2K and WiiU - 2K's best route into the football gaming market!

[illiterateoption]

Quote: Originally Posted by elgreazy1

Agreed, both of them barely sold, but both releases also completely dropped the ball in terms of entering the market. With APF2K8, 2K was trying to straddle the line of having a football game while still being able to appeal to the NFL. They blew a large majority of their budget by signing "Legends" to 3-year deals; these legends subsequently did nothing to promote the game. Their marketing campaign revolved around using under-ground hip-hop rappers. The development team completely stripped away much of what made the NFL2K series great: presentation, depth, NO FRANCHISE MODE, etc. The kiss of death came when the devs felt the need to completely handicap users in terms of customization: 20 create-a-player max slots, 8 create-a-team max slots, no way to share rosters, playbooks, sliders, etc. I could go on and on with this. Backbreaker failed mainly because it was used as a vehicle to promote the Euphoria engine. The game was never really meant to compete in the football genre arena. From reading countless interviews with the CEO - Torsten Reil - it was quite clear he was hoping a company like EA would snatch up the IP. Still hoping someone comes up with something!

I popped in 2k8 tonight after reading the responses to my idea...its just such an engaging game. All of the teams play differently you need to adjust your gameplan accordingly. The stadiums and crowd interactions are nice, weather effects are cool, and animations are beautiful.

I STILL SMH and can't believe they couldn't come up with a legacy mode of ANY KIND. Just a shame. I can barely play it anymore because of the feeling of pointlessness without a legacy mode.

[noplace]

Quote: Originally Posted by elgreazy1

Agreed, both of them barely sold, but both releases also completely dropped the ball in terms of entering the market. With APF2K8, 2K was trying to straddle the line of having a football game while still being able to appeal to the NFL. They blew a large majority of their budget by signing "Legends" to 3-year deals; these legends subsequently did nothing to promote the game. Their marketing campaign revolved around using under-ground hip-hop rappers. The development team completely stripped away much of what made the NFL2K series great: presentation, depth, NO FRANCHISE MODE, etc. The kiss of death came when the devs felt the need to completely handicap users in terms of customization: 20 create-a-player max slots, 8 create-a-team max slots, no way to share rosters, playbooks, sliders, etc. I could go on and on with this. Backbreaker failed mainly because it was used as a vehicle to promote the Euphoria engine. The game was never really meant to compete in the football genre arena. From reading countless interviews with the CEO - Torsten Reil - it was quite clear he was hoping a company like EA would snatch up the IP. Still hoping someone comes up with something!

You nailed this...Listen and learn 2k...

[PaleVermilion]

Quote: Originally Posted by elgreazy1

Agreed, both of them barely sold, but both releases also completely dropped the ball in terms of entering the market. With APF2K8, 2K was trying to straddle the line of having a football game while still being able to appeal to the NFL. They blew a large majority of their budget by signing "Legends" to 3-year deals; these legends subsequently did nothing to promote the game. Their marketing campaign revolved around using under-ground hip-hop rappers. The development team completely stripped away much of what made the NFL2K series great: presentation, depth, NO FRANCHISE MODE, etc. The kiss of death came when the devs felt the need to completely handicap users in terms of customization: 20 create-a-player max slots, 8 create-a-team max slots, no way to share rosters, playbooks, sliders, etc. I could go on and on with this. Backbreaker failed mainly because it was used as a vehicle to promote the Euphoria engine. The game was never really meant to compete in the football genre arena. From reading countless interviews with the CEO - Torsten Reil - it was quite clear he was hoping a company like EA would snatch up the IP. Still hoping someone comes up with something!

Also, BB did it completely backwards. They should've released BB Vengeance first on consoles to build a better following and give themselves more time to develop the overall football mechanics. BB Vengeance is such an awesome game, and the controls and movement are way better than the BB game itself.

[jyoung]

Quote: Originally Posted by PaleVermilion

Also, BB did it completely backwards. They should've released BB Vengeance first on consoles to build a better following and give themselves more time to develop the overall football mechanics. BB Vengeance is such an awesome game, and the controls and movement are way better than the BB game itself.

You are forgetting that the Backbreaker brand was originally a huge hit on cell phones with the very successful "Tackle Alley" minigame. I believe it sold in the millions, and those initial mobile sales are what got the franchise onto consoles in the first place.

But yes, Vengeance's core mechanics were massively improved over the first Backbreaker game. Better physics, better animations, better camera, controls, etc.

The problem was that, despite having such great mobile sales, no one bought either Backbreaker console game. And that is why Natural Motion is now a mobile-only developer. It's a shame because Natural Motion was definitely doing some amazing things with their engine.

The NCAA 14 demo's physics are still a joke compared to what Vengeance was doing two years ago. And that's just looking purely at the two games' on-field product, not taking into account the huge differences in manpower and budgeting.

[PaleVermilion]

Quote: Originally Posted by jyoung

You are forgetting that the Backbreaker brand was originally a huge hit on cell phones with the very successful "Tackle Alley" minigame. I believe it sold in the millions, and those initial mobile sales are what got the franchise onto consoles in the first place. But yes, Vengeance's core mechanics were massively improved over the first Backbreaker game. Better physics, better animations, better camera, controls, etc. The problem was that, despite having such great mobile sales, no one bought either Backbreaker console game. And that is why Natural Motion is now a mobile-only developer. It's a shame because Natural Motion was definitely doing some amazing things with their engine. The NCAA 14 demo's physics are still a joke compared to what Vengeance was doing two years ago. And that's just looking purely at the two games' on-field product, not taking into account the huge differences in manpower and budgeting.

No, I'm not forgetting it. Just not counting it because it wasn't a console game. They needed to build up their console game following before releasing a full on 11v11 console game. And they also needed to get BB Vengeance on to PS3s in North America. So much fail by that company. Also, the stupid patch that broke the BB console game. Messed up so much and they still continued to brag about it. Arg, now I'm bitter again lol

[jyoung]

Yeah the Greathouse patch did as much harm to the game as it did good things.

The standard 4-man pass rush, for example, was the most realistic you could find in a video game before the patch, then they changed it to where you couldn't get any pressure at all with the front four because people were complaining about getting sacked a lot.

[TjJunior]

They tried that with NHL 2k11 on the wii. I love hockey as much as I love football, but I didn't buy a wii for 2k11, and I wouldn't buy a wii u for just one football game. I did buy a PS3 to play the show, but there were also other non sport titles that made me get it over a wii, along with the systems other shortcomings.

[Profit89]

Quote: Originally Posted by Segagendude

They'd sell more PC copies than WiiU..... Imagine a fully customizable game on today's powerful pc's!!

Totally agree.

They wouldn't need to waste any money on licenses or nonsense like that. The mod community could take care of all that stuff.

Imagine 2K Football on Steam. Would be epic.