EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

[BizDevConglomerate]

I don't completely disagree, but understand Sage's point. The situation is somewhat similar to what Microsoft was doing when it was consolidating it's power base; it squashed competition. Until the government stepped in to slow their anti-competitive ways. People hated Microsoft for many of it's business practices. If Microsoft could eliminate Apple, should it? If Microsoft had eliminated Apple, do products like the iPhone or iPad ever get created? For sure, technology doesn't evolve in the way it has. Apple wasn't always the monster it is now - it was a big deal when Microsoft invested $150million to help prop up Apple (but mainly to keep the government off it's back for it's anti-competitive ways):

http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-202143.html

In the end it benefited both companies as they pushed themselves to make better products. Microsoft isn't anywhere near as reviled as it used to be, in part because they've made good products to make up for "what might've been".

Imo EA was following that same blueprint, but they haven't stepped up to make a superior product. They did what they did to kill competition, but they never did what they needed to make people forget/move on. This situation is solely their own fault. I was a huge 2K football fan and I'm bitter about what EA did. But like many others I would purchase both games because there were things in either I liked/disliked. Most people would've moved on if EA/Tiburon had done like other companies and stepped up to the plate - they haven't. Anytime I see people say "but Madden's getting better!"... it's supposed to get better. The question is where should it be. I have to post this:

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/rsWA2a-k5DI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Look at the interaction. Look at how organic the player movement and interaction is. Look at the sideline interaction. Listen to the play-by-play. Go to the 5:16mark and look at the replay presentation. Then understand, this isn't where Madden is (imo) even now - nor where it should be, which is 7yrs and a next gen console generation beyond this. This isn't even a licensed game, nor was it a fully 2K-efforted endeavor. That's why some people get bitter. And it's made to be worse when you have a the guy in charge of Madden puffing his chest out like they've accomplished something, and making hollow challenges.

Watching this vid just is disappointing. All 2k had to do was upgrade this game. They must not care about modding so you can add real payers and teams. This game looks so fluid I thought it was a real game till it got up close. I can't get with those controls. Or the graphics. But put an updated version of that out and I'm sure people would but. They just have to market it correctly. Tell everyone how to make it real. May sell it only as a DLC and release a demo. Is easier advertising on the console. Your she to see it in the Today menu on the PS.

This is depressing loll. The running, blocking, catch animations etc. Put that out today with all of the controls we have, man listen.

The only people to blame is 2k an us. We how demand then to fee make this man whose about to pay a game from 7 years so. This also shows that a game should be able to last forever. Greed killed games. 2k killed them stores by not being greedy. I don't understand why someone hasn't gone to 2k and said do a kick starter, we raid the money they need to make amature football and basketball, AND Pro football games. Then we go from there. Even they pry that over the first year make some upgrades to where they can you got a great game. We just have to be able to add teams and logos. Like backbreaker. Full post session mode, enough team does to mimic the real thing. They just make the shell leave the rest to us.

That would be perfect in my opinion.

I'm gonna start a hash tag on 2k twitter. #bringbackfootballwithusandkickstarter

Let's flood em. At least put out the sorry and so crying like girls. Lol Lombardi

[iamgramps]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

It appears to me that 2k created this situation with their tactics of price slashing. This was an attempt to be cute and take the market share from EA and it back fired. Madden may not be the game a lot of us want, but 2k is to blame. EA fired back and gave 2k some of their own medicine. If 2k would have never opened that door and threatened the NFL brand, MAYBE an exclusive deal would not have come into play.

[BizDevConglomerate]

It's up, #bringbackchoopswithus&kickstarter and #bringbackAPFwithus&kickstarter honestly we don't need a license. Just a team builder option and full customization. Online play with custom teams, if they pretty APF it may be better than madden today. They will need to update some IMO though. But it's worth a shot, now we see who really is bout it.. If 2k responds, they don't need to get the money up. They will have dedicated sales, all they need to do is agree. I need college hoops in my life, and college football, and that APF just looks way more fluid than madden. Madden looks great, but with time so can APF. LOOK AT THEIR BASKETBALL

[mellamoaaron]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

My main gripe with EA and Madden are the animations but outside of that Madden plays a good game of football and honestly I think the past 2 iterations have been better than 2K5. Tiburon is trying to appeal to both the hardcore football fan and the casual fan and I think they're actually doing a decent job. People act like 2K would still be putting out amazing games, but their hockey and baseball games were absolute garbage.

