EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

[bucky60]

Quote: Originally Posted by CM Hooe

That said, there's a difference between having a constructive dialogue about the merits of a game and preaching about everything wrong/right with a game from the virtual bully pulpit of internet anonymity, to the detriment of any other constructive thought anyone else may ever have about said game. There's a difference between an open-minded discussion and a bullheaded argument holding an unwillingness to entertain another person's point of view to make one point about a game repeatedly across the entire forum.

You mean like my view on progression where I was respectful to others opinions and I was falsely and blindly accused by a mod of holding a grudge. I'm for a truly open minded discussion as well.

[hanzsomehanz]

Quote: Originally Posted by NicVirtue

When a 10/7 year old game is more fundamentally sound, authentic, and true to the sport than a game that is supposed to come out in 2014, then I think saying "it's subject to opinion" is a bit of a cop out. When it comes to football, there is a plethora of things that 1 game has, that the more recent game does not. That's not an opinion, that's a fact of the lack of football aspect from a recent NFL game, compared to a decade old game. When people can literally go back and point out all the things that 1 game has, that the other game does not, it being an "opinion" is out the door. It's as black and white as it gets. 1 game is as authentic as we ever had, and the other seems to be struggling to get there. I't been quite evident over the years. I mean you can say you like not having pass interference called 95% of the time. That doesn't mean your preference is true to the game of football. You can say you like no double team tackling. That doesn't mean your preference is true to the game of football. There is a laundry list of things not done in Madden, that have been done 10 years ago in another game. There is a laundry list of things Madden has, but hasn't done right, that the other game has done right 10 years ago. With those things, I don't see how it can be subject to opinion, when the bottom line is NFL Football, and what happens on Sunday. The problem is that people have been trained to play Madden, not football. You can enjoy it for what it is, but it dam sure isn't an authentic representation of football. If it were, people like me wouldn't need to go back and play the "other" game.

Amen: football in shades of gray may as well be football in charades.

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[hanzsomehanz]

Quote: Originally Posted by coogrfan

Quote: Originally Posted by hanzsomehanz I would like to see the '03 sales for the two '04 titles and compare them to the $19.99 vs $29.99 sales of 2K5 and Madden 05. *I do not doubt the loyalty of NFL 2K fans: there does seem to be a fraction more of them playing outdated football games compared to madden fans. Sent from my SGH-I727R using Tapatalk

\\\\\\//////

Quote:

Originally Posted by coogrfan For what it's worth, according to vgchartz: Madden NFL 2004 (North America) PS2 4.26 million units + XB 1.02 million units = 5.28 million units. ESPN NFL Football (North America) PS2 .27 million units + XB .27 million units = .54 million units. Madden NFL 2005 (North America) PS2 4.18 million units + XB 1.61 million units = 5.79 million units. ESPN NFL 2k5 (North America) PS2 2.15 million units + XB .1.54 million units = 3.69 million units.

Thank-you!

That is astonishing that a product rated as well as 2K4 did not even reach 1 Million unit sales across both consoles combined - barely over 500k units were sold total!

Advance a year, advance the release date, set a budget price and voila: you have now eaten into Millions! of the EA market share.

What is also astoniahing is that Madden '05 sales still increased over the Madden '04 sales which tells me that more consumers opened up to 2K who were not even maybe interested in either title originally but could not pass up the value of $19.99 that 2K offered.

The numbers also suggest that many Madden users purchased both 2K and Madden that season - very likely the case considering the early release date of the 2K5 title.

2K really shook the market in 2004 and shook is an understatement.

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[coogrfan]

Quote: Originally Posted by FaceMask

Lots of interesting things there. I understand what you think is an issue, and I can understand why the general consumer would look at it that way, but it's all conjecture. This is not how the NFL was thinking at the time, nor are they today. As long as they're getting paid 10's of Millions upfront, they're not going to care what the retail price of a product is. It doesn't work that way. This was purely an EA vs. 2K issue concerning pricing, profit margin and market share.

With respect, I believe you're seriously mistaken here. It is my understanding that back when EA and Sega were both in the football game business the NFL/NFLPA did not get paid up front:

Quote: Originally Posted by DrJones

In the "olden days", the 3 companies paid the NFL/PA a royalty per unit sold, at roughly 10%. Let's say the total football market is about 6 million units. 6 million x $60 x 10% = $36M annually to the NFL. The current EA deal with the NFL pays them between $60M-$70M per year, regardless of units sold.

If this is correct (and DrJones was in a position to know since he actually worked for EA prior to "the Great Purge") that means that Sega wound up paying the NFL only a $1.99 per unit sold instead of $4.99. The notion that the NFL wouldn't care about this or the precedent it might set vis a vis their other business partners is fanciful at best.

