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Does 2k have legend exclusivity?

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Old 06-06-2007, 02:07 AM   #49
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Re: Does 2k have legend exclusivity?

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Originally Posted by spankdatazz22
It's not the product that's the problem imo, it's the consumer
Agreed. But 2k's marketing of their games, and their football games in particular has never been their strong suit unfortunately.

I am very interested to see exactly how they market this game. But with a month or so to go until release, I hope they start soon.

I am curious since this game is a bit of a longshot, and with their financial situation, if the marketing budget for this game is smaller than it would be with their other flagship games.
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Old 06-06-2007, 02:32 AM   #50
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Re: Does 2k have legend exclusivity?

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Originally Posted by bkrich83
Agreed. But 2k's marketing of their games, and their football games in particular has never been their strong suit unfortunately.

I am very interested to see exactly how they market this game. But with a month or so to go until release, I hope they start soon.

I am curious since this game is a bit of a longshot, and with their financial situation, if the marketing budget for this game is smaller than it would be with their other flagship games.
At this point, I don't even bother reading 1/2 of the threads into the forum because its all conjecture/criticism of 2K, Madden, 2K's marketing strats, or EA's marketing.

Honestly, I'm sure the info will come in droves soon. In previous years, they at least had Football Fridays so I'm just curious as to how they approached marketing.
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Old 06-06-2007, 02:35 AM   #51
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Re: Does 2k have legend exclusivity?

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Originally Posted by Spectre
At this point, I don't even bother reading 1/2 of the threads into the forum because its all conjecture/criticism of 2K, Madden, 2K's marketing strats, or EA's marketing.

Honestly, I'm sure the info will come in droves soon. In previous years, they at least had Football Fridays so I'm just curious as to how they approached marketing.
I miss football fridays. I mean I know why they hold a lot of the information close to the vest till the last possible moment. If they gave out too much too soon, a lot of their ideas miraculously make it in to Madden under a different name. I get that. But we're getting close to zero hour, and they have an uphill battle to fight.

My biggest fear is this game completely flops and 2k gets out of the football game business altogether.

For me personally it really doesn't matter how they market the game from here on out, I am buying it no matter what. But I don't think there are enough people with that mindset alone to carry this game.
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Old 06-06-2007, 02:38 AM   #52
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Re: Does 2k have legend exclusivity?

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Originally Posted by bkrich83
I am curious since this game is a bit of a longshot, and with their financial situation, if the marketing budget for this game is smaller than it would be with their other flagship games.
Didn't they just have a major shakeup in the board or something really soon after they announced APF?

I tend to agree with your line of thinking, it could very well be they have no budget. Someone could have stepped in and said, "well you spent X years on this product lets get it out and our projections are you will sell XX copies so you have XX to advertise and market."

Their primary goal is to make a profit on this game. At least I hope it is or else they are more screwed up then I think is possible.
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Old 06-06-2007, 02:42 AM   #53
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Re: Does 2k have legend exclusivity?

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Originally Posted by DSpezzano
Didn't they just have a major shakeup in the board or something really soon after they announced APF?

I tend to agree with your line of thinking, it could very well be they have no budget. Someone could have stepped in and said, "well you spent X years on this product lets get it out and our projections are you will sell XX copies so you have XX to advertise and market."

Their primary goal is to make a profit on this game. At least I hope it is or else they are more screwed up then I think is possible.
I think their primary goal is to sell enough copies to prove to the powers that be, that this is a viable project for the future.
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Old 06-06-2007, 07:22 AM   #54
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Re: Does 2k have legend exclusivity?

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Originally Posted by spankdatazz22
I'm too tired for this argument. Marketing and money, never about the quality of the game. Guess the point could be made that marketing is far more important unfortunately
Wow, that's painting with a pretty broad brush. NHL 07 had tons of quality, and was well-marketed, even against a product that had more previous critical acclaim and hardcore fans. The word got out pretty quick about the skill-stick and other enhancements.

MVP baseball was a much MUCH better series for baseball hardcores than Home Run Derby 2K7- it was marketed much better.