[spankdatazz22]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

It appears to me that 2k created this situation with their tactics of price slashing. This was an attempt to be cute and take the market share from EA and it back fired. Madden may not be the game a lot of us want, but 2k is to blame. EA fired back and gave 2k some of their own medicine. If 2k would have never opened that door and threatened the NFL brand, MAYBE an exclusive deal would not have come into play.

lol so out of curiosity... should 2K have just "stayed in their place"? The notion that the 2K did it to themselves by price slashing is a falsehood created on the boards imo. None of us will ever know for sure, but really - if Macys buys x-number of Coach bags from Coach and decides to sell them at whatever price, what does Coach care? If Gamestop decides to sell Call of Duty at $19.99 and take a loss, does Activision really care long as Gamestop is paying whatever it is they pay up front for the title? It was EA that didn't want their prices being dictated by a competitor, not the licensor itself. NFL2K5 wasn't the only $19.99 priced game that year. And for every title EA was in direct competition with 2K, it lowered the price of it's games. Other sports games where there was no competition stayed the same price. So they acted the next year to eliminate sports game competition.

It trips me out how people will say MLB was mad at 2K for the quality of MLB2K. But did the NBA care about the quality of NBA Live during the Jesus Bynum situation? Did it care so much about Sony's NBA game? Did the NHL care about 2K's hockey game when it was an inferior product to EA's? These stories get created in the forums and the narrative is molded to fit whatever argument until they're repeated so much, they become accepted. If the NFL licenses it's shield to some toy maker to make a stuffed doll, I seriously doubt they dictate the price. They care it's product isn't being misrepresented, such as some over the top gory Blitz game based on the NFL property.

If you go by the logic that the NFL is that involved, then technically they should be disappointed because Madden no longer has the market share nor the clout/reputation it had during the PS2 years. It's all a moot point as the situation is what it is. It's just interesting to discuss. But I always find it surprising how some things got taken as fact over the past 10 years since the wave of those exclusivity agreements came down. Again, I don't see how anyone could argue that it's was "just a coincidence" each property decided to go exclusive all at once. With EA being the only company at the time in good enough financial standing to sign such exorbiant deals.

[Scribe1980]

Madden is dead to me.

[GiantBlue76]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

I don't completely disagree, but understand Sage's point. The situation is somewhat similar to what Microsoft was doing when it was consolidating it's power base; it squashed competition. Until the government stepped in to slow their anti-competitive ways. People hated Microsoft for many of it's business practices. If Microsoft could eliminate Apple, should it? If Microsoft had eliminated Apple, do products like the iPhone or iPad ever get created? For sure, technology doesn't evolve in the way it has. Apple wasn't always the monster it is now - it was a big deal when Microsoft invested $150million to help prop up Apple (but mainly to keep the government off it's back for it's anti-competitive ways):

http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-202143.html

In the end it benefited both companies as they pushed themselves to make better products. Microsoft isn't anywhere near as reviled as it used to be, in part because they've made good products to make up for "what might've been".

Imo EA was following that same blueprint, but they haven't stepped up to make a superior product. They did what they did to kill competition, but they never did what they needed to make people forget/move on. This situation is solely their own fault. I was a huge 2K football fan and I'm bitter about what EA did. But like many others I would purchase both games because there were things in either I liked/disliked. Most people would've moved on if EA/Tiburon had done like other companies and stepped up to the plate - they haven't. Anytime I see people say "but Madden's getting better!"... it's supposed to get better. The question is where should it be. I have to post this:

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/rsWA2a-k5DI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Look at the interaction. Look at how organic the player movement and interaction is. Look at the sideline interaction. Listen to the play-by-play. Go to the 5:16mark and look at the replay presentation. Then understand, this isn't where Madden is (imo) even now - nor where it should be, which is 7yrs and a next gen console generation beyond this. This isn't even a licensed game, nor was it a fully 2K-efforted endeavor. That's why some people get bitter. And it's made to be worse when you have a the guy in charge of Madden puffing his chest out like they've accomplished something, and making hollow challenges.

