[Lunabean]

EA and ESPN have announced a 15 year integrated marketing deal allowing all of EA's sports franchises access to ESPN's programming, online content, and personalities. No financial terms were announced although some are putting the value at $850 million. The deal begins in 2006 as ESPN still has a year left on their Sega contract and coincidentally, EA has a year left on their Madden contract. EA, I'm betting, will be dumping the aging Madden at the end of this year. This move happens after the recent exclusive deals with the NFL, AFL, and being snubbed by the NBA. Knowing that 20% of the gaming market is sports games, that EA has always dominated sports games with few exceptions, and Sega's ESPN NFL 2K5 actually challenged Madden '05 this year, EA is simply out to crush the competition. They are showing no mercy in securing long term deals with huge properties. And, they're after Ubisoft. Is there any stopping this behemoth?

[the Chris]

:wub:

well, i'm a huge sports game fan, and i absolutely love this move. the only thing EA sports games lacked were the awesome production bits ESPN had, and now they're about as close to you can get to perfection in sports. i really can't wait until 2006. =)

[mawied]

EA is getting closer and closer to a monopoly of console games. Bad.

[poopoosa]

I like eggs :D

[Lizking]

I honestly couldn't care what they do with the sports franchises, and that's what I voted. 15 years is a long time, but it's a football game. the only difference between [x]Ball 200[y] and [x]Ball 200[y+1] is a roster update and half a dozen polygons on player models.

BUT, as mawied pointed out, EA has been doing things that are more and more monopolistic. I know you don't like to hear this, Luna, but EA makes games that are mediocre, and they seem to make no effort to change that. When making a game, EA uses a formula similar to the one for sports games; take a game from last year, change a few things, and sell it as new.
Yes, they do make NEW products every few years, but those are so few and far-between, they would go broke if it werent for the carbon-copies they release.

[Lunabean]

Lizking, on Jan 18 2005, 07:46 PM, said:

BUT, as mawied pointed out, EA has been doing things that are more and more monopolistic. I know you don't like to hear this, Luna, but EA makes games that are mediocre, and they seem to make no effort to change that. When making a game, EA uses a formula similar to the one for sports games; take a game from last year, change a few things, and sell it as new.
Yes, they do make NEW products every few years, but those are so few and far-between, they would go broke if it werent for the carbon-copies they release.

Oh LK...not only do we not care that you say this, but we completely agree. We've just always been impressed with EA's business moves. The small amount we invested in them was, in no way, because we thought they were the best game publishers...they simply have the best money making plan. They buy licenses like there's no tomorrow, and they make the games that appeal to the masses.

[dmbjunky]

I agree with LizKing. This year I became a Sega Sports fan with the lower price point and excellent basketball and football games. While I do enjoy playing Madden and NBA Live, I think that every year the games are so similar they should be value priced. All of these exclusivity deals by EA make me afraid for the creativity of sports games and are making me hate EA. But I have confidence that Visual Concepts can bring out quality sports games maybe in the vein of classics like Tecmo Bowl or Mutant League Football.[COLOR=blue][COLOR=blue]

[the Chris]

dmbjunky, on Jan 21 2005, 03:26 PM, said:

This year I became a Sega Sports fan with the lower price point and excellent basketball and football games.

to start, there's not much i like more than basketball and its video games. that said, NBA 2k was my favorite thing ever when i got my dreamcast. i was a big supporter of the 2k series until 2004. i hated NBA 2k4 and swore off ESPN basketball for good. i played a demo of NBA 2k5 and it was just what i expected. pretty face (literally) but no substance. nba live 2005 is fast, fun and completely awesome.

and before someone says i'm biased against ESPN, i must say NFL 2k5 is one of my favorite games ever, and i'm pretty sure i've played it longer than any other game of all time.

Quote

All of these exclusivity deals by EA make me afraid for the creativity of sports games and are making me hate EA.

i really couldn't disagree with you more right there. i could mention the innovative all-star weekend in nba live, the ultra-deep dynasty mode in NCAA football, constant upgrades (hit stick, open ice control) to madden and NHL, but there's really no need. look at the SSX series, the NBA and NFL street games, the craziness of tiger woods. EA isn't much if they're not creative.

and while you have a good idea with bringing back tecmo bowl, there's really no point. there's just no way it could work on a next-gen console, you're much better off just playing the NES version. but yeah, i loves me some tecmo bowl.

