How did the whole 2k vs EA market war happen?

[illwill10]

Quote: Originally Posted by NYJets

Yup. They even bought the Arena Football license and made one game to stop 2K from doing that. And then the ESPN license they bought for most games they just stuck in a drawer and barely used. Makes it even worse that the 2k5 presentation still blows away Madden's. Just an awful turning point for sports gaming.

ESPN license is available, if I'm correct. It was a 15 year deal that started 2006. Usually you don't see those types of deals don't just laspe. I fully expect to do an extension a couple years ago. I think it was SGO that said ESPN wants more in game use of its broadcast. But nowadays, these companies rather just use their own broadcast that closely mimics real broadcast packages.

[jfsolo]

Quote: Originally Posted by illwill10

ESPN license is available, if I'm correct. It was a 15 year deal that started 2006. Usually you don't see those types of deals don't just laspe. I fully expect to do an extension a couple years ago. I think it was SGO that said ESPN wants more in game use of its broadcast. But nowadays, these companies rather just use their own broadcast that closely mimics real broadcast packages.

Despite it angering the people who really want the real life presentation elements the Publishers are wisely realizing that it's pointless to spent that much money on something that will essentially contribute very little return on their investment.

[illwill10]

Quote: Originally Posted by jfsolo

Despite it angering the people who really want the real life presentation elements the Publishers are wisely realizing that it's pointless to spent that much money on something that will essentially contribute very little return on their investment.

The idea of ESPN broadcast package sounds cool, but really isn't that necessary outside of using it as a marketing tool. Instead spending extra to use ESPN, I rather publishers make a better attempt at their own broadcast packages. Madden could use a face-lift and new commentators. But the idea of needing ESPN or other broadcast isn't necessary. Just focus on making what they have already better

[tril]

Quote: Originally Posted by CM Hooe

Ignoring both the EA - NFL exclusivity agreement (other people have already told that story) and the litany of football strategy features not present in NFL 2K5 relative to modern football games on account of its advanced age, I think people either forget or deliberately omit the glaring problems present in NFL 2K5 which dramatically hampered the experience both during its time of relevance and today, especially from the perspective of multiplayer and franchise. For example, I gather you are a big fan of NFL Head Coach and similar single-player NFL team management games. In NFL 2K5 franchise mode, CPU-controlled teams always and only select QBs, RBs, OTs, and DEs with their Round 1 draft picks. That bug was never corrected, and it is a crippling roster management issue for single player franchise gamers once you know it is there. If I recall correctly, NFL 2K5 also had major issues with CPU trade logic, notably with CPU teams aggressively trading star players with one another. I recall the CPU Packers trading away Brett Favre quite often. If you were a couch multiplayer gamer with friends, NFL 2K5 franchise mode was a logistical nightmare; you are only allowed to play the games in the exact order they appear on the schedule. In comparison, every Madden game of the era allowed for playing the games in a given week in any order. This shortcoming by itself stopped my high school friends from playing NFL 2K5 franchise with me, and as a result we played a ton of Madden 2005 Franchise instead with no regrets. I'm not even going to touch the Weekly Prep feature, which was well-intentioned but so incredibly obtuse and opaque. I never figured it out. I don't know that anyone did. Player progression in NFL 2K5 was also chaotic and unpredictable. Maybe that's more realistic? But it certainly wasn't fun winning MVP with a young quarterback only to see his OVR rating decrease the following season. On the field, there were also significant issues. The most prominent one I remember is that offensive clipping penalties subtracted from a ballcarrier's rushing yardage. I believe this bug was corrected on XBOX with a patch, admittedly, but as far as I know it is still present on the PS2 version, which I think is the more popular version for emulation. Further, safeties playing deep half zones in Cover 2 or Cover 3 middle third zones were also routinely seen running in tight semi-circles, which could get them out of position extremely quickly. I recall many many roster editors spending time "in the lab" so to speak trying to mess with all sorts of ratings to improve safety play; I have no idea how successful they were in doing so, but having watched videos of NFL 2K5 played on emulators as recent as this summer I know the problem is still in the game. NFL 2K5 should be celebrated for its kitchen-sink design, its breadth of content and features, its fan service, its raising the bar for sports video game presentation and commentary, the VIP System (this in particular isn't talked about nearly enough), and its at the time good gameplay which on-balance at least held its own with Madden 2005 (it did some things better and some things worse). For franchise and multiplayer gamers, however, NFL 2K5 was surpassed a long time ago.

