EA taking more steps to monopolise the game market
polycounter lvl 18
EA signs an exclusive deal with ESPN need more be said?Edit: removed the bad link. stupid firefox not liking ctrl-c half the time for some stupid reason
Replies
Great news if you ask me.
So, if you like sports games, you have no choice but to buy EA product.
EA need to be stopped
Electronic Arts, ESPN hook up in exclusive 15-year deal
ESPN brand and programming to surface in EA sports titles on all platforms; deal is second blow to Sega Sports and Visual Concepts.
Electronic Arts broke the calm of a national holiday today by announcing a licensing deal of epic proportions. For the next fifteen years, EA will be the sole licensee of the ESPN brand in the area of sports games, which will include console, handheld, PC, and wireless games.
Games with leverage the ESPN brand will make their way to retail sometime during calendar year 2006, "upon the conclusion of ESPNs existing video game licensing commitments."
The news is the second blow to current license-holder Sega (and its Visual Concepts development studio). It recently lost the right to publish sports games using the NFL license when EA scooped that license up. Now, it loses the right to the ESPN brand as well.
In a statement released just minutes ago, the world's largest game publisher said, "The relationship will include established EA SPORTS franchises--which will be enhanced by ESPN telecast, print and online content--as well as new sports games to be published by EA based on ESPN media properties."
The agreement is for fifteen years "with an option to terminate after ten years under certain conditions," the statement said. The agreement gives the publisher "exclusive first rights" to all ESPN content for simulation sports games.
EA is a strong company (and for being such a good Ea spokesman, if there is any EA executive out there that would like to send me a check, my address is 390.....) and if no one else wants to put its money where its mouth is then screw them. you can't blame EA for trying to get bigger and stronger.
EA IS WATCHING YOU...
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EA have the NFL license to NFL management.
Madden becomes: EA ESPN Football or something of that nature
'John Madden' then gets moved to a new NFL management series in a similar manner to TOTAL CLUB FOOTBALL (soccer), where you can save your NFL management progress and load it in the game where you can play and win/lose.
and if Sega can no longer make recycled football games, i guess it's time to put creative minds together and design new sports games. I haven't played a EA football game since the Genesis.
Hell yes, you can. EA should get bitch slapped for monopolizing the sports video game market, the same way MS is with their applications. There are some studios out there that do nothing but sports games, such as the ESPN titles. What happens to them now?
What happens if EA rolls around and trys to copyright the entire FPS genre? That's what it's getting to...
They already bought Criterion (aka, Renderware), so EA knows about EVERY single game being made, that uses Renderware. They then have the option of saying 'oh yea, that's a good game there. Lets make a better one to beat it'. EA is getting too large and powerfull for it's own good.
if you were the ceo or coo or even a stock holder of ea wouldn't you want to make as many exclusive deals that you can? like microsoft getting dead or alive and ninja gaiden...or sony for getting a big lead on gta exclussives...or nintendo getting resident evil? its all about exclussives man and getting that edge.
Lets make a better one to beat it
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I am all for making better games :P
Sadly EA never did a 'better game' all they usually do is to put their marketing devision behind a game to push it or buy out the company and make the game crap.
But to be honest, I couldn't care less about EA dominating the sports-game market, because these games are all crap anyways (and if I ever wanted to do a sport like AmericanFootball I will do it mayself with a few friends... *SHOCK* outside, in real-life *SHOCK* ).
the thing that make me believe that EA is making a mistake is not the monopolizing of small sectors of world wide sports (for instance EA could never monopolize soccer, only certain leagues), but this article from the BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4180453.stm
Linking up with celebrities, and making everything some sort of a licensed tie- in, will kill the gaming market, with poor quality games in service to stardom, and the dramatic downturn in the popularity of movie stars since the election, as evidenced by abysman ratings for the Golden Globes last night, and the Tsunami Benefit concert (even though the concert was carried by a HUGE variety of broadcast and cable companies). sure, EZ can try to become, and maybe surpass Disney, but by trying to become Disney, they will make the same mistakes that have crippled Disney and sent it into it's slow Titanic sink.
Scott
Rumors of a potential takeover bid for Ubisoft by Electronic Arts have abounded since EA's purchase of 20% of Ubisoft stock, with some unlikely parties allegedly stepping in to forestall a possible merger.
*end*
Anybody see this one? I don't think they'll stop until they rule the world.
FFS...I love ESPN NFL...so much better than Madden...and now not only do they lose the NFL license, but the ESPN branding too...fucking EA!
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Ditto
Hey, why doesn't EA just by exclusive rights to videogames in general? So no videogame could be released without the initials "EA" on the box. Wouldn't that be wonderful?
But what does bother me does this mean I could loose my beloved pro Evolution soccer series before long?
just thought id ask,its a 10x better game than Fifa,more polished,much better game play,better flow....only thing it hasn't got is the presentation of fifa which is acturally gnerally pretty good.....
also judging by the likes of my friends and me I have met so many people that have played fifa then pro evo and not even looked back at fifa....the fact that Konami is raking in the cash would surily be a reason for EA to "subdue" them....despite Konami not having an official football licence.
John
And its gonna be the job of nintendo to bring life into it once more.
Ok lets get one thing straight, you cannot monopolise a trade name such as 'NFL', you can only monopolize a 'genre' such as American Football. SEGA can quite easily go out and get the NCAA license to battle EA with a college game.
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Or even better, Sonic Football! I can't wait!
*sarcasm*
Point being: it's about the gameplay, not the names of the teams. Hell...Speedball 2 still beats most of those sportsgames in terms of gameplay; and that's not even a real sport!
Since when does it take a licence to make a good sports game?
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It doesn't. It takes a license to make a MARKETABLE sports game that people will actually buy.
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Point being: it's about the gameplay, not the names of the teams. Hell...Speedball 2 still beats most of those sportsgames in terms of gameplay; and that's not even a real sport!
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It may be a great game, but who plays it? Compare sales of Speedball 2 to Madden NFL 5. Gameplay only matters to gamers. To everyone ele, brand labelling is everything. Think about it. The sports-games type most likely have a favorite (and least favorite) team, probably even a favorite player. They will want to PLAY AS their favorite team.
Plus, if you secure the license, you can usually secure more investment capital. More investment capital is dumped into either more marketing or more development. However, consider this...
More marketing = higher profile = more sales
Sales are all that matter to these folks. Spending more on development cannot guarantee higher sales. People will buy polished shit by the truckload, if you've got a big enough marketing campaign (see McDonalds). So, development can safely be ignored. Therefore...
brand name = more money = more marketing = higher profile = more sales
Wait! It gets better! As we all know, corporations market to the lowest common denominator. Guess who sports typically appeal to? So who receives the most marketing? So guess who buys sports games? See, at that point, it doesn't even matter how good the game is, sports-games people (who, I will generalize, are sports-people first, consumers second, and gamers third... or fourth, or lower) will still buy it AND its sequels.
BEHOLD, THE POWER OF MARKETING!!!
SEGA probably have the chance to make such a deal.
I'm just glad as a fan of american football games, EA got the license. Sega haven't released any of their titles on the PC, the only free online service. If sega would have gotten the deal, EA would still release but I'd be at a loss as a PC gamer.