f13.net

What does this mean for that particular franchise?

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/12/13/news_6114977.html

Holy crap, time to lay off the NFL games for a while then, I'm not touching a madden game with a ten foot pole.

That is so horribly disappointing. I've had more fun with the $20 NFL 2K5 than I ever had with Madden. *sigh* I assume they can still make a game and just change the names of the teams and players, but it's still just pure stupidity.

Wow, this is terrible news.

Wow, EA actually does something smart for a change.

It's interesting that this comes on the heals of Take-Two announcing that they would return to premium pricing levels (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=5856) for their ESPN NFL game on the next generation of consoles.  Prices for the next versions of games for current consoles and PC was still undecided.  Yet they will still claiming their lower price point was a success.  Well, it certainly allowed them to sell a lot more copies, but with correspondingly reduced revenues, and they were still nowhere near Madden's popularity.  I guess this is moot now!

All I can say is: live with it.  I whined when Front Page Sports died, but eventually learned to embrace Madden, and so to should you.

Bruce

Fuck, they tried doing that with this years release but it didn't pan out in the end.  I haven't bought a madden game since 94 they can kiss my ass.  My EA boycott is just fueled even more.

Fucking ban this motherfucker already. Please.

Stray, he is right. This is a smart move by EA, whether or not you happen to like it. For full disclosure, I have nothing against Madden, but purchased ESPN 2k5 this year after renting both.

It is a brilliant move by EA, because they've been forced to slash prices on titles due to the bargain bin price point of the ESPN line. The $20 per copy they can regain by bumping off ESPN more than pays for the exclusivity deal....not to mention that they'll gain even more marketshare. That's years of exclusivity for greater branding as well.

Additionally, NCAA Football will get a boost out of it, because it will be the only college football title where you can export draft classes into an NFL title.

I look for EA to continue this trend with the NBA, NHL, MLB, and possibly the NCAA. They already have NASCAR exclusivity, and could probably get it from the PGA if they wanted on Tiger Woods.

It's the smartest possible response to ESPN price slashing, and EA is far better equipped to outbid for exclusive rights.

Bring the noise.
Cheers..............

Fuck Bruce, Fuck EA and Fuck the NFL (http://www.f13.net/index2.php?subaction=showfull&id=1103043716&archive=&start_from=&ucat=1&).

You forgot the, "Resistance is futile," and, "You will be assimilated," lines.


Though, yes. It was a smart business move, albeit a shitty one for consumers.  I don't expect enough people to be outraged for them to not buy Madden. Which is sad.  Numbers on how much this cost EA would be nice to see.

Well, that does it, they officially made my list. No more EA games for me, which is rough, because I liked their hockey stuff. Too bad.

Well, NFL 2K5 already has all the graphics/team names/logo's, etc... and there is absolutely no legal reason they can't continue selling that title.  So....couldn't Take Two release a yearly upgrade which required the purchaser to already have 2K5 or earlier installed an made use of the legally licensed resources from that game.  They could even continue producing 2K5 and sell it for like $5 after this year  or bundle it with 2K6+.  Only problem (providing no expansion teams are created) would be with new player names / team configurations and I'm sure they could provide a way to type those in and maybe leave a public API open so that someone could write a 3rd party utility to input the team / player name info directly from NFL.com.

Something I've wondered about as well, I guess it all depends on how the wording is on their contract agreement with the NFL about use of names, could be a time limit was placed on it for updates and such.  Guess they have to use some lawyereez there.

edit: good writeup Haem

I've never played a football game in my life.  Yay me.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Gay or European?

I don't think an exclusive contract is in anyone's best interest other than EA. I don't know the specifics, but it seems to me that the NFL would be better served by handing out licenses to multiple companies, diversifying their income stream to an extent, as well as reaching multiple audiences with their product.

This is bad, bad, bad. The Madden games are pretty good, but now EA has exactly zero incentive to make them better. It is going to be years of paying new box prices for roster updates. Bollocks.

I imagine that any attempt to update the NFL 2k5 game with new names and rosters will run afoul of this agreement. The NFL Players Association gets involved, because THAT'S the body that allows the use of the likenesses and names of the players. You can have an NFL license, which allows the use of team names, mascots, logos and such, without having an NFLPA license agreement, which means your players have to be named something generic. Madden used to have this in the first days of the game, the year they started adding year numbers to the title (91 or 92?) They just used the numbers of the players. Adding the player names was big.

