Slashdot Mirror
EA Obtains Exclusive NFL Licensing Rights
Grub writes "EA has signed a 5-year agreement with the NFL that gives them exclusive rights to use NFL players, teams, and stadiums in their products. CEO Larry Probst, 'The five-year agreement will usher NFL fans through the console technology transition with new ideas and innovative game play experiences.'
This is a crushing blow to competitors and an enormous victory for EA, who will undoubtably make sure everyone knows that only they have NFL players and teams come next year's football game advertising bonanza."
I thought if there was one site I could escape sports talk, it would be Slashdot. Now I get to read endless posts about football being soccer, etc.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I've been waiting for a CFL game to come along.
Random and weird software I've written.
I love madden... i didn't even know shit about football until that game. I'm glad/
What'll they think of next?
...was vastly better than NFL Quarterback Club '98 on the N64, and it didn't have the team license. I wonder if Sega (NFL2k) or Midway(NFLBlitz!) will be able to pull the same trick off.
Well, football fans, I hope you liked Madden 2005, because you're going to get that same game shoved down your throats with updated rosters for the next five years.
EA needs to die.
"The five-year agreement will usher NFL fans through the console technology transition with new ideas and innovative game play experiences."
Because monopolies (this is a monopoly of sorts) always lead to innovation.
Per Square Mile, a blog about density
Good thing I don't like sports.
I predict a huge upswing in the popularity of NCAA-based games. Or maybe arena league ;)
...and play six days per week.
Oh well, I will just be the SF 48ers the computer can be the GB Hackers. Oh Bred Feasly you SOB run!
I'm sure this has nothing to do with Sega's almost superior (and 30 dollars cheaper) ESPN football debuting this year... I see someone's posted that since Madden's the best game anyway, it doesn't matter. Well, it does matter, since being the only game in town doesn't exactly provide incentive to improve- or do anything but offer gamers the same thing every year with barely cosmetic changes.
My good looks paid for that pool, and my talent filled it with water.
I want to know if there's a single for profit business out there that is cast in a positive light by Slashdot.
Go back to Russia you socialists.
This would be a perfect time for the XFL to come back! Yaaay!!
Hacker Media
Maybe it's just the Econ major in me, but I thought rivalry inspired innovation. I mean it's not like EA rolled-out first-person play this year.
Disclaimer: I own Madden '04, but I won't be in the market for another console football game in the foreseeable future.
One might ask the same about birds. What ARE birds? We just don't know.
They just killed all the competition. Good for them, bad for us. Sega's football this year was $30 cheaper and as good or better. It was nice to finally see some real competition in that market. Just shows what competition will do. I'm sure they paid a LOT for this deal.
first they refused to put out any sports games on the dreamcast, now they're threatened by the very franchise born out of that refusal... so what do they do? grab a monopoly.
i guess i won't be buying any more ea games until the day i die, same with microsoft products.
bastards.
I need my new football game to replace last years', i hate the cover on that one.
Does the monopoly status of the NFL allow it to exclusively grant rights to its brand like that?
I had no intention of sharing it beyond that, but something about using actual NFL teams made me wonder about licensing rights. So I wrote to the NFL and asked them if I wanted to create a private, not-for-profit, not to be spread around game, could I use actual NFL team names? I figured it was a silly question, for why would they object. Probably you are thinking I was an idiot for writing under the universal principle of it's better to be ask forgiveness than to ask permission. Well, I was, but there you are. Anyway, I got a nice letter from NFL headquarters saying, "Thank you for asking, but no, you may not use actual NFL team names since we have entered into exclusive licensing arrangements with game companies." I have no idea which game company (probably early Atari stuff or some nonsense), but the idea of exclusive licensing of NFL names is hardly new. They've been raking in free money on that concept for at least twenty years now.
And no, I didn't change my program. Oh, I tried to make up names like the Comets and the Tigers, but it sounded too hokey, so I left in the real names anyway. NFL lawyers, you may arrest me now.
There are what, 8 teams? How long can a season take?
Why do you imply ruling out repeat matches in a season? There are thirty teams in the National Basketball Association, and a season takes over 80 games. There are thirty teams in Major League Baseball, and a season takes over 160 games. There are nine teams in the Canadian Football League, and its regular season is 20 weeks long.
So EA has the exclisive rights to produce NFL branded games for 5 years. Who cares? Who the hell plays sports games anyway... I'd much rather play the SPORT than either watch the sport, or play a game based on a sport.
:)
Now, if you can dress me up in a real varia suit and let me go rolling around San Jose blowing up parking meters, then you can get me off this console
I guess EA will put in five minutes of commercials, mostly for beer and trucks, for every ten minutes of gameplay now that they have monopoly. Ahh just like the real NFL. Double the commericals during the superbowl.
I think there's room for online sports that doesn't require the consent of Pro Sports Orgs... there are pleny of concepts out there for doing innovative sport games and some of them include using traditional rules from popular sports... some of them don't.
I'd like to see football with fireballs and sleeping spells or baseball with alternative physics at play... why limit sports games to what you can see on TV?
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
I've also heard that EA is now trying to acquire exlusives rights to NBA and MLB teams/players as well. (Serious.) I don't think EA is going to stop until all sports out there, including outerspace horseshoes and water rugby beachball hockey, have their names attached to EA having exclusive rights. (Halfway silly, but you don't need me to tell you that.) -Grub
Football is boring.
...that they will now be required to work 90 hours a week without overtime pay on game systems all over the country?
Beep beep.
Sega and other football game makers have a unique opportunity at this time to make really amazing College Football Games. There have been a few on the market but they don't generally have the features or support that the NFL games do.
There is a large playerbase that is actively followed. Gamers will still go where the best game implementation is.
Can you imagine how rich the online play would be with leagues composed of every college team would be? It would be fantastic!
Even if they don't go with colleges they could setup entire virtual leagues. Track stats of a 'fake' league online have a team for every state so that you can have large online leagues. Have web based fantasy games setup for when your at work. It could work and be compelling.
They could even stream nightly gaming updates to your xbox (ala machinma) using the ingame engine.
Maybe people will continue to buy EA's games but if Sega does it right, most football gamers will end up buying both, and perhaps spend more time theirs.
I think we could use a CFL game for a change.
Canadian Football is clearly superior to all forms
of other football...
I mean, all those american teams in the CFL folded
because the game is too extreme for you guys.
And then, when you tried to start your OWN
extreme football league, what happened? oh yeah,
IT FOLDED.
(Not a football fan, just a Canadian)
At least the cost of licenses that would have gone to the other games in addition to EA's seems like the most sensible answer.
As if we didn't already have a reason to be anti-EA. With the way they are looking to monopolize this market, they appear to be catching up to Microsft and SCO in the "Slashdot Hates Us" category.
This is NOT a Troll! The NFL is granted a right to have a monopoly by congress, like MLB (Major League Baseball)... and the trade off is that the U.S. congress can sometimes step in and regulate it. This is fair because congress is a proportional representation of the population of the nation according to election - and the NFL did choose to derive their monopoly rights from congress.
SO... if the NFL is granted exclusive rights, are they allowed to themselves grant exclusive rights? It's a fair question, and important considering the ramifications.
Sad considering this year was one of the most competitive years in football video games with Sega/Take-two releasing ESPN NFL 2K-series at $19.99.
Guess EA would rather spend the extra cash in getting an exclusive license (which I'm sure they paid an arm and a leg for) rather than spending all that money improving Madden in a competive market, or reducing the price of the Madden series to fend off well-made-$20 football games.
Competitors should design their products to accept any properly formatted database file of players and stats.
This would allow you to enter in your child's own Pop Warner teams to play against each other.
Of course, there's always a chance that some naughty person might start spreading around a database listing all the real NFL players.
That would certainly be tragic. But it's a risk we might have to take.
I object to that article, and to the next reply.
As if it wasn't bad enough that sports games get released year after year with incremental changes that are hardly noticable for $60 CDN. Now there's only one choice for NFL football. So EA can release exactly the same game year after year with nothing more than updated rosters (some would argue that that's exactly what they do now).
:) I never buy football games I just feel bad for Joe Six Pack.
A sad for consumers indeed.
Called ESPN NadeTheEAHeads 2k6. It's just like football - except you're quarterback, the wide receivers are on the other team(they are EA executives,) and lawyers act as the defensive and offensive line. If you can't succesfully get your grenades to the executives before going past the fourth trial down and they reach the endzone, they win - forever! The game sends out a radio signal to your local EA "re-education" center, self destructs, and CIA officers in "sponsored by EA" bust through the front door of your digital house and kick your ass. Bombs away!
