I wonder why 2k sports make another football game? (APF 2k15)

[JAYHOVA110]

since it seems that we're not getting another NFL game from 2k, cant we get another All Pro Football game at least???? C'mon man!!!!!

[Caesar3k5]

I believe the time is right for 2k make another All-Pro Football that features franchise mode, real coaches, players and playbooks.. Another thing 2k should explore about making college football video game as well!!!!

[The_Cane]

It's 2014...and I'm still playing APF2k8.

[JAYHOVA110]

I was just thinking the other day about how dope would APF 2k15 graphics be if they made another game. Given all the next gen extra horsepower that would be at 2k's disposal, that game would be unbelievable. Just my wishful thinking.

[TjJunior]

There are still folks who don't know of or have even heard of 2k8, all because there is no NFL logo. Not real football fans if you ask me, but that's why there needs to be two games. Not for the sake of making the competitor motivated, but because fans differ. I love football, NFL CFL NCAA arena no pop-warner though, thats not football its kids playing. Then you have league fans we all know the "I don't watch college cause they don't get paid" guy or the "I don't watch NFL cause money ruined the purity of the sport" cat. There should be one studio that makes a game that caters to fans of the sport and one that caters to fans of a particular league. I wish someone in charge of NFL contract agreements had the vision to see things as such and act accordingly because they are leaving money on the table.

[FaceMask]

Quote: Originally Posted by TjJunior

There are still folks who don't know of or have even heard of 2k8, all because there is no NFL logo.

I'd attribute that more to 2K's poor marketing of the game. Blitz The League had no NFL logo, but Midway made sure everybody knew about it. Both BTL's had fantastic marketing campaigns.

[Kaiser Wilhelm]

Blitz also had a pretty famous brand to work from. Anybody who entered an arcade in the late Nineties played NFL Blitz. Not only did it have a better brand, but a more distinguished brand, because of how all out absurd it was. Blitz wasn't a football game, it was NFL Blitz.

2k didn't quite have that brand recognition. They had one really memoramble game from 2004-5 and they weren't making anything really different. They were just making a generic football sim.

Now to the point of the topic, if NFL 2k, or really anybody, were to try to get the NFL license again, I would think they would have to at least have proof of concept to show the NFL. To me, if any of these companies were thinking of trying to grab that license, be it SCEA, or 2k, it might be worth the risk to throw down some short term money to show they can produce a quality product.

[FaceMask]

Quote: Originally Posted by Kaiser Wilhelm

Blitz also had a pretty famous brand to work from.

As I'll illustrate with numbers, not quite as famous as it may have seemed.

Quote: Originally Posted by Kaiser Wilhelm

Anybody who entered an arcade in the late Nineties played NFL Blitz.

That may be true. I wasn't a fan of NFL Blitz myself. But the arcades were pretty much dead by the late nineties. Almost no one was going anymore because console gaming had reached the level of quality that made arcades pointless to the average consumer. That's pretty well-known history now.

Midway was making its money on consoles with Blitz. But, they weren't selling that much actually. After the first NFL Blitz, the series' sales went on a sharp decline.

Quote: Originally Posted by Kaiser Wilhelm

Not only did it have a better brand, but a more distinguished brand... ... 2k didn't quite have that brand recognition. They had one really memoramble game from 2004-5 and they weren't making anything really different. They were just making a generic football sim.

I don't know what you're basing that on. After the first NFL Blitz was released, the subsequent games sales went on such a decline to the point that eventually it made no sense to continue the series, and they didn't. Midway Execs themselves commented that the sales dive and the NFL wanting too much money for them to continue a deal is why they went the Blitz The League route in the first place. People weren't buying the game anymore.

After NFL Blitz 2001, the series' sales were averaging sub-million. NFL Blitz 2002 for example sold around just 460K, and while the 2003 version did a few hundred thousand better (around 720K), the sales were in the toilet. The writing was on the wall. There would be no NFL Blitz 2004. So whatever level of brand recognition the series had, it certainly wasn't translating into sales.

NFL 2K5, a single game, sold 4.26 Million copies. By comparison, all NFL Blitz games COMBINED sold just around 6.72 Million, while all NFL 2K games combined sold around 10.58 Million.

Now, if the question is whether or not the Blitz name had better brand recognition than the All-Pro Football name, then yes of course it did. But APF was new IP, while Blitz had already been around for a decade, so the comparison would be unequal there.

Main point though, is that the marketing of APF's was incredibly poor that's why there are a lot of people still today who don't know the game exists. It had nothing to do with brand recognition, new brands debut and sell well all the time, but they have to be marketed well. Even if you have a product from a highly recognized company you still have to market it properly or there will be problems. Just take a look at Nintendo's Wii U and how many people still think the Wii U is just a controller upgrade for the Wii, and how many don't even know it exists at all. That's what poor marketing will do to a product.