Home

How did the whole 2k vs EA market war happen?

This is a discussion on How did the whole 2k vs EA market war happen? within the NFL 2K forums.

Go Back   Operation Sports Forums > Football > NFL 2K
Why Player Ratings Change When Starting Dynasty Mode in College Football 25
What Is Pro Yakyuu Spirits 2024/Professional Baseball Spirits 2024, and How Do You Get It?
The House Rules Hub for Recruiting in College Football 25 Dynasty Mode
Reply
 
Thread Tools
Old 12-22-2021, 01:45 AM   #1
Rookie
 
TheButter's Arena
 
OVR: 0
Join Date: Nov 2020
Blog Entries: 1
How did the whole 2k vs EA market war happen?

I was too young to have seen it for myself, never knew 2k was even a thing until a few years ago.

Played the 2k22 mod today and It's amazing.

DBs don't bull**** and actually allow touch passes to be dropped into the bucket. The presentation, halftime show, physics, are all top of the line.

How did EA win? It's not even close to 2k5's level. Not even Madden 08.
__________________
NFL Head Coach 09 had a "Play Steal" feature.

CPU teams stole your successful plays in your playbook and added them to their playbooks. That feature met with college playbooks from incoming college coaches and user created plays birthed a new meta evolution for playcallers across the NFL.
TheButter is offline  
Reply With Quote
Advertisements - Register to remove
Old 12-22-2021, 11:26 AM   #2
Roster Editor
 
jd@os's Arena
 
OVR: 21
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 3,587
Re: How did the whole 2k vs EA market war happen?

My memory is a bit foggy so someone please correct me if I'm wrong (I haven't been a football gamer since the early to mid 2000s), but if I recall correctly, EA gained the exclusive rights for the NFL game and won that way.
It seemed to me that in the early 2000s, EA Sports (Madden and Live) had the bells and whistles when it came to features and their games were genuinely fun where 2K games were more serious (some people say "sim" but to each his own).

If you played 2K back then, it was as if you were on to a tv show that a lot of people didn't know about, and you tried to put your friends on. Then of course 2K dropped its prices to $19.99 for a time and more people gave it a shot and word started spreading.

I do think there is a YouTube video about this if you are interested.
jd@os is offline  
Reply With Quote
Old 12-22-2021, 12:27 PM   #3
All Star
 
SmashMan's Arena
 
OVR: 14
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Chicago, IL
Re: How did the whole 2k vs EA market war happen?

To generate buzz, 2K sold NFL 2K5 brand new for $20.

NFL reportedly wasn’t happy about that and felt it devalued their brand when their other licensing partners were selling games for the standard industry price. They then took offers for the exclusive license and the partner with the most money and who the NFL already had a good working relationship with won the bidding.

EA had (unsuccessfully) lobbied for an exclusive license before that; and with the way the NFL has done business since there surely would’ve been an exclusive deal with someone at some point anyway, but 2K5’s price point was the main reason things happened the way they did when they did.
SmashMan is offline  
Reply With Quote
Old 12-22-2021, 01:02 PM   #4
Resident film pundit
 
Blzer's Arena
 
OVR: 55
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Elk Grove, CA
Posts: 42,448
Blog Entries: 8
Re: How did the whole 2k vs EA market war happen?

__________________
Samsung PN60F8500 PDP / Anthem MRX 720 / Klipsch RC-62 II / Klipsch RF-82 II (x2) / Insignia NS-B2111 (x2) / SVS PC13-Ultra / SVS SB-2000 / Sony MDR-7506 Professional / Audio-Technica ATH-R70x / Sony PS3 & PS4 / DirecTV HR44-500 / DarbeeVision DVP-5000 / Panamax M5400-PM / Elgato HD60
Blzer is online now  
Reply With Quote
Old 12-22-2021, 05:29 PM   #5
MVP
 
simbayless's Arena
 
OVR: 2
Join Date: May 2011
Re: How did the whole 2k vs EA market war happen?

Right here👇👇👇
https://youtu.be/opVrXaunAQc
simbayless is offline  
Reply With Quote
Advertisements - Register to remove
Old 12-22-2021, 07:14 PM   #6
Hall Of Fame
 
NYJets's Arena
 
OVR: 26
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 18,650
Re: How did the whole 2k vs EA market war happen?