The point of copyright is that monopoly in expression creates diversity in expression.
NFL doesn't have a monopoly on football, just on its team nicknames and logos. Imagine the possibilities if NFL licenses exclusively to one developer and NFL Players Inc licenses exclusively to another: you'd get situations like the early 1990s where one company's game would have real players and fake team logos, while the other had fake players and real team logos. So we have one NFL game, one NFL Players Inc game, one CFL game, and one of the other kind of football.
So that's where the overtime budget went!
you know.. so far there are about 30 (level 1+) comments and I don't see anyone bad mouthing the NFL for this. I can't say I blame EA for going after this agreement. It's in their best interest and will give them a huge edge come next season. Who wants to play an NFL football game where you can't be Michael Vick and the rest of the Atlanta Falcons (or whoever). But what about the NFL for even LETTING this agreement happen?! If you are going to blast EA for going after a monopoly why not blast the NFL for supporting it?! I'd think it would be in their best interest to let more companies get licenses. How many people out there own both NFL 2k5 and Madden 2005?! I know my friend does... I know many people who did. So the NFL got double license fees from one customer. That's GOOD for the NFL. Also, what about all those people who are anti-Madden, either out of principle (for EA's employer practices) or because they just don't like the gameplay as much as NFL 2k5 (or others) like myself. I own 2k5 because I don't like Madden.. the graphics aren't as good, the gameplay is weak. If this deal had been in place last year the NFL wouldn't have gotten ANY of my money, whereas this year they got some from me purchasing NFL 2k5. This just seems like a bad choice for the NFL. It's a shame too because I get some serious football feaver in Aug and Sept and now next year I'll be back playing my old 2k5. Next year the NFL won't be getting any of my money from licensing deals.
Grease & Counterbalance
Of every dollar that goes to a movie-license game or another game licensed by a major movie studio, some cents go to lobbying for anti-consumer copyright legislation. For instance, the $20 MSRP of ESPN NFL 2Kx includes a royalty paid to ESPN and thus to its majority owner, The Walt Disney Company. Disney was behind the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.
Another reason not to spend any money on crap EA games that can't even support HDTV 480p and they cost more than the ESPN games?!? Even $20 online poker games can support it and EA doesn't?!? Good thing I'm not a hardcore football video game fan.
there is no exclusive right to the 4th down rule. Oh Canada, how your football pales in comparison...
I actually thought that the fact that ESPN (Visual Concepts) dropped their prices to $19.95 would cause the competitors (EA) to follow suit. "Pretty good for the consumers - what could go wrong?" I asked.
I guess I've just been answered...
Now we have only once game with the offical licence - which will probably retain the same selling price to make up for the licensing fees.
Football, with porn?
Sweet.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Thats it..
I just wanted to share... (unlike EA)
"Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far
I for one cannot stand EA sports.
This is an evil move, and I will pirate this game out of principle.
Competitors should design their products to accept any properly formatted database file of players and stats.
Microsoft Word 97 can accept any propeRTFly formatted word processing DOCument. Because Word 97 and later will read .doc and .rtf files saved by newer versions, just skipping over new features that it doesn't recognize, the existing Office 97 and 2000 install base competes with Microsoft's effort to sell copies of Office 2003. Likewise, supporting XML databases of players in one year's tackle football sim would kill the market for next year's product.
Besides, there's often no console-maker-approved way to get data off a PC and onto a game console.
It appears from the article that the NFL were the ones who decided to make their licenses exclusive and that upwards of five different companies bid for said license... I wonder if the other competitors would be shouting foul play if they had taken Madden away from EA...
For the record, I downloaded this years version of Madden and plan on doing it again next year...
That was a site I could've lived without seeing.
Good one. Now you better put those white sheets back on the bed before your wife notices they're missing. Oh tell her I had fun last night, bitch.
Electronic Arts (ERTS) traded up 3.38 during regular hours trading and went up an additional 3.07 during after hours trading. This is a 6.24% and 5.33% change in a single day. I guess wallstreet really cares who gets to hold on to the francise name.
You're shit outta luck on that one. Try again, and if that don't work, try once more - you know, the turd time is the charm. And if that doesn't work, maybe you just have crappy luck.
Sorry about the toilet humor. Couldn't help myself.
Cyberball 2072 was the only football-type game I ever found to be fun.
C'mon! Giant robots? Playing football? My pals and I spent many a quarter on that, beating each other senseless.
Screw EA and the NFL. No giant robots, no care.
By [sport simulations'] very nature they can't go beyond the rules of the game they're based on.
That sentence makes me believe that you never played NBA Jam, NFL Blitz, or any EA Sports BIG title.
It is boring I won't argue but if EA continue to release sport titles every year, it's because there is a large market out there formed of pigeons who will buy every sport title of every year which makes EA richer with these titles that seem all the same other than some player changes and "graphic improvements".
Am I the only one who noticed that in many cases, the games that come with a console from ebay sellers are sport titles?
It's time for a remake of Tecmo Super Bowl. Really, that was the greatest football game ever made.
Can we save some time and just repost all of the "M$ is Evil" posts from the last 5 years and just replace Microsoft with EA in each?
Actually, M$ should be replaced by €A.
ESPN football is superior in just about every way.
The "S" in ESPN football stands for Sonny Bono.
A few years ago this might have been feasible, and might have even allowed for a competitor to emerge that would import this data. These days, though, there's just SO MUCH data that it would be hell to duplicate. Case in point, do you know the speed rating of the Green Bay Packers backup right defensive tackle? Never mind all the work that goes into making the players look like the players.
There's a game being developed that's supposed to allow users to customize a CFL/NFL/Arena type league. One wonders if this is a setback for them.
Here's a link, though: http://www.maximum-football.com/
Barry Bonds struck a deal with Topps baseball cards where they're the only company that can print a card with him on it. He wasn't in any company's cards this year, though Topps can now post-print a 2004 under the terms of the "deal". The price for Barry? Estimates say 1-2 million.
source
Hats off to EA, they made a nice business maneuver out of nowhere.
Does it mean any other football game is dead? No, you could see a small studio come out with a football game that makes use of connected technology to let people create and download their own rosters.
Many independent baseball sims release their game without a licensed roster, but allow people to download 3rd party rosters where people add actual player/team names and stats.
There's always the possibility that it leads to the first baby steps of console game modding. Where there are roadblocks and money to made there is also innovation.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
Well, football fans, I hope you liked Madden 2005, because you're going to get that same game shoved down your throats with updated rosters for the next five years.
EA used to be like this with the FIFA Football (soccer to you Americans) licence - I'm pretty sure every FIFA game from 1996 to 2001 was the same damn game with just the rosters updated - they've got better since, though, and have been genuinely adding new features to every release since 2002 (mostly because a large section of the market began to realise that International Superstar Soccer, while not having the official licences, gave a superior gaming experience provided you didn't mind the names being a bit off). They saw the market was no longer stagnant and they had a serious competitor, so they started adding interesting features.
Provided one of the competitors takes it upon themselves to make a game that's more realistic than EA's offering gameplay-wise, a large chunk of the market will start to switch, official licence and rosters or not. Provided a competitor comes in with a worthy product, EA won't risk letting their marketshare slide, so don't bet too strongly on them letting this one stagnate. Let's call it a wait-and-see, shall we?
Dealing with lawyers would be a lot less tedious if they all looked like Casey Novak.
QB EAGLES
One of my biggest disapointments for the past few years is that SEGA has failed to produce a college football game. I'd really prefer controlling my favorite college team over the pros any day. And since I refuse to buy EA, I've been out of luck.
Lets hope that Sega comes out with a great college game next year.
I read this PR twice, convinced that I had read this wrong or that it was some kind of a hoax, thinking "can this mean what I think it means?".
This is bad. So very bad. If this is true (see above), this will essentially kill the football franchises of Sony/989 Studios, Sega, and Midway. It doesn't matter how good a game is -- without the license to use the official teams and players, you are toast.
