Why aren't EA Sports’ competitors more successful?

[miami_fan]

Lord knows where this discussion will go but hopefully we get some constructive thoughts before everyone loses their mind. First, let state that I am not a huge console gamer. I just got a 360 and that was only because my wife won one at a charity event. So, excuse my ignorance of any “insider” info.

Once again, EA Sports has released a game that ranges from “fun to play” to “an abomination” Based on what I have read before, this has been the case for just about every EA Sports game with the possible exception of the NHL series. Seems like there would be a huge opportunity for another company or companies would come in and give EA a run for their money year after year. However, every time a rival game comes out, they never seem to last, even if they are considered “better” games then the EA game. Simple question, why?

Now, understand, I am looking at this from the perspective of the consumer. For example, reading some of the threads here over the last couple of years, the 2K college and pro basketball series were far better games than their EA counterparts and yet the 2K series are leaving while NBA Live and March Madness will still be around. How is it possible that there is not another college or pro football game on the market and where there are, no one (relative term) purchases the game? I mean in the text sims community, it seems that most gamers are more than willing to support a new game especially if they feels it will spur that game’s competitors to produce a better product. What am I missing?

[Kodos]

You're aware that EA has gobbled up pretty much any football license you can think of, right?

[Galaxy]

EA Sports owns the rights to the NFL, NCAA Football, Nascar, Arena Football, and they are trying to scoop up the others (did they get college basketball?). Competitors can't come in and compete without the licenses, and make a profit at it.

I believe that football and the NBA are the biggest profit drivers in the sports world for gaming.

[twothree]

Originally Posted by miami_fan

However, every time a rival game comes out, they never seem to last, even if they are considered “better” games then the EA game. Simple question, why?

Simple answer, marketing. EA has more resources and spends more money on marketing their games. And, lately that would include having an exclusive license to several professional sports.

[Eaglesfan27]

There is a rumor that they raised the cost of the College Basketball to such a high amount that 2ksports couldn't match it/compete, but didn't buy "an exclusive license" since that generated so much backlash in the past. However, that is just a rumor.

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by Kodos

You're aware that EA has gobbled up pretty much any football license you can think of, right?

Yes I am. Does that mean that a company can not produce a game with quality gameplay with teams such as the Indy Horses or the St. Louis Sheep? I really don't know. not trying to be an ass.

[Kodos]

The simple fact is that a lot of people won't buy a sports game that doesn't have the licensed teams or the ability to create teams / leagues that mimic real-life leagues. I bought last year's All Pro Football from 2k sports, but not many folks did.

[Racer]

Originally Posted by miami_fan

However, every time a rival game comes out, they never seem to last, even if they are considered “better” games then the EA game. Simple question, why?

As others have said, they have a lot more money then their competitors and use that to their advantage.

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by Kodos

The simple fact is that a lot of people won't buy a sports game that doesn't have the licensed teams or the ability to create teams / leagues that mimic real-life leagues. I bought last year's All Pro Football from 2k sports, but not many folks did.

I guess that is what I am not understanding. It seems like people get pissed when Madden comes out, for example, and sucks, but yet don't purchase the competitors in spite of gameplay because it does not have the current rosters etc.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by Kodos

The simple fact is that a lot of people won't buy a sports game that doesn't have the licensed teams or the ability to create teams / leagues that mimic real-life leagues. I bought last year's All Pro Football from 2k sports, but not many folks did.

All Pro Football was a major misstep IMO. They chose to focus on the player licenses rather than just putting out a good game with generic rosters, logos, stadiums, etc. that allowed for full customization by users. That was really disappointing.

[albionmoonlight]

Having a better product is only one piece of the business puzzle. As others have noted, marketing is huge. Also, inertia. Lots of casual fans of sports games pick up Madden, NCAA, NHL etc. every year and don't read 700 internet reviews before buying. Think of Bill Simmons "Madden Day should be a national holiday" column and multiply it by millions of consumers.

A new game has to stay around long enough and get enough buzz to start to penetrate the consciousness of those millions of people. And I imagine that you lose money hand over fist while you are waiting for that to happen.