It's the same reason Barry Bonds is not listed on the San Francisco Giants' roster in ESPN MLB 2k4 (I think). Bonds did not agree with the MLBPA about licensing, stating that anyone who wanted to use his name or likeness would have to deal with him directly.

Say what you will about it, it was a great move for EA financially.


Investors agree... EA up nearly 5% on the news (TTWO down 5%). Up nearly 10% overall after  a JP Morgan upgrade and this news.




Edit: Don't forget to factor in what this will do for EA 2 years from now once the next generation consoles are out.

Oh good a price hike. That's great news.

Its coming across the board. Expected prices of next-gen games are in the $65-$69 range already.

That's a lot for a shiny turd-in-a-box. They better get their heads screwed on tight if they want people to start forking over that kind of money for the regular crap I've seen in the past.

$69 for KOTOR? Ok.
$69 for NHL200x now with new hats? Fuck you.

I don't expect Sega will do anything like that. However, the fan community will be all over it. I look for fan-created downloadable or Ebayed 'roster updates on a mem card' to become a bit of a market. At least until a team moves, or changes its uniforms drastically, or Madden implements some kickass feature that even ESPN fans think is uber enough to try.

Honestly, I think too many anti-Madden folks got hung up on hotdogs back in 2004, and embraced ESPN because it didn't expose the fact that they suck at playing pass defense.

Madden 2005 was pretty good, I really liked the way they implemented different motives for player signings (aging vets would play for peanuts if you could help them win a title, etc)....and the sports radio/newspaper bit (which echoes the Sports Illustrated covers of NCAA) was kind of cool. The gameplay is good, though the feel is decidedly different from ESPN. If it had the same price point as ESPN, I probably would have bought Madden.

Bring the noise.
Cheers............

I pick ESPN because I'm all about the gameplay. It felt more "real" than any game of Madden I ever played.

ESPN still feels a bit 'game-y' to me (especially when Ozzu is running EDDIE FUCKING GEORGE over, around, and through my defense), but it is definitely close to the Madden series, if NCAA is any indication. The First Person Football thing was a pretty cool innovation as well.

Arrgh. This whole thing just pisses me off to no end. EA is Satan.

While I'll prefer ESPN, I'll agree. Madden is a solid game. I still think ESPN is better, just because of gameplay, but on the flipside, Madden has a lot more features than ESPN has ever had.

But that's beside the point....I don't care if it was the greatest football game of the bunch. It's that now it'll be the only choice.

As for this being a smart business move on EA's part, yeah...But it also fucks the consumer. I never really cared much for complaints about EA in this past, but now I see what it was all about. Fucking monopolistic shitheads is what they are. No different than what happened to Microsoft, and someone needs to step up and put EA in check before they get worse.

Pfft.  Football is for pussies.  I am fond of EA's boxing sims.

Answer the question, Claire! =P

Fight Night is pretty damned fun for a thumb-raping game. Wish it had XBL capabilities. Who would have thought that 2 players might want to fight EACH OTHER? /boggle

69 dollars for any game?

FUCK THAT.  I barely buy many games at the 50 dollar price points, and a 70 dollar pricepoint won't work at all.  Nintendo tried it with their N64 and it was one of the things that killed the system.  Only Japanese idiots dropping 83 bucks for Dragon Warrior 8 seem willing to pay that high of a price.  The mass market won't accept it I don't think.

Least I hope.. *shudder*

They'll accept it because they have no choice.

Us relatively smart folk do.  Its called not buying them at all.  Most parents are gonna slap their kid silly if they dare ask for these 70 dollar games that last 10 hours or less, and few adults can afford 70 dollar games either.  A lot of people outside of the fools who OMG GOTTA HAVE IT OR MY LIFE SUCKS TILL I GET 20% VALUE ON IT 2 WEEKS LATER WHEN I TRADE IT IN TO BUY THE LATEST OVERHYPED GAME will just wait for the prices to come down or spend our money elsewhere.  I have more games than I know what to do with now anyways.  Ive always wanted to go back and complete Lunar 2 on the PS1 and Dark Wizard on the Sega CD anyhow.. :)    

We just have to hope the amount of lost sales surpasses the increased profits.  Hell, even Working Designs is releasing their flagship game of the year or two in a cheaper edition since apparently their overpriced collector's editions haven't gone over too well, and those things came packed with tons of goodies!