The immediate effect of this will be price. When Sega slashed it's sports line to $20, EA followed suit by dropping it's sports titles to $30. Think that will happen when EA has no competition? Quality will be the next to go -- what will be EA's motivation to innovate? When SCEA first released NFL Gameday for the Playstation, EA cancelled it's Madden because of its inferrior quality. They came back the next year with a much-improved offering. Without compeition, what will stop EA from shoveling out complete garbage? There wasn't a lot of year-on-year innovation in the first place, but now I'll be surprised if they do little more update the team rosters.
Oh, and doesn't easpouse's husband work for EA Tiburon? I guess that situation isn't going to improve. "Where else are you going to work? Sega? Bwah hah hah hah!". Guess I better figure out how the BCS works... damn you EA!!!
this is professional sports, you idiot. the black players make 5/3 more.
EA could actually BUY out the NHL for exclusive rights! The sport would exist only to sell video games. What a future.
Translation from EASpeak (TM):
"Hi. Sega? Remember that $19.99 price undercut? Yeah. F*** you."
So, how much bigger is EA gonna get before some other game companies ::cough::SEGA::cough:: get off their asses and sue EA for being a monopoly and/or supporting anti-competitive tactics (like say, I don't know... having the only NFL game available for 5 freaking years)? This is clearly retaliation to Sega's ESPN NFL 2K4 (or was it 5? ..sorry, don't play football) this year putting a hurt on Madden for once.
How long will the cattle of America keep grazing at these retardedly powerful corporations before they realize the grass has gone bad?
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
What happens if John Madden dies?
From http://www.idlethumbs.net/ on the subject of choice:
"Now now, let's not forget," reminds a fictional EA media rep, "We make both Madden and NFL Street."
I'm no fan of sports games (and as a classic games collector, I know that one of these brand new in a case is worth the case), but I have noticed how people talk about NES Tecmo Bowl with reverence, and that pre-dated the annual sports games. Which originally started with EA/Madden, didn't they?
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
EA have the exclusive rights, but I assume that also includes the right to sub-license to other companies. In which case you still might see other football games produced, although perhaps not head-on competitors to the Madden franchise, with the 3rd parties licensing the NFL properties from EA.
There is precident for such a thing: EA currently have (or perhaps it might have just expired, I haven't kept track for a while) the exclusive license for Ferrari cars. Other publishers of driving and racing games can and do sub-license from EA when the need arises.
This seems wrong to me. Do we really want a world in which every aspect of human activity is licensed or paid for? Sports is culture and community; we shouldn't commercialize that space.
I mean, what's left to commercialize after this? Is the next frontier to commercialize transactions within families? Honey, a roll in the hay will be $500, and do take note of the Coca Cola logo (a licensing exclusive) on the bra before your remove it. If you want a hug from your kids, that will be $5 a hug. (Well, sadly, we may be pretty far along down that road already.)
Papyrus's last NASCAR game was 2003, before EA got the NASCAR exclusive license. We've been stuck with NASCAR Thunder series, and its nowhere even close. By by NFL2K and Visual Concepts.
Considering that Sega has the ESPN license, they still may be able to pull together some good content, but I wonder if ESPN is going to have an issue with the NFL essentially sabotaging their game or if there may be some backdoor clause for Sega through ESPN who I assume have a license to use NFL material for their broadcasts. Could this be transferable to a game medium?
You could probably buy the rights to the XFL really, really cheap.
This is terrible, EA makes the absolute worst sports games, no innovation. I thought we could rely on sports to offer us several different titles, with tons of variety (you can do x but not y in Sega's game, but y and not x in EA's game). Sadly it looks like the face of console gaming is changing for the worse... how long before we are stuck with Sega as the sole NBA game? Not that Sega makes bad games, but we all remember WSB2k1... series have low points that suck beyond comprehension. The competitive nature of 4 or 5 different companies making a similar product forces the series to pick up the slack. I predict that within 3 years Madden will suck so bad that the poster that said 'Madden is the only good football game' will be the only person that thinks so. RIP NFL Console games, EA killed you because they suck
Who wants to play an NFL football game where you can't be Michael Vick and the rest of the Atlanta Falcons (or whoever).
NFL owns the team names and logos, and that's it. Has NFL Players Inc made a decision about this? If NFL Players Inc doesn't reach the same exclusive license, then all the other developers will be free to enter into contracts with NFL Players Inc, and their games will still let players be Michael Vick and the rest of the Atlanta Football Team.
Its in the name
God spoke to me
A simple solution, buy the game used.
"Uh.... how about *arena* football?!?"
The real hard core Madden players I know always hook up a Game Shark cable to download the updated Player rosters. http://football-freaks.com/forums/index.php?showto pic=496
You will see people make up their own rosters to download on Madden competitors, and boom all the NFL players are there, and even more up to date.
The $ in M$ doesn't just signify childish accusations of greed. Microsoft started out as a developer of BASIC interpreters for home computers. Notably, Microsoft developed the "Applesoft" BASIC interpreter in the Apple II Plus through IIGS computers. In that early line-numbered era of BASIC, the name of every string variable ended in a dollar sign. Thus, M$ was a valid name for a string variable, and 10 LET M$ = "Microsoft" was perfectly valid BASIC code. Sometimes people have to make such abbreviations to fit things into Slashdot's short comment subject lines.
I'd been telling people on slashdot this day would come!! Now EA can stall their games with even worse employee abuse and use the same engine 5 years in a roll. This monopoly is the worst case scenario. It's like Microsoft saying no one else can have GUIs and mouse.
Boycott EA sports games now! ESPN/Sega has released a better product purely out of engineering. EA knows their development can't beat it. They barely beat ESPN's $20 price match, so they deploy this bullshit marketing tactics.
Football games are about to tank like the mid 90s where EA released complete garbage, and they don't give a fuck. Cause sports fan no longer have a choice.
Me too. This style of beating the market is so not healthy. It gives American companies a real bad name. Screw this, I am buying Sega sports games from now on. ESPN NFL2k is a far better game either way.
Konami's Winning Eleven football (soccer) games used to be plauged by their inability to wrestle the FIFA license from EA, so they had to license every world team individually.
:)
Many times they didn't get it for release. So what they did was use the country's name (place names copyright free, so Green Bay is entirely usable) and rename all the players slightly differently. All the stats were there, and it was obvious who it was. For example, Michael Owen became Michael Oren.
I remember one European release back in 96 (I think) actually included all the player names as a printed sheet inside the box for "personal information purposes" or some such. It was interesting that the games have always let you change the names
It's not over for ESPN, it just means that the street-cred with casual gamers has been lost. And they always buy EA anyway. People who loved the games will still go and fix all the names if given the opportunity. What is a shame is that this really screws up the commentary, for which there is no fix.
One of my biggest disapointments for the past few years is that SEGA has failed to produce a college football game.
Would you accept fictitious colleges? What about NAIA colleges?
Goddamn, this sucks. Even if I hadn't sworn a boycott of all EA Games (which I have), Sega NFL 2K5 is a superior game IMHO. This has effectively killed it, I would guess. (Though I'd still buy it if you put out a version with "fake" teams... e.g., the Yello Bay Crammers, with Brent Farve at QB)...
First of all, I should note the obvious fact that this can do nothing but harm to NFL football video games. Competition is better than no competition except when competition would interfere with use of the product (which is not the case here).
But I think most of the people here are overestimating the amount of good that a viable competitor to the Madden franchise would've done. There's only so much innovation that can be done with a video game that's based on a sport, since a sport's rules are almost set in stone. (This assumes that the game is meant to be realistic, like Madden is. Games like Tecmo Super Bowl and NFL Blitz were never meant to be lifelike, so they have a lot more latitude.) If there was some sort of possible revolutionary innovation, doesn't anyone think that it would've happened by now? It's not like Madden has been the only football game in the past ten years.
Rob
There is always the CFL, http://www.cfl.ca/ as well as US college football.
I always liked Canadian football rules better anyway.
My rights don't need management.
EA must have just offered a better deal for the exclusive rights than whatever the NFL would have gotten from all the licenses. Welcome to capitalism. There's still plenty of football to turn into games. And this could do more harm to the NFL than good - If sega for the next 5 years puts out better NCAA games, then as far as the gamers perspective is concerned, we'll know the NCAA games to be superior to the NFL ones.
In 5 years, would EA be willing to pay the steep price they did for exclusive rights?
Its not so much buying out the competition as it is protecting a shoddy product, or at least a product that won't be able to compete in the future.
They've gone from building franchises to resting on them.