And again- what nobody seems to want to realize is that releasing screenshots is relatively FREE. Placing a movie up on the website (like before?) is cheap too. Heck, a producer blog is 20 minutes of a producer's time. Even if T2 was strapping 2K's cash- there's still no excuse for the large amount of nothing a month before the game hits. They aren't even doing the CHEAP or FREE marketing!

Rockstar Table Tennis (from another T2 studio) had more hype than this product, more pre release press, more screenshots, more print in the mags.

At this point, I HOPE its only more 2K non-existent marketing... because if its something else, we'll probably find that out next week with the news of the T2 investor conference call.
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Old 06-06-2007, 09:02 AM   #55
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Re: Does 2k have legend exclusivity?

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Originally Posted by quietcool72
Wow, that's painting with a pretty broad brush. NHL 07 had tons of quality, and was well-marketed, even against a product that had more previous critical acclaim and hardcore fans. The word got out pretty quick about the skill-stick and other enhancements.

MVP baseball was a much MUCH better series for baseball hardcores than Home Run Derby 2K7- it was marketed much better.
I didn't mean to. All EA games are marketed similarly from what it seems like to me - with some getting more attention than others of course. Whether the game's good or bad, it works. I'm sure someone knowledgeable on marketing would be able to speak to this subject a lot better. I was alluding to the contradiction I see in the forums. "Nothing's going to touch Madden's sales, nothing's going to impact Madden", etc. Okay, then why expect the same? People seem to want to make this a direct competition when it isn't. It's a generic game compared to a licensed game. It's a 3rd year game compared to a 1st year game. It's a game from a large developer compared to a game from a smaller dev. So imo expectations shouldn't be the same either. If direct comparisions are going to be made, those are things that should be taken into account - imo.

Quote:
Originally Posted by quietcool72
And again- what nobody seems to want to realize is that releasing screenshots is relatively FREE. Placing a movie up on the website (like before?) is cheap too. Heck, a producer blog is 20 minutes of a producer's time. Even if T2 was strapping 2K's cash- there's still no excuse for the large amount of nothing a month before the game hits. They aren't even doing the CHEAP or FREE marketing!
Is anyone still buzzing over the ton of draft day pics EA released? How many people made the decision to purchase then and there? It's hard to say. I see people see nothing more than a game announcement with a paragraph of info and immediately they say "must buy". It varies. VC put out tons of gameplay movies for NBA2k7 last year starting from E3 - put out a demo early. The previous year's game was mostly good. Very little info for Live, other than a weekly dev blog talking up the game. People still jumped on Live, and convinced themselves the game wasn't that bad and tried to sell others on it.

I'm just throwing random thoughts out - I don't think it's an exact science because there are a ton of factors at work. I do know that pics and movies and such are for us - those that will likely buy/not buy the game regardless of how "late" information comes. Side note - I heard from two separate people yesterday asking me about APF2K8. One was just asking what I knew (he's a Madden current gen fan but we hadn't talked in a while), the other said her son had seen the Gamespot email. I think they could utilize their options more efficiently myself. But I don't think what they do with us, as fickle as we [collectively] are, makes a huge difference. Unfortunately. We've shown we'll buy bad games in droves for whatever reason. We'll buy games with a lot of info, we'll buy games with little info. That's why I say ultimately we as consumers are to blame for this current situation.

Quote:
Originally Posted by quietcool72
Rockstar Table Tennis (from another T2 studio) had more hype than this product, more pre release press, more screenshots, more print in the mags.

At this point, I HOPE its only more 2K non-existent marketing... because if its something else, we'll probably find that out next week with the news of the T2 investor conference call.
Fearing an investor conference call? *sigh*. More marketing for Table Tennis? I think there's FAR more buzz for this game - and I think it's remarkable given this is a generic game. Why is that? Hard to say. I don't know how far away from release Take Two began pushing Table Tennis, but I'd guess given it's limited appeal and smaller stature they didn't shove out tons of info weekly for two months. I think a lot of what's going on is frustration for not knowing solid details. But as I said, I don't think some are taking the situation into consideration. If we're sitting here on July 13th with very little info then I'd agree. If they fired up Football Fridays a month ago, how much would they be able to talk about before it got redundant? Before we tuned out?