[MasterX]

I'm a big ESPN NFL 2K5 fan. It's an awesome game, and is clearly better than Madden. I hate it when people act like Madden is so much better than it when it clerly isn't. All it has is a name and a good reputation. Now that it has ESPN and the NFL players assosciation by it's side, no one's going to buy Sega NFL 2K6 at all. I'm probably not, since I don't enjoy playing with generic players/teams and such. The game still has some of the greatest features and game play ever, though. Very realistic, good controlls, everything. Madden....meh.

[pryro109]

I too like eggs!

[MasterX]

way to ruin a thread, moron. GTFO!

[boogalooscrimp]

i thought it was a little iffy of ea. it's in their rights as a business, of course, but it sure is making things worse on the consumer. and anything that impacts the end user that way is bad bad bad. ea was getting a little stale with sports games to begin with, if you ask me. madden has been the same for ages. and they should be using live 2.0 for the xbox already...on the upside, it looks like the non-ea baseball game is gonna kick arse this year. all of the press on mlb2k5 seems to say the gameplay is gonna be better than mvp's was last year by leaps and bounds. both chud and ign make it look veyr very promising.

[digitalmilk]

i guess trying to suck up everything you can is sort of the american way, so who can really blame ea for trying to corer the market. having said that, my fear is that this move will make ea even lazier about their games, since now they're going to be the only game in town in some areas. as the previous poster said, ea very rarely changes the record and i just can;t imagine this move will prompt them to start making breakthroughs in their game design, etc.

as for mlb 2k5, i'm not much for gushing but i have to say that i was very impressed when i finally sat down and checked out that preview at ign last week. I can safely say- it looks very very nice. just from the videos I can already tell that 2k5 is going to kick mvp's ass. my feeling is that if we're getting games that look as good as mlb 2k5, then go ahead and let EA make their football games, because at least for this year, baseball is all taken care of.

[Lunabean]

The amazing thing about the American way is that it's based upon the consumer driving the market. If the consumer settles and buys EA games, then EA is going to get lazy and comfortable...and why not? If people are shelling out money, why should they change? For the integrity of video games? I think not. They're in the biz to make money, and their games please the masses. The sheep are happy with EA. Those who are not, well, these are going to be the people who get the most enjoyment out of a smaller label games with fake names for their favorite players and teams...get enough hype around, others switch, then EA has something to compete with. I'm not saying EA is good here, but if you're purely blaming them instead of the people who are completely satisfied with mediocre games, you're missing the point. Capitalism is a bitch, and EA is playing the game.

[/\/+r0p`/]

Lunabean, on Feb 9 2005, 10:37 AM, said:

The amazing thing about the American way is that it's based upon the consumer driving the market. If the consumer settles and buys EA games, then EA is going to get lazy and comfortable...and why not? If people are shelling out money, why should they change? For the integrity of video games? I think not. They're in the biz to make money, and their games please the masses. The sheep are happy with EA. Those who are not, well, these are going to be the people who get the most enjoyment out of a smaller label games with fake names for their favorite players and teams...get enough hype around, others switch, then EA has something to compete with. I'm not saying EA is good here, but if you're purely blaming them instead of the people who are completely satisfied with mediocre games, you're missing the point. Capitalism is a bitch, and EA is playing the game.

Adam Smith would be proud.

[pokey]

adam west would be confused. because he is not an economist.


so i really think it's a bad thing. but ea's actions are such that they force other companies to take stands and do (sorta) brave things. take two is a shining example of being mad as hell and refusing to take it anymore.

if being mad as hell contributes to take two's continued production of very good games, i almost hope EA pulls more crap in the future.

Take Two:

[/\/+r0p`/]

Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations back in the 1700s. He basically created the market economy under which we now operate. He's not Adam West.

[digitalmilk]

actually I think he was kidding about adam west.

Basically saying that yes Adam Smith would be proud- but Adam West would be confused.

It's yet another example of how sarcasm doesn't really work on the internet.

Anyhow I think in the final analysis, this move will only end up hurting EA. Right now they're the king of the hill, but this is only going to make their competitors work harder in the long run.

It's already started with mlb 2k5, which looks SO much better than MVP that to me there's no question of which game to go with. I'm just glad that's the case, because to be honest if EA had the better game- I'd probably have to get that one. Yes I dislike EA, but the bottom line for me is the quality of the the game. Lucky for me, this year it looks like the prize is gonna go to 2k5 and thus I won't have to throw any of my hard earned $$$ towards EA (which would tick me off a bit).

Long story short, 2k5 looks like it's gonna be a kick ass game. And as long as I have a good game- i guess it doesn't matter who owns what.

[pokey]

adam curry or not, i've just pre-ordered MLB2k5 and i think it's a move he'd appreciate.