Starting with last year, EA grabbed exclusive rights to NASCAR on all consoles up to 2008. Sierra had wanted to expand their NASCAR Racing series to more platforms than just PC, but with them being locked out of the NASCAR console market, they chose to not renew their PC license. This of course led to the shutdown of Papyrus, who's bread and butter was NASCAR simulations.
Despite EA's inability to put out a quality NASCAR sim title on PC since their first effort in 1998, there still is hope for a quality Papyrus styled racing sim platform to build NASCAR mods on. The main co-founder of Papyrus, Dave Kaemmer, has teamed up with Boston Red Sox owner John Henry (a rabid NASCAR Racing player) and created FIRST-Racing.net. This company will put out a game using the source code base from NASCAR Racing 2003, which they bought from Sierra. Hopefully this new game will provide fans of the renown NASCAR Racing series a base to continue racing NASCAR with a platform they have grown accustomed to.
It all depends on what NFL Players Inc decides to license to whom. Imagine a game without team nicknames or logos but with real cities and real players; this is what an NFL Players Inc-only game would look like.
But Sega's ESPN games are like Square's Kingdom Hearts games in a way.
This is just an opportunity... until EA buys the rights to an exclusive NCAA College Football license =)
I had to read the link 3 times because it looked like a joke for a minute. But holyshit this is true, and it's aweful news. How fucking stupid is the NFL for allowing this kind of corruption. Consumers prepare to pay $79.99 for a shitty football game from EA.
Luckily, it is times like this that I really am reasured that my choice to never buy one god damned thing they have touched is a good thing. More people should see things my way, but I am not a leader of men, I prefer to follow. Thus the unwashed masses generally don't see Electronic Arts for the bastards I that do.
Their "Challenge Everything" is just a hypocracy unless it applies soley to their worker's rights; the games they produce are just rehases of older games. They buy studios that come up with new ideas and run them into the ground.
I say good on 'em, perhaps it will show other people the light.
I'm sick of following my dreams - I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
Boycott EA sports games now! ESPN/Sega has released a better product
That's like saying boycott Warner Bros. Pictures and buy Disney DVDs. Have you forgotten that ESPN's parent company is responsible for the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act?
Pwned!
Sports teams have been exclusively licensing their content for ages on TV. How many NFL games have you seen on NBC lately?
Maybe its because of all of the bad karma Sega got when it turned its back on Gamecube owners. I'm glad this happened to them... Since NFL2k4, they have boycotted the gamecube as a platform. Furthermore, the previous game NFL2k3, shipped with critical bug that caused the game to freeze at random. The worst thing about the whole mess was that Sega wouldn't even admit that there was anything wrong with the game! I enjoyed the 2k* series, but after that I told my self that I would never buy another sega game again.
Furthermore, this behavior is not unique to EA. While it certainly is not a good thing that EA has a monopoly over the NFL license, Sega definitely would do the same if it were in EA's position. Companies will always be looking out to feed their bottom line, that's the way business works. At least EA has released a product that doesn't crash at random.
In linux libertas
I was so pissed off after reading the article, I wanted to write a letter to the NFL. This deal has to hurt NFL more than Sega in the long run.
I am, however, a big NBA fan, and couldn't see myself buying a game that didn't have the actual NBA teams and rosters, unless I knew in advance there was an easy way to download NBA rosters with players who looked like themselves and had similar physical and player stats. I'm not a big fan of EA games for sports, the last two basketball games I bought were Sega's (NBA 2k3 and ESPN NBA 2k5 (for $20 less than EA's NBA Live 2005!)), but when I'm ready for the next basketball game (2007, I'd guesstimate), if EA was the only game with NBA rosters, I'd buy that, even if it was $20 more than Sega's version.
Of all the console-based football games or basketball games I've ever played in my life, the only ones that didn't have actual league rosters were Double Dribble and 10 Yard Fight. About the only sport where I could really give a flying f*ck about whether or not they had league rosters would be baseball, as I really lothe baseball. Despite my feelings for the sport, there have been some fun baseball games, such as Baseball Stars 2 (an awesome game), Nintendo's original Baseball (seemed fun enough for an 8 year old), and RBI Baseball (although that may have had actual team names, I can't recall off the top of my head).
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
I admit that I haven't been in the electronic football game market recently, but I can't see how anybody could argue that those 27 little LED blips on my game system resemble any particular NFL team or player. I don't think that any game manufacturer actually needs to worry about this issue.
Now I feel dirty for having purchased NFL 2K5 for $19.99, and wish I could take my $35 back from EA for Burnout 3.
First NASCAR, now the NFL. Will the NBA be next? I'm really going to miss the NFL 2Kx series.
Oh, somehow I don't think we need worry about hockey being played in the U.S. ;-)
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Now we know the NFL is a bunch of communist backstabbing innovation just to pocket more corrupt cash from EA. Guess I'll spend more time playing ESPN NBA basketball.
"Michael Vick and the rest of the Atlanta Falcons"
Should read: "Michael Vick"
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
CANADIAN Football League!? What next -- hockey in the United States?
You know, everytime I read about the hockey teams of Florida or California, I die a little inside.
You can't take the sky from me...
I've never known a worker who got taken advantage of who didn't consent to it, either by their silence or their signiture.
Hey, she was asking for it!
As for the hours, that's the games industry; love it or get out.
Neat, so they only are taken advantage of because they agreed to, and if they don't: get out.
Super, just... super.
You can't take the sky from me...
How many people here knew that the NFL they are also a "Non-profit" organization, and as such has all the benefits and perks of such an organization, such as tax exemption.
Go to the future, go to the past. Be inventive.
Plenty of other game genres work around having to license stuff. What percentage of FPS games uses licensed weapons? How many RPG's/Adventures use real world names?
Frankly I think this is a good idea. It will force everyone else to get inventive or at least offer a clearly better game with "fantasy" names.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Are you kidding me. Madden 2005 for gamecube was so much buggier than the PS2 version. I go to my friend's house, and I can compare left and right.
EA spend far less developer's time on gamecube's platform cause they have no competition. You want to buy games from this kind of company?
Sega has been a Nintendo rival since the 80s. Which is the only reason for this. Buddy nice try, but your decision to support EA is so freaking weak.
I love ESPN's NBA 2k5 online mode. By a long shot, that is the greatest basketball game out there. I put up some good online games, even though I get my ass cheeks handed to me with a losing record. If the NBA license went down the drain like NFL, I'll stick to And-1 league for life, period!
I'm scanty on the details, but aren't the developers of "City of Heroes" being sued for this very same thing?
:(
Apparently, the ability to create a character similar to Marvel's Hulk infringes on their copyrights somehow.
Man, bankruptcy turns even nice guys into litigous assholes
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
EA had to outbid 4 other game companies to keep *themselves* from being shut out in the cold. So don't blame EA for this. Blame the NFL. EA was just doing what it had to do to survive in the football game market.
/.ers would RTFA before making comments.
I wish more
Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe. If you've played it, either one or two player, then you know what I'm talking about.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
If Sega/ESPN had been offered the same deal, do you think they would have hesitated even one second?
Seems like all a competitor has to do is make the ability to name your own players and this is easily sidestepped. I guess it would be a minor pain in the ass but die hard fans would probably even like it. (Changing the names of thier least favorite players -> Jerry Lice.)
Soon, they are opening a 'location' in China to outsour^H^H^H^H^H^H^H tap into that market as well. One thing I have noticed about them is that they have many layers of management, who really are business people and know nothing about the game field. Stepping on too many toes can definately backfire, and all it takes is for people not to buy the games when they come out during the hollidays.
I am miffed at them for completely destroying the offline Ultima series. Ultima 9 shipped with a bug that basically made the game completely unfinishable. A month or two later, when they finally got around to patching it, it was found that using the patch would make all your previous save games unusable. Bummer.
After this game created SERIOUS backlash in the Ultima community, and EA closed down the Texas location and moved the Origin team to a building at EA main in Redwood City. Rumor has it *wink wink* that they are very unhappy in the Bay area, and have been basically relegated to the lowest level building there. Appearantly, in EA they organize the floors with names to donate rank (sorta). There is the Tiger floor, etc etc. and the Origin team is considered at the bottom of that food chain internally. (Sad because I always loved thier games.)
However, this is the reason I too have boycotted EA games, and will never buy them again. Its a shame too, because by doing that I am also slighting a company that I had previously been a huge fan of.