Oh yeah..  why I am posting again.  SirBruce?  We know you keep sucking off Madden Football and have since July or so this year, so of course the game that's made you look like a jackass with mediocre taste in games doesn't matter to you.

So to quote the best line from a former Golden Girl in a movie about giant alligators: "This is the part where if I had a dick I would tell you to suck it."

Ahh..  I feel better now!

Excuse me?  I'm the one who said play Madden, not ESPN, months ago, and now those people who didn't listen to me just wasted their time with a dead franchise and will have to play Madden now anyway.  You're the one who should be on her knees, biiyaaatch!!

Bruce

Why?  Because we were smart enough to purchase a cheaper, better game?

What's your damn point?

Silly troll bait, Bruce doesn't make points.

Haha, trollbait, nice.

I don't know if it's bait, but it certainly smells.

Bruce

Um, surely this just means the ESPN title will have made up names?

(if the agreement is even enforceable, there is no way on earth Championship Manager ever got agreement from every football club on earth to include their names for instance)



That's what piracy prevention does for you.

Piracy might be immoral on a personal level but it has a proven history of being the only force capable of keeping software prices down. Which is utterly depressing.

Monopolies have certainly never shown themselves to be good at keeping prices down.

If I want to play a football game next year, I'll just have to wait a few weeks until someone trades in Madden 2006 and buy it used. Since EA apparently sees none of the money from used games, they can suck it.

But I will be a very sad penguin when I do that. If I even bother, that is.

Bruce, you are a furry. No one gives a shit what furries think except other furries.

This really does stink.  So, how does this affect roster updates and such off of xbox live for NFL 2K5?  

I don't buy a new football game every year, but this year I did get 2k5.  I'll probably just keep playing 2k5 until I either get tired of outdated teams, or Madden/EA does something to really improve the experience.

This is a very important thing in business.  Its been pounded into my head every stinking accounting class I have had so far.

Translation: Don't put all of your eggs in one basket.

It's as true on Wall Street as it is in the chicken coop. Diversification = stability.

Bring the noise.
Cheers.............

This means a run on old NES consoles and Tecmo Bowl cartridges.  Way too many spin moves and plays for this old fart in today's football games.

BARRY SANDERS IN YOUR FACE!

I remember in Madden 93 where I first started to horribly abuse the spin move. My RBs looked like ballerinas coming out of the backfield.

I heard somewhere (and it may be false) that thie agreement is not in place until August.

Meaning that Sega might be able to get away with a late July release of ESPN NFL 2k6, and just leave it very open to roster changes, and such.

Even if updates aren't a possibility, if they can release the game for VERY cheap, right before the deal takes effect, it would be a fun blow aainst EA.

Doubtful. The NFL has to license ESPN to use the teams and players...and I sincerely doubt they'd do a last minute license for Sega that defies the spirit of the exclusivity deal.

It'd be the business equivalent of getting engaged, and then fucking another woman the morning of your wedding day.

Bring the noise.
Cheers.............

And they couldn't do a goddamn thing about it. Because they aren't married yet and the wedding has already been planned. YOU CAN'T CANCEL THE CATERER THIS LATE INTO THE GAME. THE FAMILY WILL BE ABSOLUTELY ASTONISHED.

(http://www.eonline.com/Facts/People/Photos/fs.ferrell.w.jpg)
"And do you, Doug, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?"
"My dad already paid the caterer."

But seriously, they indeed could. I'm going to go ahead and say that EA would have a damn good case for a lawsuit against the NFL, because it would effectively allow the NFL to license any number of competing products that would be in their prime market cycle during the period of the exclusivity agreement. Moreover, the NFL would be truly screwing EA by licensing several products set to release 1 month prior to Madden.

1) The NFL isn't looking to screw EA, or the flagship franchise of licensed NFL video games.

2) For $300 million, I'm sure there is a clause regarding such activity in the contract.

