EA And ESPN Team Up, Despite Sega Deal

Thanks to GameSpot for their story announcing that Electronic Arts' Madden franchise will sponsor a pre-game show on TV network ESPN, in which the hosts "...will use footage of EA Sports' Madden NFL 2004 game... as a visual aid in helping to explain and illustrate NFL strategy and matchups." However, as the article points out, "EA Sports' sponsorship of an ESPN show calls into question Sega's current exclusive multiyear licensing deal with the sports network, announced last year" - and amusingly, this Yahoo article points out "ESPN.com's new games Web site, ESPN Gamer, gave 'Madden' a higher review than 'ESPN NFL Football'."

Comments

Well Duh

[BigDork1001]

"ESPN.com's new games Web site, ESPN Gamer, gave 'Madden' a higher review than 'ESPN NFL Football'."

Maybe because Madden is a better game? Just because it's ESPN Football doesn't mean that ESPN can't be impartial and not give another game a higher rating.

Re:Well Duh

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

Quite right - even though a company has a stake in the product, if you have a holding which reviews such products, you're supposed to be impartial. simoniker calls this "amusing" for some reason. I don't understand why that is amusing. In this time of corporate shilling and reviews that are really just product ads, isn't it refreshing to see that at least ESPN's reviews aren't based on corporate synergy. This also makes me question what exactly is going on at Slashdot. It would appear that ESPN's policy of honesty is laughable to simoniker. simoniker, why is that amusing to you? Are Slashdot editors going to favor everything from VA-Linux because of the corporate relationship or will the Slashdot editors be sources of opinion that are not based on the stock price of VA-Linux? I am interested in why this would be considered amusing at Slashdot.

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

If by "better" you mean tailed more towards the masses instead of portraying "realistic" football.

The most blatant example is how the computer has no problem with snapping the ball with 20+ seconds to go on the play clock, while in ESPN, it actually let's the clock tick down to the last few seconds. Simulate a game in Madden, and it's not surprising to see 50+ in a game.

Is Madden a bad football game? Not at all. But they need to stop making games so mainstream, which is one of the reasons Triple Play (and even MVP Baseball to a certain extent) ended up being tossed aside for the more realistic (ie, not home run durby gameplay) High Heat Baseball.

Re:Well Duh

[simoniker]

I think it's a little ironic that ESPN end up rating their own-branded product lower than a competitor's, yes. But I also think it's the justified and correct thing to do, since ESPN, as journalists, should be editorially independent, after all. As far as drawing any troll-tastic links to editorial bias at Slashdot Games, fortunately, we don't produce many videogames, so I think we're fairly safe.

Re:Well Duh

[n0wak]

I don't like football games myself, but everyone I know that is in the know says that SEGA's offering is far better than EA's. Of course, "better" doesn't mean "better sales", as the Madden brand recognition goes a long way.

Re:Well Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Madden is garbage and a huge hype machine. That is all.

Re:Well Duh

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

You're an editor and you don't know what irony means. I suppose you'd call that "ironic", wouldn't you?

Try to think a bit more high-level. ESPN did the right thing and dealt honestly with a product that was theirs in comparing it to another. Can Slashdot editors say the same in regard to business practices by IBM or in suggesting quality merchandise from Thinkgeek? The fact that you were "amused" by the idea of a company acting morally, concerns me.

First they fight...

[ihatesco]

then they end up in bed.

Electronic Arts was sued by ESPN because EA tried to create a fictional "EA Sports Network" to brand their videogames... they already did it with the EANN (electronic arts news network) spoofing CNN in the Desert Strike/Jungle Strike series for the Sega Genesis but in the case of EANN they came over clean.

Can't find historical pages about this lawsuit, but there comes some quotes from google and google groups :)

google post (need to get to the part where it quotes EASN and ESPN).
ESPN versus CSPN (need to get to page 3)

Re:First they fight...

[ihatesco]

Oh, yes... Everything2.com entry cites this incident as well...

clickety

Conflict? Not Too Surprised

[the_riaa]

ABC owns ESPN. ABC also employs John Madden for it's Monday Night Football broadcast, Madden being the namesake of the video game juggernaut. For years, before the Sega/ESPN deal, and hell, before ABC hired Madden, during games occasionally EA Madden footage was shown in games to show replays, strategies, etc.

Before Sega's partnership, the ESPN name was branded on other titles - but none of those were featured in ESPN broadcasts. If I were Sega, I wouldn't fret too much about this deal. EA's ponying up the money to slap their logo all around the pre-game show, and I'm sure ESPN would've gladly taken Sega's money if they would've offered as much/more. Capitalism? Sure. But do you still see tons of those Warren Sapp/Tracey Morgan commercials for ESPN NFL Football during ESPN broadcasts? I know I sure see a lot of them - almost as many as for their show Playmakers.

Oh, and Sega's offerings have been better in my eyes than Madden the past few years, but you have to give EA credit for their stranglehold on the market.

Re:Conflict? Not Too Surprised

[jpu8086]

Good point. Minor error: Disney owns ABC. Disnet owns ESPN. So, they're siblings controlled by the wishes of the parent.

Something to note.

[illuminata]

On ESPNews, for the Tampa Bay vs. Philadelphia game, ESPN NFL Football was used to predict what might happen, and not Madden NFL 2004.

Another round of Sega vs EA

[derrickh]

I see it as a slap to the Sega's face by both ESPN and especially EA. EA and Sega have been at each other's throats since the early days of the Genesis (EA refused to pay Sega's liscencing fees for a while) and flared up again when the dreamcast debuted(The only next gen console EA never supported).