Back to my orginal point however, simply creating the ability to choose team colors and pick names will sidstep this new deal that EA has made and will probably even add more to the game. EA doesnt understand that realism does not equal fun, and would not even think of it as a positive for the other company.
Vox
EA should have no trouble reducing the number of hours their employees work, now that they don't have to beat, or even catch up to SEGA with espn or nfl 2k.
Seriously, how hard do you need to work to shuffle players that get traded in the game?
Should lighten the workload to 60 hours/week I think
You make no sense Moustache_n_Tits. Your logic would be like faulting the people who buy cocaie instead of the people who sell it.
Seems like all a competitor has to do is make the ability to name your own players and this is easily sidestepped. I guess it would be a minor pain in the ass but die hard fans would probably even like it.
Right, and allow the game to go online and download "user submitted, custom teams". Since they would be user submitted teams, there would be no real licensing issues.
All the moaning and groaning in this thread could be replaced with ideas. I swear, you could replace EA with M$ and this is a mirror of half the threads on here nowadays. Where did the cool people go?
The NFL forces us to use DirecTV to get out of market games rather than cable. They force us to install a RealPlayer and pay for service to listen to games that would otherwise be broadcast on internet radio. They force the players into substandard agreements for licensing their names for things like jerseys, video games, and all manners of sports memorabilia.
People complain about the players making too much, or demanding too big a slice of their salary cap, but nobody seems to realize that stadium seat revenues themselves pay for player salaries, let alone everything the teams make from television, advertising, and the licensing of everything under the sun.
I'm a huge NFL fan just like the rest of the men in my family line. The greed has grown to disgusting levels though, and I don't see why there is no antitrust litigation pending. Hopefully this will spark something. My patience and willingness to deal with the lack of choices that the NFL puts out there is rapidly shrinking. We're not dealing with baseball's Congressional Exemption. The NFL regularly flexes it's monopolistic muscles and its time they paid the piper.
Three down football is great! It makes for less running game and more air game --- which I, being a sucker for the big play, like. Or, maybe I'm biased, being Canadian and all...
cos the rest of the world doesn't
football means something else to the other 95% of the planet (a game where people use only their feet)
EA pulled off an exclusive licensing deal like this with Porsche. That's why you can't drive cars named "Porsche" in Gran Turismo. They have some imaginary model that matches them in specs, but they don't look much like a real 911.
The only video games with Porsches are the EA Need for Speed and Porsche Unleashed series. All of which suck ass compared to the Gran Turismo series. I'm sure the engineers at Porshe must be pretty disappointed that the marketing folks crippled them from playing Porsches in Gran Turismo. Ugh. It's probably been as sore a time to be a Porsche employee as when they cancelled their GT Racing and reassigned that staff to develop their SUV.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
I don't think you read the whole article that you linked to. Allow me to quote the critical part at the end:
What it does mean is you can try for a field goal, and even if you miss, but get it somewhere near where you're aiming, hey, you got one point. But no kickoff, so it's a mixed bag.
You like splinters in your crotch? -Jon Caldara
Come everyone sign this petition. It may not do much good but at least it'll express how we feel.
---
www.mktourney.com online console tournaments.
Just speculation...
Sony makes a game called NFL GameDay. It isn't as good as Madden, but is cheaper.
What is preventing Sony from threatening to revoke EA's lisence to make PS2 games unless EA grants Sony a royalty free sub-lisence? It seems that EA needs Sony more than Sony needs EA.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
Smokedot is cool too. :_) though you wont see EA Gardener Sim,
:)
maybe EA DEA
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
This is appalling to read about such restrictive licensing agreements that it just makes me not want to even consider purchasing any EA Games. Of course its not like I purchased any of them to begin with, as I usually just go download them all for my chipped Xbox.
Hahaha... fuck you Electronic Arts.
>All the moaning and groaning in this thread could be replaced with ideas. I swear, you could replace >EA with M$ and this is a mirror of half the threads on here nowadays. Where did the cool people go?
To small sheeps waiting for big beast to eat them. Except for few exceptions. And those who are inside the beast already suffering their digestation.
Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.
You and your fancy pants graphics.All we had was red l.e.d's AND WE LIKED IT!http://www.yenra.com/classic-football-game/--An d how about an arena football game?I went to see a game recently and it kicked butt!Plus,most states have one so you could play as your local team.Go twisters!
I always dominated with Chicago.
Contact those responsible:
. ht ml
As printed on yahoobusiness.com
Electronic Arts
Trudy Muller, 650-628-7323
tmuller@ea.com
or
NFL
Brian McCarthy, 212-450-2069
McCarthyB@NFL.com
or
PLAYERS INC
Christy Moran, 202-496-2885
christy.moran@nflplayers.com
Also quote from the admin:
"I would hope this is common sense to all of you, but make sure any contact you have with EA, the NFL, or the NFLPA is well-written and courteous. Polite disagreement / disapproval will go a lot further towards getting their attention than threats, swearing, or all caps. Be sure to sign the petition someone started as well."
http://www.petitiononline.com/nfleacon/petition
You can show your support at the espnvideogames.com message boards.
Is it possible to download a year-update to ESPN football? You'd still have the same graphics, play options, controls, ect, as the old version, but at least you'd have the new players, coaches and their respective skillsets.
E.G. It'd be nice to play as the Steelers with Ben Roethlisberger.. Against the Browns with McCown :P
That is why EA did this. Why the NFL did this is
;^)
beyond me. Couldn't they have received more $
from more companies than from just one? And
shouldn't this battle be won, pardon the pun, on
on the field. With actual gameplay! The reason
EA's sales lead shrank over the years is because
the other game companies produced a product
people wanted. Now, the NFL is saying to all
those people, "Hey, we don't care what you think.
You will play what WE want you to play!"
F 'em all. Play poker instead!
But, Sega should invoke the law that says "You cannot copyright facts".
After all, is a fact that Trent Grent plays for the Chiefs this year (I'm taking the data from NFL.com, as I don't know jack about NFL). You cannot get a license to publish that.
All sega has to do is stay away from logos and uniforms, and just put the teams and names in their games.
Yet you see them add innovation all the time. Take for instance the MS Excel. They added in innovations in the form of the new tab, allowing you to setup how you want your random numbers generated, letting the computer sort the numbers, etc... Perhaps try playing MS Excel before talking about ESPN Football line.
Hockey, there's no competition because it's not that popular. Look at TV coverage. Even ESPN would rather put college basketball up against pro hockey. The reason no one competed against EA was because no one wanted to for such a small market.
The truth is, at $20, ESPN was putting the hurt on EA. EA's entire business model depends on $50 a game. With the reviews given to ESPN, the average teenager with $20 in his pocket is going to buy ESPN and tell EA to go ____ themselves, especially when EA stays at $50 a title.
ESPN put out a good product, competed on price, and EA couldn't stand seeing their sales drop. EA waited 3 months, then finally dropped the price to $20. That tells me that they felt the pain, and as a result, they went after exclusive rights to NFL gaming. No more ESPN. Next season, you'll see the game back at $50 or even higher.
-- No sig for you!
Its highly unlikely that EA would have paid what they did unless they were getting an exclusive licence.
Its a simple matter of economics for both EA and the NFL.
The NFL wasnts as much money as possible for the licence (which means that they need to offer an exclusive licence). They dont really care who licences it.
EA wants to keep making and selling Madden so it had to spend what it spent to get the licence (or risk being outbid by a competitor)
I just got the game rights to the current NHL Hockey season for a song! ........
Oh, wait
is by far the most boring thing I have had the misfortune to watch.
EA's Madden franchise sucks. Its the most jittery, stuttery, and polygon-ridden NFL sim on the market, and now its all we get. They just got scared that the ESPN (Sega) franchise beat them in playability, graphics, AND pricepoint (ESPN 05 released at the 1.99 procepoint. Ill be sticking with my old ESPN all the way.
EA and the NFL basically screwed the Sega/ESPN folks on this one.
You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day, no matter how rich you are.
-- Colonel Adolphus Busch
you realize they play in an ice rink... indoors, right? hockey is fun and all to watch, and it seems more like a sport than the NFL football. play for 10-20 secods every minute? stop the play, get the team together and figure out the next move? and they call these guys athletes? put them on the field for 30 strait minutes and let them move the ball up and down the field as in rugby/soccer. the NFL players are padded all to hell, and what's this "protect the quarterback" crap? ok pansies, get out there any play ball. these are the elite multi million dollar players? i say take a shot at um if they want to play, let's see them play.