Right on Spank. This is the thing that really irritates me the most. Most reasonable minds do not care that EA has an exclusive deal with the NFL. What they DO care about is that EA has an exclusive deal AND they put out an inferior product. Just think about it for a second. Here we are 10 years later after the exclusive deal, we have gone through 2 (not 1, but 2!) console generations and we still are asking for things we had 10 years ago.

Don't you guys find it alarming that we have not only failed to advance football gaming at all, but it has actually gone BACKWARDS! Madden looks improved, but in reality, all of this is only because people have been worn down from lowering the bar consistently over the last 10 years. I can't stand to watch those APF videos, because it makes me go home and put the game in, only to get depressed again, lol. Then I look at Madden and I see major issues with player movement, line interaction, etc. etc. Not to mention things that are flat out MISSING - like penalties, challenge system that actually is legit, ball physics, etc. 2k did a TON more with much less, and everyone knows it, including EA. This game coming out should have ALL of those things in it. But like I said in another post, when nothing pushes you, it's all too easy to say, eh, it can wait until next year.

Does anyone remember the online leagues in 2004? 2k announced online leagues with full website support for 2k5. This completely caught EA with their pants down. They did not support this in Madden. MAGICALLY - shortly after 2k launched their leagues, EA found the time, talent and energy to implement them as well using some sponsorship from Dodge or Chrysler. Imagine that... Once again, Tiburon needs their hand held to accomplish anything. They are not a good developer. They do not think of things on their own, they completely incapable of modeling their product off of the NFL (always inventing their own presentation) and every year the same things have to be re-written. Basically, like AJ Dembroski said in his twitter rant, we get lied to. Every year we listen to how this and that has been completely re-written so that it works now, only to be told the following year that this and that didn't work. WTF?

You guys realize that zone coverage has been re-written supposedly every year since Madden 12. How many times do you have to rewrite the zone coverage to get it right? Tweaks, bug fixes and general enhancements absolutely yes. COmplete re-writes? This tells me what I already knew about the programmers writing the code. They struggle and, quite frankly, I firmly believe a lot of the stuff that's missing doesn't get done because they don't know how to do it. In past football games we got a complete game, without those things being touted on the back of the box. They were just assumed because you can't have a football game without the actual football stuff in it, right?

Presentation has been re-done every single year, and it STILL isn't right. JUST COPY WHAT IS IN REAL LIFE!!! HOW HARD IS IT TO UNDERSTAND THAT???? NHL is doing it, FIFA has multiple broadcast teams, this is not rocket science.

How are you supposed to advance your game significantly if you keep re-doing the same crap every year?

[iamgramps]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

lol so out of curiosity... should 2K have just "stayed in their place"? The notion that the 2K did it to themselves by price slashing is a falsehood created on the boards imo. None of us will ever know for sure, but really - if Macys buys x-number of Coach bags from Coach and decides to sell them at whatever price, what does Coach care? If Gamestop decides to sell Call of Duty at $19.99 and take a loss, does Activision really care long as Gamestop is paying whatever it is they pay up front for the title? It was EA that didn't want their prices being dictated by a competitor, not the licensor itself. NFL2K5 wasn't the only $19.99 priced game that year. And for every title EA was in direct competition with 2K, it lowered the price of it's games. Other sports games where there was no competition stayed the same price. So they acted the next year to eliminate sports game competition.

It trips me out how people will say MLB was mad at 2K for the quality of MLB2K. But did the NBA care about the quality of NBA Live during the Jesus Bynum situation? Did it care so much about Sony's NBA game? Did the NHL care about 2K's hockey game when it was an inferior product to EA's? These stories get created in the forums and the narrative is molded to fit whatever argument until they're repeated so much, they become accepted. If the NFL licenses it's shield to some toy maker to make a stuffed doll, I seriously doubt they dictate the price. They care it's product isn't being misrepresented, such as some over the top gory Blitz game based on the NFL property.