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

Having a better product is only one piece of the business puzzle. As others have noted, marketing is huge. Also, inertia. Lots of casual fans of sports games pick up Madden, NCAA, NHL etc. every year and don't read 700 internet reviews before buying. Think of Bill Simmons "Madden Day should be a national holiday" column and multiply it by millions of consumers.

A new game has to stay around long enough and get enough buzz to start to penetrate the consciousness of those millions of people. And I imagine that you lose money hand over fist while you are waiting for that to happen.

Right. A lot of people still buy Madden and look at it the same way we looked at Tecmo Bowl back in the day -- they don't care about the problems, because they're basically still playing football.

[Galaxy]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

All Pro Football was a major misstep IMO. They chose to focus on the player licenses rather than just putting out a good game with generic rosters, logos, stadiums, etc. that allowed for full customization by users. That was really disappointing.

Not to mention the lack of a franchise mode.

[Marc Vaughan]

EA have always developed their sports brands using a combination of very good looking graphics and official licencing.

This brings in a lot of interest from the gaming media and can be a big sway for casual gamers (the type of people who only play a few console games each year).

This allows them to get decent mass market sales consistently which is undoubtably their aim, some years in addition to the graphics and branding they have good gameplay - sometimes they don't ... and indeed its hard for individual users to judge what is 'good gameplay', half the stuff I personally dislike in EA's soccer titles the kids who buy it probably love (ie. the bizarre goals where one player dribbles the length of the pitch etc.).

From a professional perspective I've always had a lot of respect for EA, they set their stall out and have consistently hit their target audience over the period I've worked in the games industry.

[Noop]

Money.

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

EA have always developed their sports brands using a combination of very good looking graphics and official licencing.

This brings in a lot of interest from the gaming media and can be a big sway for casual gamers (the type of people who only play a few console games each year).

This allows them to get decent mass market sales consistently which is undoubtably their aim, some years in addition to the graphics and branding they have good gameplay - sometimes they don't ... and indeed its hard for individual users to judge what is 'good gameplay', half the stuff I personally dislike in EA's soccer titles the kids who buy it probably love (ie. the bizarre goals where one player dribbles the length of the pitch etc.).

From a professional perspective I've always had a lot of respect for EA, they set their stall out and have consistently hit their target audience over the period I've worked in the games industry.

Interesting.

[Eaglesfan27]

As far as All-Pro Football, I'm convinced they would have had many more sales if they just included any type of decent franchise/multi-season mode.

[RainMaker]

There really aren't competitors out there. When you own most of the exclusive licenses, you own the market. But people have stopped buying their games. Sales of their football games have been tumbling down the past few years.

The sad thing is they can make good games when pushed. FIFA is a great game now and NHL gets rave reviews. But when there is no competition, they just roll around in their own shit.

[samifan24]

The only EA series I play anymore is FIFA, which I think is great. I've played NHL2K8 and think it plays a pretty good game of hockey. The bottom line, though, is what RainMaker said: when you own exclusive contracts, you own the market.

[sooner333]

I haven't played Madden in years and probably the best football game on my 360 is either APF or the Xbox port of the last 2k game.

Now, the competition is gone. The worst game won pretty much every licensing battle. EA's best game, MVP lost and all of the rest of 2k's games lost. Too bad.

[Mac Howard]

Marketing pure and simple. As illustrated by a conversation I had years ago with the head of game development at Atari (UK) when I queried his development budget. He explained "We need to spend three times as much on marketing as on game development for a game to succeed". And that doesn't include the cost of putting a game onto the shelves of high street retailers.

The quality of a game might well get through to people such as those on this forum but you guys represent a tiny fraction of the numbers needed to make EA style sales numbers. Occasionally, as with FOF, a game will be sufficiently unique to make a reasonable success in a mail order environment (where numbers are very much smaller but so much more of the sales price is returned to the developer) but, if that game goes out to a mainstream market, the marketing will then become by far the most important part of publishing.

[Neon_Chaos]

The only thing good about FIFA is that it's last year's Pro Evo Soccer. EA "innovation" at its finest.