It's just another licensing scam. That's where the big money in the NFL is made.
The NFL Player's Association (the union) holds rights to the likenesses and personal information of the players. EA pays the NFLPA a sum of cash and they get to use the real players' names.
The NFL itself holds rights to the names and logos and information about the teams.
Various corporate sponsors own the rights to the names of the stadiums.
Some teams are whor^h^h^h^hselling their -names- to corporations, too. This year the Chicago Bears sold their rights to (IIRC) BankOne, so that anytime the Bears are talked about in the media, they're supposed to be referred to as "The Chicago Bears presented by BankOne" or "BankOne presents the Chicago Bears."
I'm not one of those glassy-eyed fans that thinks sports have ever been pure and untouched but this is just shameful. There is no end to some peoples' greed.
Yes, I RTFA'd, but I wonder if this deal will include the Green Bay Packers? The Packers are unique in that they are a publicly-owned, non-profit corporation. That's right - they're owned by their fans, which is why they are still at Lambeau Field and haven't lobbied (like other teams) for a shiny new stadium under the threat of leaving town.
Disclaimers: I'm not a football fan, I live in the Vikings state, and I haven't played EA's sports games.
Everyone I know has at least two football games. Now you'll have EA's NFL endorsed sweatshop software as well as another game that's fun.
Well...
In Project Gotham Racing you can race several Porsches (Porsche Boxster S, Porsche Cayenne Turbo, Porsche 550 Spyder, Porsche 911 RS 2.7, Porsche Carrera Coupe, Porsche 911 Turbo, Porsche 911 GT3, Porsche 959, Porsche Carrera GT, Porsche 911 GT1). Did Bizarre Creations/MS pay money that Sony did not have?
The Grand Turismo series (at least in GT3) at least makes up for the no-Porsches rule by having Ruf models (I believe the CTR2 is the "ultimate" car you can get). It's not an "imaginary" model at all. If anything, the Ruf CTR2 (especially) makes the "supercars I dream of list" for a lot of enthusiasts. You're just unlikely to ever see a Ruf outside of Germany (and it is a Ruf, not a "Ruf Porsche").
And the Cayenne? Porsche has had record profits because of the Cayenne. If I was an employee and my dividends just went up 30/60 cents per share I would be AOK with it. Unfortunately the Cayenne is distasteful (I'm not talking about the Turbo and I can let the S slide without too much else to say). But the base model seems like a gussied-up Volkswagen -- no wait, it is! And a gussied-up Touareg base model at that. I digress.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
Story source from IGN Sports.
Oh, yeah, it's gonna bomb.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
All of this arguing about how exclusive licensing is bad for consumers, good for EA, doubleplus good for the NFL, and so on.
It's a football video game. As in, a computer simulation of the actual game known to Americans as "football." As in, WTF?
You wanna play football? Get yourself a $6.88 ball from Wal-Mart, find yourself a few friends, and go play football.
For an even better game, try printing the names of real teams and players on your uniform, so you can be like REAL football players.
Oh, wait - that's just silly. But then, that silliness of team and player names is the only thing we're talking about here.
C'mon, Slashdot, I expected better of you. If this is something Really Important to your daily livelihood, then just do this: patch NFL Gameday, put the diffs up on BT somewhere, and shut the hell up.
The whiney group-hug stuff (OMG! The NFL sells to the highest bidder! I'm so upset! What do they think they're trying to do, make money or something?
How will SCEA survive? Think of the children!) is a little embarassing.
So just stop. Get up off of the couch (the computer is far enough, but outside would be better) and do something about it.
Thank you.
Kid-proof tablet..
Disclaimer: This is a totally uninformed opinion from someone who is not familiar with the regulations governing college athletes.
What would stop a company from, say, contacting the better college athletes looking to go pro, and offering them a "modeling" contract for their video game, where they are given credit for their modeling by having their name attached to the game character?
On its face, it would seem like this could get you the players over the long term, and combining this with well-crafted parody teams and logos could give a sports game an even more enjoyable look-and-feel than the real thing.
Well there is the possability of complaining to the nfl and reversing the decision or passing a complaint to the us supreame cours that would hold a omnoply issue with EA ...... if anyone know how to go about these aroutes there should be something that can be done. I do not want to support slave laboring EA ...on top of this i do not want to see the shit stain of all sports game companies to rule the land either what ever happend to making video games better..... ea seems to me to pull the good ol' magic card trick....make new sets and just re hash older cards
For instance, the $20 MSRP of ESPN NFL 2Kx includes a royalty paid to ESPN and thus to its majority owner, The Walt Disney Company. Disney was behind the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.
Exactly how is this even relevant? The fact of the matter is that all products that we purchase will have some type of connection to other companies, products, and ideals that we otherwise would not agree with.
People who are against the evil, oil companies still purchase products that require petroleum-based materials and still fill up their automobile's fuel tanks.
People who are against foreign manufacturing still continue to buy products with components from foreign companies, even if the product itself is manufactured in their country of residence.
When it comes to financial support, just about all companies, certainly the large corporations, always fund projects, politicians, and events that will anger somebody. You name any major corporation and someone will mention something or someone who had some kind of backing from that company, regardless of how small, that offended them - ranging from support support of gay marriage to a Christmas display, and every political view in between. You will never find any major company that has supported projects or events that please all of the people all of the time. Disney is no exception.
And as for the Bono Copyright act, who is more to blame? Disney for pushing it, or our inept politicians for ignoring the people that they're supposed to represent and passing the bill? Look in the mirror and you'll see who shares the blame for that bill. After all, Disney didn't elect the official that voted "Yes".
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
Not to be a wiseass, but no one really cares about the NFL games anyway. It's all about the college football with me and my roommates.
I think Electronic Arts could be asking for trouble with this agreement.
I wouldn't be surprised that the lawyers for Sega/ESPN and Midway are looking for a way to sue Electronic Arts under the Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Acts for what EA did with this agreement. The resulting case could be ugly.
Huh??? correct me if I'm wrong but aren't 90% (or more) of the stadiums publicly owned. Isn't the NFL giving away rights it doesn't hold here?
PS me thinks the players union maybe a bit miffed by this also
It never ceases to amaze me when people blame someone who buys something for being able to buy it.
As many concerns I have with EA, you can't blame them for buying something someone was willing to sell.
They didn't force the NFL into this agreement. The NFL sold it to them. If you're going to rant about anyone, rant about the NFL, because if the NFL was thinking long-term, they wouldn't issue long term exclusives to game companies.
Without seeing the contract, there's no way to judge, but if it had been me negotiating the deal, I wouldn't have done an exclusive. Or if I had, I would have tied EA's exclusivity to some benchmark of innovation over time. Sounds iffy, I know...my point is that the NFL suffers long term if they grant EA an exclusive and then EA does a crappy job because they get lazy and just want the money. Thus, if EA does a crappy job, they lose their exclusivity...to keep their exclusive, they have to agree to make the game "better" each year ("better" being a matter up for debate).
If EA does a crappy job a year or two from now, that's just going to disappoint fans, and if there's one thing a sports league should NEVER do (or want to do) is disappoint fans. Even video game fans.
If anyone is to blame in this deal, its the NFL (not that EA is unblemished). The fact remains that the NFL had something to sell and EA bought it. Absolutely nothing wrong with that.
With XBox live, they could just update the game and rosters of NFL 2k5 via Live before the 2005 season?
Yes, I understand that Sega and 989 have sports titles, but sports titles is not exactly the core of the game market. This is a great opportunity for the competitors to focus on new, exciting innovative games, rather than having the same old, drawn out pieces of crap that EA puts out season after season.
The majority of games that I purchase for my PS2 does not necessarily have an NFL, NHL, or MLB skelton in it's closet. It is pack full of stunning series of games like Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid, you know, the games that do not have (or need) any third party logo licensing to become successful. So, the competitors need to shift gears to be better.
Coderz 4 Life
Excellent point, since Sega has already done exactly what you are describing. ESPN NFL 2K5 accepts roster updates, new stadiums, playbooks, and other stuff through XBOX Live.
What if, instead of releasing an NFL 2K6 doomed to fictional teams and rosters, they released a bundle of gameplay and roster updates to the 2K5 product - and continued to do so for five years?
This plan is certain to lose them money, but it may allow them to cling to some mindshare that will still be there when the EA agreement ends. Without NFLPA licensing, what choice do they really have?