If you go by the logic that the NFL is that involved, then technically they should be disappointed because Madden no longer has the market share nor the clout/reputation it had during the PS2 years. It's all a moot point as the situation is what it is. It's just interesting to discuss. But I always find it surprising how some things got taken as fact over the past 10 years since the wave of those exclusivity agreements came down. Again, I don't see how anyone could argue that it's was "just a coincidence" each property decided to go exclusive all at once. With EA being the only company at the time in good enough financial standing to sign such exorbiant deals.

This is strictly my opinion. For all I know, I can be completely off base; however, I do believe the NFL had its hand in the exclusive deal.

[The_Balm]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

Right on Spank. This is the thing that really irritates me the most. Most reasonable minds do not care that EA has an exclusive deal with the NFL. What they DO care about is that EA has an exclusive deal AND they put out an inferior product. Just think about it for a second. Here we are 10 years later after the exclusive deal, we have gone through 2 (not 1, but 2!) console generations and we still are asking for things we had 10 years ago.

Don't you guys find it alarming that we have not only failed to advance football gaming at all, but it has actually gone BACKWARDS! Madden looks improved, but in reality, all of this is only because people have been worn down from lowering the bar consistently over the last 10 years. I can't stand to watch those APF videos, because it makes me go home and put the game in, only to get depressed again, lol. Then I look at Madden and I see major issues with player movement, line interaction, etc. etc. Not to mention things that are flat out MISSING - like penalties, challenge system that actually is legit, ball physics, etc. 2k did a TON more with much less, and everyone knows it, including EA. This game coming out should have ALL of those things in it. But like I said in another post, when nothing pushes you, it's all too easy to say, eh, it can wait until next year.

Does anyone remember the online leagues in 2004? 2k announced online leagues with full website support for 2k5. This completely caught EA with their pants down. They did not support this in Madden. MAGICALLY - shortly after 2k launched their leagues, EA found the time, talent and energy to implement them as well using some sponsorship from Dodge or Chrysler. Imagine that... Once again, Tiburon needs their hand held to accomplish anything. They are not a good developer. They do not think of things on their own, they completely incapable of modeling their product off of the NFL (always inventing their own presentation) and every year the same things have to be re-written. Basically, like AJ Dembroski said in his twitter rant, we get lied to. Every year we listen to how this and that has been completely re-written so that it works now, only to be told the following year that this and that didn't work. WTF?

You guys realize that zone coverage has been re-written supposedly every year since Madden 12. How many times do you have to rewrite the zone coverage to get it right? Tweaks, bug fixes and general enhancements absolutely yes. COmplete re-writes? This tells me what I already knew about the programmers writing the code. They struggle and, quite frankly, I firmly believe a lot of the stuff that's missing doesn't get done because they don't know how to do it. In past football games we got a complete game, without those things being touted on the back of the box. They were just assumed because you can't have a football game without the actual football stuff in it, right?

Presentation has been re-done every single year, and it STILL isn't right. JUST COPY WHAT IS IN REAL LIFE!!! HOW HARD IS IT TO UNDERSTAND THAT???? NHL is doing it, FIFA has multiple broadcast teams, this is not rocket science.

How are you supposed to advance your game significantly if you keep re-doing the same crap every year?

I agree. I've said this before and I'll say it again. Madden needs a full, from the ground up rewrite! The long term problems just keep piling on and we keep hearing about how Madden is a huge intertwining code base with lots of old code that can be hard to work with and can cause domino effects.

By no means am I saying it would be easy, it would be a humongous task taking multiple years. I might not need to be 100% rewritten, but definitely starting from a clean slate and pulling any assets and bits that are of top-notch quality (draft logic or something like that).

Yes, last transition they completely blew it, but you can't keep using the same foundation from the transition when you blew it! You have to do it right sometime and work off of that.

The smart move would've been to have a team working on this for the past three or so years and to unveil it for M15 or M16, but I don't see that happening.

[BigDaddyHolmes]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

Anytime I see people say "but Madden's getting better!"... it's supposed to get better. The question is where should it be. I have to post this:

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/rsWA2a-k5DI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>

Look at the interaction. Look at how organic the player movement and interaction is. Look at the sideline interaction. Listen to the play-by-play. Go to the 5:16mark and look at the replay presentation. Then understand, this isn't where Madden is (imo) even now - nor where it should be, which is 7yrs and a next gen console generation beyond this. This isn't even a licensed game, nor was it a fully 2K-efforted endeavor. That's why some people get bitter. And it's made to be worse when you have a the guy in charge of Madden puffing his chest out like they've accomplished something, and making hollow challenges.