It's hard to understand how 2 big corporations can 'dislike' one another, but somehow, it's happened.

D

Visual Concepts loses again

[Tom Courtenay]

Sega hasn't done anything right with VC's games since the DC.

• They don't market the games. There's very little advertising for some incredible products.
• They don't appear to be targetting EA's customers. Why not? Let them know that the alternatives to NBA Live & Madden are often *superior*!
• They're not pushing the online capabilities at all!

EA's games can't go online with X-box Live. Sega's have been able to since last year, so why don't we hear more about it? I'd be surprised to see the 2Kx series last much longer.

Since the series' inception, I've only purchased VC's football games. But they don't seem to be trying for my dollar anymore; I'm not just talking about advertising either. The new football game plays exactly like last year's, but this time your receivers actually hold on to the rock. That's not innovating or refining, that's fixing.

I hate to say it, but this was the first time in 5 years I've bought a Madden game. Even though I can't go online with it, it's still better than VC's offering.

Re:Visual Concepts loses again

[Dsal]

There are all kinds of innovations in this year's ESPN. There is much less innovation from last year's Madden to this year's Madden.

I'd say the addition of the "Crib" mode gimmick among others is a definite attempt at targetting EA's customers. Part of EAs success in their sports games is their use of putting references to pop and sports culture in their games. Madden himself, Al Michaels, the Horse Trailer Player of the Game: they're all technically extras that aren't actual gameplay, yet it makes the game seem more in tune with football culture. Included with Sega's crowd reaction animations and the ESPN-style presentation, the Crib and First Person Mode extras ups the football culture ante to include the players' culture into the mix.

As for actual gameplay, the running game in this year's ESPN is so much more rewarding than Madden's. You can follow and fluidly interact with your blockers to your benefit, instead of just hitting their collision bubble and awkwardly running in place behind them like in Madden. Sega's new audible system does everything Playmaker does in Madden and is more powerful and flexible.

If you take away the ability to set the price of a garlic chicken sandwich from Madden, not much is new compared to last year's version. Running has been improved in Madden but not to the stellar degree it's been refined to in ESPN.

To me, this year, ESPN has superior presentation, gameplay, and extras. Madden is still a great football game but it's no longer the best. We can only benefit from this, as next year EA will definitely respond to being shown up this year with improvements.

There is no way ANY existing software company can out-market EA. The amount of money EA spends on marketing has no parallel, and likely more has been spent marketing this version of Madden than developing it. They can only do this because the high sales of the game are a foregone conclusion; Madden's sells millions of copies every year, on the year, regardless of its merits. Given that knowledge, spending that much on ads isn't even a financial risk for them. They can bank on it. No other company has a franchise so entrenched and so reliable. This is why they will protect it with all their marketing might. If you theoretically took away Madden's profits from EA, they'd probably instantly no longer be world's dominant developer.

If it came down to it, I doubt even Sony and Microsoft could be expected to outspend them in marketing a game, let alone Sega. It's unrealistic to think that they'd be able to compete with them in advertising. All they can realistically do is make a better game, and this year they did just that. In the long run, all that matters is that we get a great game and the company makes enough money off it so they can make more. As long as that happens, I don't really care if the majority is playing something else.

Re:Visual Concepts loses again

[Tom Courtenay]

I'd say the addition of the "Crib" mode gimmick among others is a definite attempt at targetting EA's customers.

Good point; the previous 2K games didn't have any real rewards for successful play. I stand corrected on this. It's definitely a direct result of competition with EA.

the running game in this year's ESPN is so much more rewarding than Madden's.

I disagree with this. Up until this year I was always happier with 2K's running game. After playing both extensively, I can't stand by that anymore. Madden's running game is simply more representative of the real thing. I will however, concede that the running animations aren't nearly as fluid in Madden.

As far as your comments about the marketing budgets...you're right. EA's franchise is a juggernaut that won't be toppled anytime soon.

Typical from what I've seen...

[BenSnyder]

The day Madden 2004 came out there was much rejoicing and bouquets of flowers were thrown at the game from every reviewer possible.

The day NFL ESPN Football came out... nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. The next day, crickets. The next day, I already had the game and made a post on the IGN.com board about it. As far as I know, that was one of the first reviews (albeit on a message board) of the game on the Net. Finally, that night GameSpot posted their review. The next day, IGN.com had theirs. In previous years, the reviewers didn't have a problem calling one game better than the other. Now they couch their opinions in double speak. GameSpot ends their review by saying "ESPN NFL Football is truly the best playing football game available for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox". Why qualify? Does Madden or Gameday work better as a coaster or something?

Meanwhile, while waiting on the reviews, I was treated to some nice advertisements on both IGN and Gamespot from Madden. The ads were all about how Madden was #1.

Personally, I do think that there was some dealing going on behind the scenes by EA. I think EA has been trying to undermine the marketing efforts of Sega. And in business, I guess there ain't nothing wrong with that. But it's still unsavory. I can nitpick on ESPN NFL Football and I can nitpick on Madden 2004. I've got dozens of hours invested in both titles. But one thing is clear to me, ESPN NFL Football is the most complete package.

EA climbing in ESPN's lap should be taken as a slap in the face by Sega. It should also show (along with the fact that the websites to support ESPN NFL Football were down even a few days after the game came out) that Sega is hopelessly outmatched and outgunned by EA's marketing dept.

Which is a damn shame because they have the better game.