EA already did this , i'm not sure but they hold the license to use FIFA and some euro league teams and players, the game was superb till the France 98 cup edition, after that there is no innovation except changing the key layout (drives me crazy makes me uninstall the game after 5 minutes of playing them) adding fancy graphics that need lotsa CPU and GPU horsepower and lame background music.
The games was effectively killed and i guess that a quick research will find that the userbase (if such a thing exist for a game) it's going down the drain, people don't but new versions and stay playing old ones that are better indeed.
You can smell this on online gaming forums where there used to be a lot of expectation before FIFA XXXX releases. Now nobody cares what the hell the release dates is because the game is known to be a load of crap.
Perhaps the only game that still survives EA policies is Need For Speed the latest version being a huge improvement over the old ones.
My advice to all fellow players respecting to EA games, don't buy the games before trying them in advance. don't waste your hard earned money on teh MS of the gaming industry.
I was going to say this would be a perfect oppurtunity to revive Mutant League Football, but that was also EA's.
So who has rights to their names...and more importantly, their phone numbers?
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
And the Cayenne? Porsche has had record profits because of the Cayenne [..] Unfortunately the Cayenne is distasteful
Yup. Nothing says "I have more money than sense or taste" like a Porsche Cayenne.
They're almost as expensive as some of the 911s, and you're getting an ugly, jumped-up Volkswagen for that price.
Sorry, I don't get the mentality that would have that much money, then spend it on a sodding Cayenne.
in replay to jessecurry's post: Umm...Sega already did all of those things. They have a first person mode this year, no massively multi though. But Sega has done just what you said... Madden has sold the vast majority for years, and Sega made a much better game due to viable competition... without actual NFL teams I don't see how they will be allowed to continue making better versions. No's gonna "scoop" EA when they've already devoured half the gaming industry as it is...
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
I can't imagine how this argument goes..
"You see, if we don't protect a player's name from being stolen and used in some video game, mothers will stop naming their babies, people with names won't be allowed to play football, mass pandemonium! Hell, the NFL itself might collapse for lack of capitalizing on a fictional piece of property!"
So basically, EA pays a bunch of money for exclusive use of NFL property, and we get to pay more to justify the investment, all for the privilege of being served by a monopoly provider. Awesome. It's a good thing the bastards didn't patent football. I'm sure they would if they could get away with it.
Parent message: "Because of a piece of paper agreement, no other competitor will be able to make a pro football game.
EA has pulled an all-time-low. ESPN, I will buy ANYTHING from you now."
IF ALL-CAPS GIVES THE APPEARANCE OF SHOUTING, then all-bold gives the appearance of having your bass ridiculously high, like the sound system that cost ten times as much as the car it went in.
"Hi. Consumer? Remember that $19.99 price undercut? Yeah. F*** you."
Consumer in September 2006, Madden release day: "Oh ok, I'll bend over."
"Time to resurect Tecmo Bowl!" -Ingolfke
That game ruled. Vote to FAQ.
To everyone else who is as angry about this as me, check out this petiton someone on Blue's News started. Hopefully this exclusive deal "folds faster than an overcaffeinated origami artist." (and if you get that reference you should definitely be signing it)
It's a pleasure to have the Fonz onboard here. If we hang together can I become cool too?
The truth is, among sports, there can be no "more of a sport/less of a sport" argument. These are sports. NFL guys rest because for the time their sport is going, they're hitting at levels that would kill some people. (Look at the countless cases of people getting internal bleeding, cracked ribs and other broken parts.) Even in baseball, which everyone loves to rail on for not being much of a sport, there great physical challenges, unmatched by other sports. Sports are about competition and testing human capabilities.
As for rugby, I've heard it's very intense, and do believe it. Unfortunately, I've never seen a game, so I can't comment.
Disagreeing with me does not mean you get to mod me troll.
Sportsdot looks nice, but once it gets popular, look for it to be shut down due to all of the corporate logos they're using on the site: NFL, NCAA, NHL, MLB...
Actually this has been in the works since the middle of the summer, there was even an article on slashdot about it.
EA has signed a 5-year agreement with the NFL that gives them exclusive rights to use NFL players, teams, and stadiums in their products.
The good part about this is other game companies can put resources into creating better gameplay rather than paying for a NFL licence.
In my opinion ESPN dropped the price because they knew they had a good game, but could not compete with the name recognition of EA/Madden. Now that more gamers have played ESPN's game, they would have been more likely to buy an ESPN game in the future instead of blindly handing cash to EA.
I personally can't believe that the NFL would have approached EA about an exclusive license - two or more game companies paying them for licensing would be better than just one. EA would have had to have made the NFL an offer that it could not refuse.
Because of my previous experience with the NFL2K series on Dreamcast, I would have bought the ESPN game over the EA game anyway. The $20 price tag made it easier.
There are alot of people who would like to be me. I just haven't met them yet.
See you can still make a game and with all the ease of downloading info to hard drives and even memory cards these days all one needs to do is create a player update roster PRIVATELY and sell it online for say FREE. When people see Hegemonies take over a genre people and just and things will still come out ok in the end.
The fact of the matter is that all products that we purchase will have some type of connection to other companies, products, and ideals that we otherwise would not agree with.
But you can minimize your consumption of politically incorrect products in favor of alternatives. To many players, Tecmo Bowl for NES is just as fun as the modern NFL sims, and they can eliminate their consumption of EA and Disney football sims by sticking with Tecmo Bowl.
ranging from support support of gay marriage to a Christmas display, and every political view in between.
Bad example. Opposition to same-sex marriage or civil unions is based largely in faith groups, whereas copyright is incompatible with the tenets of every major faith but Scientology.
who is more to blame? Disney for pushing it, or our inept politicians for ignoring the people that they're supposed to represent and passing the bill? Look in the mirror and you'll see who shares the blame for that bill.
How? At the time the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act was enacted, the 105th Congress was in session, and at the time the 105th House of Representatives and 1/3 of the 105th Senate were elected in November 1996, I was 16 years old, and the State of Indiana prohibited (and continues to prohibit) 16-year-olds from voting in national elections. Should I have skipped school on Election Day 1996 to prevent my parents from voting? And how could I have known to?
After all, Disney didn't elect the official that voted "Yes".
Disney owns the ABC television network, which reaches nearly all households in the United States. The FCC imposes "equal time" restrictions on broadcast television networks, but television networks routinely circumvent these by donating cash to a candidate's re-election campaign. Thus, any politician who received Disney campaign dollars and who was offered TV ad time by an ABC affiliate was in part elected by Disney.
Fair Use? What's that? Sue them all and let the lawyers figure it out! Sportsdot looks like it is pretty safely under the (ever shrinking) banner of Fair Use to me. I know there are a lot of forces at work trying to nullify Fair Use, but this is so basic that I have trouble seeing it go away any time soon.
I read the internet for the articles.
I went to SportsDot and voted at their poll and saw this:
...
::runs back to slashdot::
Missing poll option... (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 14, @04:47AM (#126)
I'm a ISU Cyclones fan, you insensitive clod!
heehee!
"It takes many nails to build a crib, but one screw to fill it."
What a split column.
OH MAN THE HORROR. EA MUST DIE!
or
WHO CARES. DON'T BUY THE GAME!
What gives? So Sega will produce a football without the current logos and stuff. And have the ability to quick create new "players" and logos that are similar or close to the actual ones. If the game is more superior then buy the new and improved ESPN game without the logos. Its all make believe. Make believe that its your favorite team playing!
Personally I hope that they go back in time and concentrate on a new "Mutant League Football". That was the best football game evar!
- my $.02? - you can't have it...it's all I have!!