Wow. That looks real most of the time. Imagine this with updated graphics and a NFL license alone. Now imagine the gameplay improvements they would have had by now.


Unreal.

[spankdatazz22]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

This is strictly my opinion. For all I know, I can be completely off base; however, I do believe the NFL had its hand in the exclusive deal.

np you have a right to think if you want. Just sounds funny to me. A hypothetical would be if 2K or EA paid the NFL $10 billion dollars for the exclusive NFL license, then decided to give the games away for free. Some act like the NFL would say "Wait a minute - no deal! You have to sell each game at $59.99. Oh, and we tell you what an appropriate sale price is"

"And when to have a sale"

[J_Posse]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

2k could "Bring it" with NHL, or MLB, or any other sport. Yet they haven't, all their eggs are in one basket with their NBA game, their "Sports line" is one game.

Ummm, isn't that true of SCE San Diego (formerly 989 Studios) which has dropped out of basketball and hockey, but stuck with the one title they do best?

Anyway, this is terrible but expected news. Sports gaming is dying a slow death, IMO, and most of the blame can be pointed at this exclusive deal.

[ThaPhenom21]

I honestly think he was tired of hearing about 2K and got caught up in the moment.

How would you all feel if you put immense time, effort and energy into something only to have an audience of naysayers keep saying your work isn't good enough?

doesn't look like much "effort" has been put into the game for 6 years.

[Robo COP]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

I would do everything in my power to make sure we had the superior product. My money would go into my product not into ensuring a license so the quality of my product suffers as well as my old and new costumers. I'd make my consumers forget the competition through quality, not licensing. If I did somehow eliminate competition through licensing, I damn sure wouldn't have people clamoring for competition back every chance they got because my product was subpar/mediocre.

Everybody doesn't think like that man.

And that is exactly why you don't own a business, man.

Guess what? Even though people are clamoring for competition to return, EA is STILL making more money than they ever did when they had that competition. Why would they care? Why would they want that competition back if they are making more money?

You can say you would do this or that all you want, even if you would if you were in that position...that would make you the worst businessman ever and you would be fired or tank your entire business because of the way you are thinking.

The only reason you are thinking the way you are right now is because that is what you want as a consumer. But you wouldn't want to do that as a businessman. Hence why I said what I said.

You can argue it till the cows come home but you're just dead wrong. Anyone in their right mind would have done exactly what EA did.

Oh and let us not forget that THE NFL WAS THE ONE WHO WAS SHOPPING THEIR EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS AROUND. EA didn't just say hey, let us buy the rights to get rid of the competition. The NFL MADE THIS HAPPEN!

So again I say, stop trying to villainize EA in a situation where they made the only logical choice presented to them. A choice everyone in the same position would have made. Hate them for making a terrible game, sure (I do). But learn a little bit about the situation before jumping to the conclusions that you all are jumping to

[SageInfinite]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

And that is exactly why you don't own a business, man.

Guess what? Even though people are clamoring for competition to return, EA is STILL making more money than they ever did when they had that competition. Why would they care? Why would they want that competition back if they are making more money?

You can say you would do this or that all you want, even if you would if you were in that position...that would make you the worst businessman ever and you would be fired or tank your entire business because of the way you are thinking.

The only reason you are thinking the way you are right now is because that is what you want as a consumer. But you wouldn't want to do that as a businessman. Hence why I said what I said.

You can argue it till the cows come home but you're just dead wrong. Anyone in their right mind would have done exactly what EA did.

Oh and let us not forget that THE NFL WAS THE ONE WHO WAS SHOPPING THEIR EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS AROUND. EA didn't just say hey, let us buy the rights to get rid of the competition. The NFL MADE THIS HAPPEN!

So again I say, stop trying to villainize EA in a situation where they made the only logical choice presented to them. A choice everyone in the same position would have made. Hate them for making a terrible game, sure (I do). But learn a little bit about the situation before jumping to the conclusions that you all are jumping to

Lol. First off you don't know what I do outside of this site my man. Secondly you are entitled to your opinion, I'll leave it at that.