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheButter

How did EA win? It's not even close to 2k5's level. Not even Madden 08.
Madden was the name brand. Been around for years on all the most popular systems. 2k sports was new, and was on the Dreamcast which didn't sell too well so not a lot of people knew about them. When Dreamcast officially failed they moved the games to ps2 and xbox, but since Madden was the biggest name and was a pretty good product, 2K football didn't sell well at all. And then as others have said, 2K decided on a one time $20 price tag because they knew they had the better product and felt if they could just find a way to get people to try it they could turn things around. Then obviously Madden went exclusive.
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay Bilas
The question isn't whether UConn belongs with the elites, but over the last 20 years, whether the rest of the college basketball elite belongs with UConn
NYJets is offline  
Reply With Quote
Old 12-22-2021, 07:23 PM   #7
All Star
 
OVR: 21
Join Date: May 2003
Posts: 6,224
Re: How did the whole 2k vs EA market war happen?

Quote:
Originally Posted by simbayless
Right here������
https://youtu.be/opVrXaunAQc
This is pretty accurate. It had nothing to do with the NFL feeling their brand was being devalued by the NFL2K5 price point, although that's the narrative Madden fans have tried to push over the years. The year the NFL went exclusive, within months the NCAA also went exclusive to EA. EA was trying to put 2K out of business.

EA was doing what Microsoft used to do before they were broken up by the government for antitrust practices - kill competition in areas their products weren't as strong in until their products could compete or surpass the competition.

Problem was, after the exclusivity announcements, the quality of Madden actually went backwards. Significantly backwards. Fortunately for EA, with no competition, people began to forget and eventually accepted Madden for what it was.

Funny it's been 15+years and you have a generation of gamers that are completely oblivious to how good Madden and NFL2K used to be, relative to the PS2/Xbox gaming generation.
__________________
HBO's "The Wire" should rank as one of the top 10 shows EVER on tv - period

XBL gamertag: d0meBreaker22 (that's a zero)

congrats Steelers, city of Pittsburgh, and Steeler Nation - SIX TIME WORLD CHAMPS
spankdatazz22 is offline  
Reply With Quote
Old 12-22-2021, 08:54 PM   #8
Five Becomes Four
 
Hooe's Arena
 
OVR: 45
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Culver City, CA
Posts: 21,506
Re: How did the whole 2k vs EA market war happen?

Quote:
Originally Posted by spankdatazz22
EA was doing what Microsoft used to do before they were broken up by the government for antitrust practices - kill competition in areas their products weren't as strong in until their products could compete or surpass the competition.
I'm not really sure where to start with this thought, but let's make the obvious factual corrections:

- though the original ruling did call for Microsoft to be split into two companies, the final settlement of United States vs Microsoft Corporation neither called for nor resulted in in the fracture of the company. Microsoft was still allowed to continue developing first-party software in-house and was allowed to continue bundling with Windows its own software such as Internet Explorer after the settlement.

- one private corporation entering into an exclusive intellectual property licensing agreement with another - in this case, Electronic Arts with both the NFL and NFLPI - does not constitute the creation of monopoly conditions in the video game industry, nor does it constitute an anti-trust violation. The existence of any video game published by a company other than Electronic Arts - for example, Fortnite - is enough to demonstrate this. We can also more specifically point to any other non-EA football video game which has appeared for sale since the agreement was signed to demonstrate that a viable marketplace for football video games still exists: Blitz The League, All Pro Football 2K8, Backbreaker, Maximum Football, Axis Football, BCFX, etc.

A comparison between the Microsoft anti-trust litigation and the private business dealings between the NFL and Electronic Arts is misleading, inaccurate, and agenda-driven. It is more importantly irrelevant because the case facts of the Microsoft litigation are entirely different and have nothing to do with intellectual property rights.
Hooe is offline  
Reply With Quote
Reply


« Previous Thread | Next Thread »

« Operation Sports Forums > Football > NFL 2K »



Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is On
Trackbacks are Off
Pingbacks are Off
Refbacks are Off



All times are GMT -4. The time now is 02:04 AM.
Top -