Sanders and Joe Montana in the game, make them immortals... no matter how many seasons you play, they never age, they never retire. Heck... call the game "Immortal Football 2k18" or whatever. That way, the gamer still gets to do trades, sign free agents, deal with injuries and all of the other franchise stuff that gamers want to do.

3) Lack of upgrade from NFL 2k4. These two games were eerily similar, especially given that you were now on the Xbox 360. It seems to me that somewhere along the lines, 2k said "if we do not make $X from this, we're shelving it." If that was the case, you need to step up your game (pun intended) a bit. I cannot invest minimum time into a project and expect maximum results.

4) Using "legends" in the game was expensive. Related to point #3 I'm sure this killed your net profit. You had to enter individual agreements with each and every legend you used. I'm sure Joe Montana was 5 times more expensive than Ray Guy. Look at it this way: if you come out with the generic game now, this is not even necessary because the game would be fully customization and the gamer can create his own version of Joe Montana, right? Of course, the gamer would probably recreate the NFL, but you cannot be held accountable for what changes the gamer makes.

When your game takes off and become a bigger threat, I am sure EAs lawyers will try to argue otherwise, but this is not an argument they can win. You're not going to make the same mistake that EA made with NCAA; you're not going to try to be slick and ship the game with the "Philadelphia Freedom" whose colors are green and black with their starting QB being #11 from North Dakota State and the backup QB being #9 from Arizona. But you will permit users to share rosters, team names etc etc. Just as EA cannot be held accountable if someone named a player a bad word, you cannot be accountable if the gamer creates Carson Wentz.

5) You still charged full price for the game. But I guess you had to because of point #4. But remember how well NFL 2k4 did? A large part of that was because of the $20 selling price. You released APF to go head-to-head against Madden while selling it for the same price. That was a fail.

So in conclusion, 2K or Sony or anyone else that make games, you have to abandon the logic that says "APF 2k8 was not a success because it lacked a license." You have to be aware of the discontent that many feel towards EA. Because of this discontent, this would be an excellent time to consider getting to the the business.

You might be tempted to argue "but what about Backbreaker." While it is easy to immediately point to the lack of a franchise for its failure, this was just a bad game. The graphics used in this game made the players look like some sort of futuristic robotic alien race and I do not know what they were trying to accomplish with the game controls.

If you avoid the mistakes that were made with APF, you would have success with Generic Football 2k19.