Electronic Arts' Domination Of The Market

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Electronic Arts' Domination Of The Market - Bad?

Posted by simoniker on Monday February 23, 2004 @04:34AM from the if-i-ruled-the-world dept.

Will writes "A recent article at Gamemethod makes claims about how big companies can squash the little guy, and good gaming along with it: 'With almost 600 million dollars in sales in 2003(not including December), and 20% of the entire market, Electronic Arts is a developing and publishing powerhouse... Why should you be worried that EA rules the American gaming market and dominates sales? Well, if EA becomes too large of a force in the industry, it has some potentially damaging side effects that will hurt us, the consumers.'" It goes on to specify that "competition breeds creativity", suggesting "there's a problem when EA has enough money to buy out any studios that bring out a hit game", and concluding that "the progress of games as a medium will continue, but at a snail's pace in comparison to the previous years of fierce competition."

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Re:EA's latest games stink by roche · 2004-02-23 05:39 · Score: 5, Informative

Are you insane? The new Madden has more new features in it than any other Madden in quite some time.

The new playmaker control is awesome. You can change the direction of the run before you even snap the ball now. You can also change the route of the receivers. This is all without having to call a audible and completely change the play/formation. While on defense you can also change the way your defense reacts after the snap of the ball. You can pull every one in to stop a run, or you can pull them back to cover a pass. While running the ball at any time, you can also you it to call for blocks. None of this was possible before, and it is very hard to live without once you get used to it.

They also improved the franchise mode of the game by leaps and bounds. Not only do you just play season after season, now you can do some stuff a owner would do. These are things like set the prices of various stadium prices to improve you bottom line, like parking, concession prices, souvenir prices and ticket prices. Heck, you can even pick up the team and move them to a new city. Once you get to the new city, you can design the stadium and new jerseys.

With all of those new features, it hardly sounds like just a roster update to me.

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roche
Bah Humbug!
Re:Not the biggest problem. by AtaruMoroboshi · 2004-02-23 06:17 · Score: 2, Informative

you misunderstand...expensive for the developer to develop, not for the consumer to buy.

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EA's Even Bigger Than Implied by ChrisReid · 2004-02-23 08:06 · Score: 3, Informative

Only $600 Million before December? EA's much bigger than that. Their fiscal year total is projected to be $3 Billion. http://info.ea.com/pr/pr449.pdf
Re:If you're not convinced - LotR Mordor GP by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-23 11:25 · Score: 1, Informative

Actually, I got that Issue recently, and EGM is well known for their April Fools jokes (it IS the April issue, after all) even though the magazine is delivered to peoples homes months before. I am pretty sure that announcement is their April Fools joke, and if it is, then that means nothing about EA's market dominance issues right now.