Quote: Originally Posted by FaceMask

Besides, 2K wasn't planning to keep the price at that level forever. This was a one-time thing to gain market visibility, and boy did it work. For as much as their is conjecture about cheapening, what nobody is considering is how confident 2K had to be that their product would be responded to in the way it was. Had it bombed, it would've likely ended their development on football. Everything they did that year was white knuckle and rebellious, and I loved every minute of it.

Confident or desperate? Again according to VGChartz:


NFL 2k3 (North America) PS2 1.06 million units + XB .38 million units = 1.44 million units


ESPN NFL Football (aka NFL 2k4) PS2 .27 million units + XB .27 million total = .54 million


That's a 62% drop in sales from 2002 to 2003. Under those circumstances I can certainly understand why Sega felt they needed to roll the dice.

Quote: Originally Posted by FaceMask

Unfortunately, football development ended anyway because of the licensing issue, but 2K did take a huge leap of faith there because they believed in themselves that their product deserved more share because it was good enough, and I agreed with them. So did about 4.26 Million others.

Perhaps. The fact that it was an licensed NFL game for a mere $20 and it was released three weeks before Madden (July 20th vs Aug 9th) may have had little something to do with those numbers as well.

[coogrfan]

Sega NFL football sales figures:


http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name...=0&results=200




Madden sales figures:


http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name...=0&results=200

[hanzsomehanz]

Coogrfan! You are a hero - well done with this research work!

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[SageInfinite]

Quote: Originally Posted by coogrfan

Confident or desperate? Again according to VGChartz: NFL 2k3 (North America) PS2 1.06 million units + XB .38 million units = 1.44 million units ESPN NFL Football (aka NFL 2k4) PS2 .27 million units + XB .27 million total = .54 million That's a 50% drop in sales from 2002 to 2003. Under those circumstances I can certainly understand why Sega felt they needed to roll the dice.

Do you think that dip in sales had anything to do with them trying to sort of "rebrand" the game by having "ESPN NFL Football" mostly on the cover instead letting people know it was an "NFL 2k" game?I could see how that could confusing to some people.

Also probably had to do with Madden 2004 being a huge hit.

[dkp23]

Quote: Originally Posted by NicVirtue

When a 10/7 year old game is more fundamentally sound, authentic, and true to the sport than a game that is supposed to come out in 2014, then I think saying "it's subject to opinion" is a bit of a cop out. When it comes to football, there is a plethora of things that 1 game has, that the more recent game does not. That's not an opinion, that's a fact of the lack of football aspect from a recent NFL game, compared to a decade old game. When people can literally go back and point out all the things that 1 game has, that the other game does not, it being an "opinion" is out the door. It's as black and white as it gets. 1 game is as authentic as we ever had, and the other seems to be struggling to get there. I't been quite evident over the years. I mean you can say you like not having pass interference called 95% of the time. That doesn't mean your preference is true to the game of football. You can say you like no double team tackling. That doesn't mean your preference is true to the game of football. There is a laundry list of things not done in Madden, that have been done 10 years ago in another game. There is a laundry list of things Madden has, but hasn't done right, that the other game has done right 10 years ago. With those things, I don't see how it can be subject to opinion, when the bottom line is NFL Football, and what happens on Sunday. The problem is that people have been trained to play Madden, not football. You can enjoy it for what it is, but it dam sure isn't an authentic representation of football. If it were, people like me wouldn't need to go back and play the "other" game.

Good post, also on the flip side of things. People focus on madden not being sim for what they dont have, but dont actually see the other side of why madden is not sim for things they DO have.

We all know madden lacks organic tackling and physics, lack of actually one of one battles that play out organically player vs player, inability for AI to break out of their zones when they dont need to stay in the zone, etc etc.

So what makes madden not a true simulation for things they do have?

People may not like this list because i believe people want full control

• The ability to hot route anyone at anytime and it will be 100% correct, in real life, there is always miscommunication, do you think a bad receiver will be able to get the hot route signal correct 100% of the time? no way, wrs run wrong routes all the time, but in madden they always run the right one. Assuming a qb could actually call five individual hot routes? come on, that is just dumb.
• on the other side, defensive hot routing, i find it stupid i can circle around my defensive players and start hot routing them to anything i want like how people circle around and put their DEs in purpose zones or yellow zones, not very realistic to me
• using the left stick to zig zag instead of actually using that true step or juke button. I thin most people would rather use the left stick because the left stick essentially allows a player to move without impacting the speed or momentum.
• the interception attempts by DBs in this game, the amount of interception animation triggering is not very realistic. Many situations, the dbs should be playing and knocking the ball, but in this game, they come from odd angles and jump like 5 feet in the air with the interception animation. The over the shoulder pick while battling a receiver is annoying as well, that type of int rarely happens in real games. If anything, the animation of knocking the ball down should trigger more instead of the catch animation. This would cut down on the unrealistic interception.

Many would find these bad to remove, but if you want a simulation football, the game shouldnt have the above because those things i mentioned make the game more arcadey.