3) Much like fucking the other woman, it's cheating....and good luck using the "but were weren't married yet" argument with your fiancee. Once the engagement ring is on her finger, that means no fucking around. Likewise, once this deal was signed and made public, EA and the NFL aren't supposed to be picking out china patterns, not screwing each other over.

Bring the noise.
Cheers..............

Damn you EA!  Business aside, you're always trying to feed you're fucking goddamn DOMINATING ego.

Oh, and stop licensing other properties for all you're shitty games.  At least make a game based on an original property of your design every once and awhile.

FUCK EA!


Whew.... I think I feel better after letting all that out.

(http://www.f13.net/images/EA01.jpg)
(http://www.f13.net/images/EA02.jpg)

3 out of 4 ESPN gamers are black.

Guess what market EA is going after?

Just sayin.' And if ANYONE tries to pin this as racist, take a look at the motherfucking white dude in that ad! Could he look more like a gibbering idiot?

3 out of 4 of the guys I sell it to are, at least.

I absolutely hate to be trolling for more info, but could you substaniate this? I have a rabid anti-sharing roomate (His 10gigs of bad 60s and 70s pop excluded, naturally) I would LOVE to sick this on.

PA had a blog entry on this issue I found amusing...

When I say 'proven history' I should really have said 'record I vaguely observed based on prices of media formats with easier or harder piracy'.

Or to put it another way...

Which are cheaper to develop, console or PC games? Console.

Which have a bigger market, console or PC games? Console.

Which are harder to pirate, console or PC games? Console.

Which are more cheaper to buy, console or PC games? PC. Wtf?

______________

You can play the same game with other types of media.

I do remember reading something more formal on the subject somewhere, I'd have to hunt around though.

I'm confused.  Those are athletes from the games, not gamers.  

Specifically Ben Wallace, Terrell Owens, Martin St. Louis, and Josh Childress.

As far as everyone except the NHL guy being black, that seems pretty fair.

Let the non-NFL games begin (http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2004/12/16/midway_developing_mature_rated_football_video_game/):

Yes, because that's what I really want in a game about football: illegimate children, hookers on crack accusing my players of rape, pom-pom touchdowns and steroid controversies.

Ass, meet hat.

Nice.

I want to see a combination of GTA + NFSU + Blitz: Playmaker.

Something where you can bang a chick, do fat lines of coke, get in your ricer, shoot 30 people in drive-bys on the way to the stadium, and then rush for 300 yds.  After the game you can win the team in an illegal street race with the owner, then beat him to death in front of cops.

This game not yet rated.

As it stands now, I will be buying Blitz: Playmakers. I like violence in sports and I like pom-poms. The fat lines of coke is just a bonus.

Yeah. You can club a team owner after you beat him in an illegal street race and steal his team. Oh, and have Sam Jackson do something cool with John Travolta and Bruce Willis. Just because.

I can't believe that is not from a satirical website. That may very well be the dumbest fucking idea I have ever heard.

It would make a pretty good adventure game though.

I've always thought you could do well mixing up RPG and sports games.  I've played some token shitty attempts in sports games to introduce a kind of RPG mode where you rise up from the minors blah blah.  But they're just putting lipstick on the same in-game engine.  I'd play a game where you actually have to deal with a career, have some kind of murder/mystery intrigue, and then on Sunday you have to go rush for 100 yards or you get waived.  Good times.

Out of the Park Baseball already did this, witch something they called "Inside the Park" Baseball.  Reviews have been mixed, but it was certainly innovative.  You might want to check it out:

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/itp/index.php

Bruce

I've seen ITP, but I'd put that under the 'lipstick on the in-game engine' version of sports RPG, with the added bonus that the in-game engine is text based.  Nothing you do outside the park is fundamentally different from the sort of thing you do in Championship Manager or any other detailed text sim. .schedule training time, etc.

I'm thinking more along the lines of an open-ended Bloodlines style adventure RPG with a fully fleshed out setting, active city, and so on. . and then every few days you actually have to go play in a game.

I still have fond memories of mutant league football from my old Sega Genesis. Maybe we'll see games like it now.

Sweet, Linebackers Gone Wild...will Doug Stanhope make a cameo?