I know my thoughts are all over the place and I apologize. As someone else [essentially] said, we're in the speculation business - it helps the day go by. We like taking sides and speculating on what's what. But we've collectively shown that regardless of what a dev does or doesn't do, there's no blueprint to marketing to [this group]
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Old 06-06-2007, 10:09 AM   #56
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Re: Does 2k have legend exclusivity?

Quote:
Originally Posted by spankdatazz22
I didn't mean to. All EA games are marketed similarly from what it seems like to me - with some getting more attention than others of course. Whether the game's good or bad, it works. I'm sure someone knowledgeable on marketing would be able to speak to this subject a lot better. I was alluding to the contradiction I see in the forums. "Nothing's going to touch Madden's sales, nothing's going to impact Madden", etc. Okay, then why expect the same? People seem to want to make this a direct competition when it isn't. It's a generic game compared to a licensed game. It's a 3rd year game compared to a 1st year game. It's a game from a large developer compared to a game from a smaller dev. So imo expectations shouldn't be the same either. If direct comparisions are going to be made, those are things that should be taken into account - imo.



Is anyone still buzzing over the ton of draft day pics EA released? How many people made the decision to purchase then and there? It's hard to say. I see people see nothing more than a game announcement with a paragraph of info and immediately they say "must buy". It varies. VC put out tons of gameplay movies for NBA2k7 last year starting from E3 - put out a demo early. The previous year's game was mostly good. Very little info for Live, other than a weekly dev blog talking up the game. People still jumped on Live, and convinced themselves the game wasn't that bad and tried to sell others on it.

I'm just throwing random thoughts out - I don't think it's an exact science because there are a ton of factors at work. I do know that pics and movies and such are for us - those that will likely buy/not buy the game regardless of how "late" information comes. Side note - I heard from two separate people yesterday asking me about APF2K8. One was just asking what I knew (he's a Madden current gen fan but we hadn't talked in a while), the other said her son had seen the Gamespot email. I think they could utilize their options more efficiently myself. But I don't think what they do with us, as fickle as we [collectively] are, makes a huge difference. Unfortunately. We've shown we'll buy bad games in droves for whatever reason. We'll buy games with a lot of info, we'll buy games with little info. That's why I say ultimately we as consumers are to blame for this current situation.



Fearing an investor conference call? *sigh*. More marketing for Table Tennis? I think there's FAR more buzz for this game - and I think it's remarkable given this is a generic game. Why is that? Hard to say. I don't know how far away from release Take Two began pushing Table Tennis, but I'd guess given it's limited appeal and smaller stature they didn't shove out tons of info weekly for two months. I think a lot of what's going on is frustration for not knowing solid details. But as I said, I don't think some are taking the situation into consideration. If we're sitting here on July 13th with very little info then I'd agree. If they fired up Football Fridays a month ago, how much would they be able to talk about before it got redundant? Before we tuned out?

I know my thoughts are all over the place and I apologize. As someone else [essentially] said, we're in the speculation business - it helps the day go by. We like taking sides and speculating on what's what. But we've collectively shown that regardless of what a dev does or doesn't do, there's no blueprint to marketing to [this group]
I dig what you are saying Spank.

I also agree that there is buzz- but its only buzz created by sites like these. 2K has not stoked the fires of any buzz. If lack of a license has some sort of built in excuse for less (or no) marketing in the minds of 2K, then the only comparison is Midway's "Blitz The League"- and they hit WAY harder...

Cheerleader calendars, video, screenshots, producers coming to this site, developer chat interviews. And then near release they hit with the LT commercials on TV and radio.

I think that many fans of 2k (and I am one) are so darn into the 2K underdog role, that many things are ignored. I don't know if its disdain for EA to the point where 2K criticism is completely taboo...or what. Look at posts on this site- starting with the Shawn Drotar comment around the SB that they should market then. Sure- plenty of people said "No, silly...start marketing around the draft!"

Draft came and went. April came and went. May came and went. And to top that off, the release date that was mid August got moved up to July... shrinking the window even more. Yet you yourself said that you'd start worrying if there was no info by July 13th (3 days before the game drops.)

