EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

[mellamoaaron]

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]

Quote: Originally Posted by iamgramps

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]

Quote: Originally Posted by spankdatazz22

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: 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]

Quote: Originally Posted by spankdatazz22

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]

Quote: Originally Posted by GiantBlue76

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]

Quote: Originally Posted by spankdatazz22

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: 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]

Quote: Originally Posted by iamgramps

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"