Bring the noise.
Cheers.............

I wonder if this will allow ESPN to sell the use of their name and IP in EA/Madden games now.  I'd love to see SportsCenter replays in Madden.  It was kind-of weird having the ESPN name on a competing product, since the ESPN guys have had a love-affair with Madden NFL for years.  (And Madden, of course, works for ABC, which is a sister company of ESPN.)

Bruce

To explain it another way, when you're deciding whether to pirate something, it boils down to comparing two quantities:

A) The time and effort it takes to pirate
B) The cost of the legit copy

(There are a few other elements of the equation such as guilt and how much you like having the original box, but these two quantities are probably more significant and they're the only ones the company has any control over.)

If B is smaller, the company gets your money.  If A is smaller, they get nothing.

Therefore, if "time and effort" is small, the company has to keep "cost of legit copy" correspondingly small in order to maximize the number of legit purchases.  If "time and effort" is large, the company can inflate "cost of legit copy" that much higher and not have to worry about losing as many customers to piracy.

Well, this is generally because Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft want a slice of the pie.

But that doesn't show that "piracy keeps prices low".  It shows just the opposite: piracy keeps prices higher by prompting companies to create copy protection schemes so fewer people will take the time and hassle to try to pirate it.  The problem comes with confusing the relationship between the frequency of the game being pirated with the difficulty of pirating the game.

Bruce

Maybe with the crap that EA is pulling somebody will go and make a new modern version of Mutant League Football. Damn I enjoyed that game and would love to see it remade with the graphics of today.


kaid

Mutant League Football was created by EA. Or at least, published by them.

Mutant League, from what I remember, was basically just a reskin of Madden from the year before, with some additional violence options added.  And it was cool.

NFL2k5 reskinned with Orcs and Skeletons and bodies being ripped apart... sign me up for 1 now.

Wow, nothing would make my day more than making Zombie Brett Favre stumble drunkenly onto a bouncing betty and be catapulted across the screen in a gorey shockwave.

I could give a shit less about the players, but the idea of not being able to use teams is retarded. I usually use the team editor to make up my own teams in the league anyway, but I like throwing my misfits against the NFL best, not some knock-off.

Then again, Madden is a good gaming franchise, but they won't continue to be that way without competition. Monopolies make shitty products.

ESPN:  "Fine!  We'll make our OWN football series!  With blackjack!  And hookers!!"

At least every football game can have LaVar Arrington in it!

Classic Bruce material.

It doesn't *show* anything except an observed coleration between harder piracy and higher prices.

As for whether you feel increased competition from pirates reduces prices more than increased expenditure on anti-piracy measures increases it - well that's entirely a matter of opinion. There can be little doubt that both have an effect.

I guess logically it depends on whether you believe the pricing model in video games is closer to aligned to value pricing (charging whatever the market will bear) or cost pricing (charging whatever you can afford based on your costs).

I offer nothing other than my opinion on the matter - and an observation that in most industries consistent pricing across products from various companies is usually considered to be evidence of value pricing.

EA will turn around, double their offer, and get another license.

How do you like dem apples?

Yes, I'm apparently trying to ruin your week. All of yous guyses.

It took years of negotiation for the NFL to come around but they sure did.  Everything has a price and EA has an infinate wallet.  

I never got into Basketball games anyway.

Funny- I would think it would be the other way around- the NFL is the 800 pound gorilla of professional sports in the US, while the NBA is running a distant 3rd in popularity. If I were to guess which one would whore itself out for an exclusive contract, I would have guessed NBA.

Basketball games are still a long way from the smooth, polished feel that football has now (and baseball games have had for years). It is such a flui,d fastpaced game IRL that it is difficult to capture digitally.

We still don't have the physics and collision detection down to a fine enough scale as to make the small-scale subtleties of basketball work...we also neglect the physics of the human body, and the fact that it can "give" to some degree.

Not to mention that there is such limited control that you are lucky to be facing the hoop at all when you try to pull down that rebound...let alone the ability to stick out your rump and box the other guy out, or to jump a direction other than straight up, and/or control your arms in flight.

Because we don't have the ability to get down to the fingertip level, most sports video games become "a game of feet" instead of "a game of inches".

Bring the noise.
Cheers............