There's an ever moving "acceptability" slide-rule for 2K that seems to be in play with many 2K fans. Is it "love" for 2K, or hate for EA?..or a mix of both. There's a certain "Teflon" dynamic that is attached to 2K by many fans. Much is forgiven because EA is "evil" and 2K is "small"

People were up in arms about the lefty "lack of power" bug in an older version of MVP Baseball, yet in MLB2K7- people can jack balls out of the yard with disturbing regularity, jack most pitches (regardless of location in the strike zone relative to the bat) well over the near wall. And yet- the anger over a left handed batter power issue came to define MVP 04. Yet the 2k fan spin is that the game is "much improved" and "shows innovation". (Improved because this year's game didn't need a patch to get it to even run on most 360s- like the previous year?)

And yet, MLB2K7 is "much improved baseball" where I'm jacking 5 to 6 taters a game even with Heelfan's sliders...with the Pirates. (Someone told me "Well, just don't aim your swing with the L-stick- and you'll get less HRs, silly!")

This with the batting power set to 0...

But that's my point. Since December 10th 2004, the anti-EA attitude with many fans has made many of us very very forgiving of 2K's faults- in just about every game. The standard is indeed much much lower.

I'm not so much "criticizing" that dynamic, as much as I'm merely stating that it exists.

But lets forget this is a football game, and lets forget about licenses. I can't think of any game -of any type- worth buying in the past several years that has been this "unmarketed" a month out.

Publishers like Activision, Ubisoft...and any of the other publishers- would do a far better job than T2 has with 2K in terms of getting the word out, the screens out, the hype out.

I'm less worried about APF2K8 than I am about how stable T2/2K's footing is right now, in light of recent develoments with T2, as well as a curious, anonymous (assumed) employee posting over at the 2K forums hinting at layoffs and late paychecks.

Which is why next week's investor call news might shed some light if this was bogus or not, if there are layoffs, etc, with some of T2's studios.

This was posted on 2K's forums on Monday.
http://www.2ksports.com/forums/showthread.php?t=121154

and has since been deleted by mods at 2k:

Here was the text:
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Exclamation From a 2K Sports Employee

"First of all, let me apologize. I know that this post has little to contribute to the fantastic community on this board, but I could not think of a platform that would reach a more appropriate audience. Please bear with me.

I worked at the quality assurance department at Visual Concepts. We test most of the sports games published under 2K Sports. If you’ve been tester or have worked in the game industry, you know how much the QA department is relied on and how much we affect the gaming experience. For those who don’t realize the impact the testers make on games, just know that on average, the testing department at VC documents ten to twenty thousand bugs and suggestions on a full development cycle.

I first started testing at VC because of the excellent quality in their products. I am sure you are all aware that Visual Concepts makes the best sports games by far. But ever since Take Two Interactive has taken over as the parent company, the job experience has been horrible. Workers here receive inadequate compensations for all of the work they do (some have been loyal to the company for several years and have only received one nominal raise), employees occasionally do not get paid on a timely manner, and we are often treated like children. Despite several requests to reform, management and Take Two have done nothing but make things worse.

Following the recent rumblings in the board of directors at Take Two, there has been some uncertainty with the future of Visual Concepts. It‘s rumored that the entire QA department at VC is in the process of dissolving, but Take Two and management has not released any information to its employees on the matter despite several requests, preventing us from any kind of peace of mind. In all likelihood, the employees of the QA department here will be laid off with little or no notice and our jobs will be outsourced to 2K West (an original Take Two division). Not to insult our fellow employees at 2K West, but there are not enough resources for them to fully realize the quality that the Visual Concepts legacy has built over the last several years.

Please do not misinterpret this as petty vengeance or as a rant. Rather, consider this post as an explanation, an apology, an attempt to raise awareness. I’m not saying that the quality of our games will suffer, nor am I telling you to boycott 2K games. But, if Take Two destroys most of what is essential to the process of creating great games, I just want you to know what happened and why.

If the mods here can look in the other way for at least one day, QA truly thanks you."
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