Actually, while much of your post is correct, you have missed the most important point. They are not the BankOne Chicago Bears, nor are they the Chicago Bears presented by BankOne. They are simply the Chicago Bears. However, they make reference (in non-game tv shows such as pregame shows, on the radio, and IIRC in the newspapers) to 'Chicago Bears football presented by BankOne'. There's a major difference there. Also, please note that Chicago Field has no corporate sponsorship, a rarity in today's world. I'd rather hear 'Chicago Bears football presented by BankOne' a few times per Sunday than have 'BankOne Field'. That's just my personal preference, though. Actually, I hardly even notice anymore, as every damn thing seems to be 'presented by' someone or other. There's the Ford Pre-Game Show presented by Ford, the Miller Lite Hit of the Game, the Chevy Presents A Moment in Sports History, Budweiser Big Play of the Week presented by Budweiser, blah blah blah blah. Yeah, I made a few of those up, because I ignore most of that kind of crap. I'm getting better and better to ignore advertisements of all kinds, which I suspect many others are doing as well. This makes the ad makers try to intrude more and more, to stop us from ignoring them. Pretty soon, everything's either going to be an ad itself or be 'presented by' some company. I do find it amusing that large companies, rather than rely on exceptional products and/or services, are seeking ever more intrusive methods of advertising, many of which have little or nothing to do with the products or services offered. Maybe ads will become so totally ineffective that they'll give up on them....ah, what a lovely dream.
http://xkcd.com/386/
I believe that some people have been forced to "donate" to the NFL by purchasing stadiums that are sometimes funded in part by local taxes. Since these are state funded buildings, I think that there shouldn't be exclusive licences on them.
You cannot ignore any information presented to you. It is not humanly possible. Stop watching TV.
You know that guy is dead right? And that since every content producer benefits equally from the copyright term extension, there are no producers who can be considered "innocent" according to your many levels of "guilt". So you could sit alone in your room (musn't go outside, might see a Clear Channel billboard, an EVIL company, and your eyes would count towards their daily impressions and that wouldn't be politically correct according to your strict view) or you can grow up.
Sega would have done the same thing. It's the NFL's fault. Importing will be used. Vote with your money.
This is fairly nested, but everyone seems to be missing the whole notion that this is the way it used to be... back in the days of TECMO Bowl, the only likeness between the game and RL was the team colors and numbers (and abilities of the individual players).
After the Madden series became so popular, the same exact thing happened with the football games, even more odd, one game franchise would be licensed to use the team names but not the players' names (NFL and NFLPA are two seperate entities), and the other vice versa. It has only been in the last 3-4 years that ALL of the franchises have been able to use NFL content and NFLPA content simultaneously.
EA has recently had so much trouble with screwing over their employees that I cant see them sticking around for that much longer at the top like they have been. When the competitors to the market originally surfaced, they got market share even though they didnt have the licensing EA did, and it created a better competitive range of football games across the board. Madden (EA's venture) has been able to hold its title as #1 through VERY slim margins year after year. For all you "Use Linux because its a better product"-people should appreciate this, since its a really accurate example of how if you build a better software product, you can win, just as NFL2k did when Microsoft released it and it smoked Madden's level of play back in the day.
OK, a *little* more than $0.02, but you get the point.
J
Beer, now there's a temporary solution -- Homer Jay S.
Whether you're supporting the evil empire of Disney by buying ESPN/Sega sports games, you're also explicitly not supporting the other evil empire: EA.
Or I could just play Tecmo Bowl and buy nice original Sonic the Hedgehog games, which also have been pricecut to $20, when I want to support your friends at Sega.
Sega's NFL games have been on par or better (depending on who you ask) than Madden for quite some time.
ESPN is also the major catalyst for cable TV rate hikes. Lose the ESPN name, and I'm back.
Sorry, what did you say? I wasn't paying attention to you.
http://xkcd.com/386/
Sadly they seem to have a deal with both NFL and NFLPA. So even the likeness probably can not be used.
Says who? EA Sports (for the most part) has a monopoly over the sports video game industry. What are you gonna do if you wanna play a sports game but don't wanna support EA? Don't buy it? Fine but this is Slashdot, we're not exactly in the millions of people watching the Super Bowl demographics.
5. In honor of EA's "Challenge Everything" motto, coaches are allowed unlimited replay challenges.
4. Recorded voices of players saying "It's crunch time" now occur before the opening kick off.
3. Players on the bench are now required to menial tasks instead of "just sitting around".
2. Game time now lengthened to 18 hours (with occasional short 12 hour games)
1. No overtime
If you feel strongly that the NFL and Players Inc. made a mistake please let them know about it.
NFL
Brian McCarthy
McCarthyB@NFL.com
PLAYERS INC
Christy Moran
christy.moran@nflplayers.com
Let me explain. When I first started playing football video games, my team was blue, and my players were white. That didn't ruin the experience for me. :) (I really shouldn't try that, they have been working rather hard)
From what I understand, as long as Sega, 989(which I think stopped making their sports line) and whoever never mentions a player name or team it's ok. Instead of the Giants, we'll have the Ogres. Maybe even bring back Mutant league football who knows?
Although previously stated, how about just include a huge make your own team mode? With your own team and rooster, you can basically emulate any team correct? Allow the game to auto-config player stats by just using their most recent stats(for example if the avg yards run for Johnson was 20, it could give you 1 out of 10 in your running stat.
I'm just brainstorming here, but I think that this is actually pretty good. EA gets a huge buissness deal, but that will only hurt the uncreative. Only people who think that names make a football game will be hurt by this. So that means 989 stuidios
You came home to find some hung black dude plowing your woman, huh?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
A rugby player would get smacked down like a little girl by almost any NFL player.
Madden * FU + EA ^ NFL Crap = More Firey Brimstone up the asses of Franchise Executives!!!1!
Now I can play the new SEGA 2K6 starring "Moe Jontana"
And don't forget water polo. I've heard it said many times that the best conditioned athletes in the world (as far as team sports go) are water polo players. Unfortunately for them, they're not exactly the best paid athletes in the world.
This is one of the most hideous announcements I've ever heard. The ESPN NFL game this year was awesome. The presentation blows EA's crap out of the water.
And now we're stuck with nothing but EA. Okay, on PC this is "situation normal" but on the consoles, EA can now bring the suck for five straight years and know that people will lap it up due to lack of choice.
Funny. People always laughed at the PC and how EA Sports were the only company putting out sports titles... And now, for the NFL at least, the consoles are exactly the same.
Sure, they can put out an ESPN NFL game, but do you really think ESPN will want to be associated with a non-licensed title? So the ESPN license will be gone. Leaving fictional teams. Which 99% of people will have no interest in.
EA Sports just scored a death blow with this.
Licensing and sponsorship are parasites. Once money enters a sport, all purity (can't think of another word) leaves. Look at motor racing. Sponsorship entered, commercial interests became more important than the actual sport, and now the most commercial series suck.
Funny. My cable got cut off at the beginning of December. I watch so much TV... I didn't even notice until December 8th.
I've known several professional rugby players. And I can tell you, they'd eat 99% of the NFL for breakfast, and then wash it down with 20 pints of ale.
Rugby players are fucking scary!
TECMO bowl had a license from the NFL Player Association, but not from the NFL.
"You get what you pay for after all." --
Um, Tecmo bowl had NFL players and teams. Part of the fun was getting to play as Bo Jackson, who was the fastest player in the game.
The Phoenix Coyotes must be instant death!
Been still trying to figure out hockey in Phoenix, Dallas, and Nasville.
They'll all fold anyway in the next five years.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
I wonder if Sega (NFL2k) or Midway(NFLBlitz!) will be able to pull the same trick off [Succeeding without a license]
I very much doubt it... the days of sports games without licenses was a LONG time ago as far as technology goes. Back then, it didn't really matter much anyways, because when the game is actually playing, you can't see a logo on the jersey of a 10-pixel high player. These days, fans are eager to buy a sports game where they can actually recognize players faces, so do you really think they'd settle for a game that can't even show the proper logos? Sorry, but I'm fairly certain that 99% of people would just see it as being inferior and going with EA. It may still be football even without the players, but it sure wouldn't be *NFL* football.
My guess is that Sega/ESPN will probably just try to make do with an NCAA license for the next 5 years, perhaps allowing players some nice customization abilities that might make up for the lack of NFL. Frankly, I'd *love* to see Sega pick up a CFL license. Hell, the CFL would probably GIVE a license away just for the publicity they might gain from it!
Frankly, if I were in charge of Sega, I'd probably try to sue EA (Or maybe even the NFL) for monopolistic business practices...
-"One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man." -EH
Sure man, you will find your leather jacket and white T-shirt in the trunk of your company issue 56 coupe.
There are articles that state that the NFL was taking bids earlier in the year and that Take 2 and Sega put in bids themselves. This was not a surprise for Sega and Take 2. I wonder if the $19.99 price point was not a way to build consumer support before the door closed?
I can't wait till Madden 2010 comes out. Then we can compare it to ESPN NFL 2K5. Which do you think will have better graphics and gameplay?
The ESPN game will still be superior in those categories, and EA will be made to look like the ultimate jackass.