thank goodness none of these issues bothered me. truthfully I never even realized these issues except for the coverage issue in the middle of the field, but guess what the sliders in 2k actually work. Raising the coverage sliders fixes the coverage issues.

With that said the thing that separates the older gen EA football games and the older 2k games is that the basic principles of football are upheld.
I know alot of gamers, including myself want more control with all the aspects of football, but the issue with doing this is that if folks don't fully understand football concepts, the computer AI will reflect that on the field.

Finally, the 2k/EA war is equivalent to Pepsi/Coke, McDonalds/burger king. I think its also generational. For older gamers, this matters cause we know the difference.

[zello144]

The NFL loves exclusive deals unfortunately. Look at the deals they've made with other companies "Exclusive partner of the NFL" with pizza companies and so on It's dumb imo they always do something dumb. Like Sunday Ticket only being exclusively available on Directv until 2022.

The owners don't care as long as Madden keeps on printing money for them. I also don't think there's anybody in the league office that cares about video games.

Unfortunately the MLB kinda got dragged into this too when 2K after losing the NFL license made an exclusive deal with MLB for MLB 2K and kicked EA out of making baseball games. So we got stuck with MLB 2K and The show was a Sony exclusive for a very long period of time so when MLB 2K got canned way back in 2013 Xbox users were screwed up until this year. I think the primary reason why the Show made it to Xbox was because the MLB didn't like the situation it was in by having their only licensed video game a console exclusive so when they renewed their deal they forced Sony to make it multiplat. EA is in a different situation and the NFL don't care.

Sports leagues should just go the NBA route and just open up the license to as many companies as possible as long as you can afford to keep developing the game and can make a profit. Because of that NBA Live has been cancelled many times but it forced EA to keep on trying and reinvent itself though right now it's in limbo. Unfortunately I don't think the NFL likes that model.

[J_Posse]

Quote: Originally Posted by Thunderhorse

It's not about quality. If the NFL cared, "Sunday Ticket" wouldn't have been wrapped up with DirectTv for years.

Ding, ding, ding.....

They are a bunch greed, good ol' boys that could give a damn about a video game's "qualtiy."

Official HQ of Bills Backer/Spurs Nation

[NYJets]

Quote: Originally Posted by jfsolo

Despite it angering the people who really want the real life presentation elements the Publishers are wisely realizing that it's pointless to spent that much money on something that will essentially contribute very little return on their investment.

It doesn't really anger me that publishers don't pay for that type of thing that often because I agree that they can make a great presentation without it. I still think the full integration adds some to it, but probably not worth the cost. The thing that angered me was that EA didn't bother using it for Madden even though they already had it, and they continued to have a terrible presentation year after year.

[illwill10]

Quote: Originally Posted by NYJets

It doesn't really anger me that publishers don't pay for that type of thing that often because I agree that they can make a great presentation without it. I still think the full integration adds some to it, but probably not worth the cost. The thing that angered me was that EA didn't bother using it for Madden even though they already had it, and they continued to have a terrible presentation year after year.

Especially considering that they used it for the NCAA Football & Basketball games, NBA Live, and elements of ESPN in the Head Coach 06 game. I get that you didn't want comparisons with 2k5, but if you're already paying for it and using it on other games, might as well used on Madden. Madden's presentation always felt more geared towards Online play