The NFL is doing football gaming fans a huge disservice!
Okay, this story sucks. The gist is that Electronic Arts now gets exclusive rights to the NFL players, teams, likenesses and stadiums for the next five years. That means that the ONLY company that can create NFL based football games is Electronic Arts. This means that instead of healthy competition in the football game market. There is now one source. A source that can rest on its laurels.
This year especially, ESPN Football has surpassed Madden (in my opinion) as THE best football game on the market. The online leagues are phenominal (tied directly to websites tracking stats and standings etc.) and the realism and presentation beat Madden in every regard.
This was a hard conclusion for me to come to. I used to love the Madden franchise. But year after year, EA screwed with good things and added crap for the joystick jockies. I wanted realism. I wanted online leagues with tons of stats. That’s what I got with ESPN football. Madden doesn’t have it anymore. And now Madden doesn’t have to worry about competing. It can do whatever the hell it wants, and produce whatever crap it wants because it will be the only choice for football games. It’s sucks, is completely anti-competitive, and the NFL should be ashamed.
You see, the article above cites the main reason why this happened. Madden used to outsell all other football videogames by a margin of 10-1. This year, it only outsold ESPN Football by a margin of 1.5 – 1. Clearly, ESPN Football was on to something. Clearly, EA didn’t like it’s monopoly position challenged, and dropped a large sum of money on the NFL to protect its position. I’d love to know how much it spent. If it took that money and simply made a better DAMN GAME, maybe all gamers would be happy.
December 15, 2004 @ 12:46 pm
i do not understand why people play sports games. then again, i don’t understand why people watch sports on tv either, most of the time.
i played plenty of football when i was a kid, in my neighborhood with the other kids. i just can’t figure out how playing a videogame of something i used to do in real life is in any way compelling. it just smells boring, from like 50 paces. not sure i can imagine a way to waste time that could be any more useless.
on the other hand i’ll play a FPS or RTS game any time. i don’t any more, cuz i don’t have time or the equipment but if i did have the time i probably would find the gear and spend way too many late night hours ruining my health playing games all night…
anyway, why is playing sports games compelling? seriously, i really want to know.
December 15, 2004 @ 2:45 pm
Well, for one, I also like watching football on TV. I enjoy my favorite team (the Miami Dolphins – even THIS year) and I enjoy my favorite players on that team. So, translating that into a sports game, I can RUN my favorite team and BE my favorite players.
Also, football is very much about strategy. It’s much like chess in that you know what the moves are, but you have to put them together the correct way in order to win. Every formation and play has a way to counter against it. Every team has strengths to use and weaknesses to be exploited. Add to that the talents of individual players, and it becomes pretty much the ultimate strategy game. If you like RTS games, football is no different.
Now other things make online football really cool. Basically capturing all of the stats for the season, and putting people into leagues where you are playing in a very large tournament. Some games in the past have even had you control salary cap issues and do things like set ticket prices for your stadium as well. It can be a simulation on many levels.
So there. That’s why sports games are compelling to me. Even moreso than typical FPS and RTS games (of which I also play!
)
Take Care,
Grey
December 16, 2004 @ 1:11 pm
cool.
for whatever reason it still sounds boring as hell to me, but i can definitely understand why you would be into it. thanks for the explanation.
i guess the part i don’t connect with is caring about the stats, caring about the players, the teams, etc. i’ve never understood why people would spend any time at all thinking about, say, baseball statistics or whatever. it just isn’t a subject that my brain grabs onto and says OOO that is INTERESTING.
ya know? anyway…