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by Mac Howard

Marketing pure and simple. As illustrated by a conversation I had years ago with the head of game development at Atari (UK) when I queried his development budget. He explained "We need to spend three times as much on marketing as on game development for a game to succeed". And that doesn't include the cost of putting a game onto the shelves of high street retailers.

The quality of a game might well get through to people such as those on this forum but you guys represent a tiny fraction of the numbers needed to make EA style sales numbers. Occasionally, as with FOF, a game will be sufficiently unique to make a reasonable success in a mail order environment (where numbers are very much smaller but so much more of the sales price is returned to the developer) but, if that game goes out to a mainstream market, the marketing will then become by far the most important part of publishing.

I think thats over simplifying things - marketing can definitely have an impact on sales, however without giving the target audience what they want this in itself wouldn't lead to successful franchises.

For instance if FIFA wasn't what a lot of people want then after the first version or two users would stop buying it - you can't continually fool people using marketing, no matter how good.

Lack of marketing can hinder a games audience there is no doubt, however good marketing doesn't guarentee sales and will struggle to create a franchise (let alone ones as successful as FIFA, Madden etc.).

PS - In my experience for modern games the development costs are far in excess of the marketing costs, if you doubt this consider that many next gen FPS games cost £100m+ to develop these days - that'd be a ludicrous amount of marketing spend, especially when you consider most marketing for games is packed into a very small time window (usually no more than a few months in time).

[Big Fo]

Originally Posted by Neon_Chaos

The only thing good about FIFA is that it's last year's Pro Evo Soccer. EA "innovation" at its finest.

Most people agree that FIFA was better than Pro Evo last year, at least on the 360/PS3. Pro Evo was really good on the Wii but that's about it.

FIFA and NHL are probably EA's two best sports games.

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by Big Fo

Most people agree that FIFA was better than Pro Evo last year, at least on the 360/PS3. Pro Evo was really good on the Wii but that's about it.

I have to admit to not playing any of last years games - but I thought the Wii control method looked very clunky and I partially avoided it on that basis, how did it feel in practice?

(incidentally I also hated Wii Mario Kart because of the control system - simply too 'fickle' for an old clumsy git like me)

[Big Fo]

If you're good with the pointer it works great. If you enjoyed other IR pointer-heavy games like Metroid Prime 3, Resident Evil 4, or either of the Trauma Centers you will probably like this.

You could almost say it plays like a soccer RTS game, once you get used to it you can do so much on offense, whether it's sending players on dummy runs, getting a teammate open while you're dribbling upfield, 50-yard lead passes (but they aren't pixel perfect, your center-backs won't hit perfect long balls everytime), over attacking is fun as hell.

On defense they strangely neglected to let you use the analog stick to control the selected defender so defending isn't nearly as smooth and takes longer to become comfortable. It still works but just seemed kind of dumb to me.

The game has some other flaws - the AI isn't particularly good, waggling to shoot/clear/head is kinda lame, there is no Master League like the PS3/360/PC/PS2 games - but I still have a lot of fun with the game. Konami mentioned the defense, AI, and shooting as what they're trying to improve for next year so I'm optimistic. It's a shame PES doesn't come out here until the spring, I'll have to get FIFA on the PS3 to tide me over until then.

As for Mario Kart, I'm much better using the analog stick to steer as opposed to the wheel. I'm really impressed by all the people online I see that manage to keep such a high rating while using the wheel exclusively.

[Neon_Chaos]

Originally Posted by Big Fo

Most people agree that FIFA was better than Pro Evo last year, at least on the 360/PS3. Pro Evo was really good on the Wii but that's about it.

FIFA and NHL are probably EA's two best sports games.

Yes, because they take all of Pro Evo's features in the previous year and make it their own.

I still like FIFA though, and would play it over Pro Evo.

EA Marketing owns the world.

[RainMaker]

I thought the last FIFA was better than PES. When EA gets pushed, they usually put out a good game.

I agree with Marc though. Marketing has only taken EA so far. They are running ads non-stop, they even have their own TV show. Yet their football games sales are tanking like crazy despite a bigger gaming market. They have tried to sit on their hands and hope marketing takes care of everything while the game hasn't improve in half a decade.