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In Depth Reactions to EA / ESPN Deal
Gamespot has a piece up about industry analyst reactions to the EA / ESPN deal. They span the gamut from appreciation for a smart business move to a frustration with a company throwing its weight around. From the article: "Has the fat lady finally sung in the sports-game wars? Should all the other publishers pack it in and head for the showers? Opinions are mixed, but this week's news was one of the year's biggest wins--for Electronic Arts. Now, the industry girds for a string of earnings calls where executives at publicly traded companies--EA and others--will surely face a grilling from curious analysts."
If it means that next years Madden on the PC is a finely polished product then I'm all for it. Probably won't happen though.
Awww shucks,
that looks like an interesting article.
However, I can't spare the time to read it.
Sincerely,
EA Employee.
Just because EA locked up ESPN branding doesn't mean the others are going to just go away. If the EA line stagnates because they rest on their branding prowess, then others will step in. I can't say its good for the gaming industry, but I certainly don't think its a death knell.
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I know you can make a game configurable enough to have names and rosters and even uniformans for real NFL teams be downloadable but on the marketing front is where I think any non-EA unit will struggle since their commercials won't have the rela players.
On the upside, it might force all non-EA game makers to really upgrade their products on the gameplay front since they will have to win by knockout on the "This game is just hands down better than Madden".
Still, I uspect given the general populations proclivities we've seen the end of "major" competition to EA in the NFL arean so get ready for Madden 2005 to be the stanard game you'll be playing until, oh say, 2010.
When there's one football game, one baseball game, one hockey game simply because companies have exclusive rights to the NFL, MBL, and NHL and their respective entities.
I could care less about whether it's branded ESPN, but if EA signs a deal with the NFL and Madden's the only football game on the block I'm going to be pissed.
John Madden, Al Michaels, and guess who... Chris Berman doing the halftime and postgame. That's what I believe they will try to sell out of the gates. I sure hope hope they work on gameplay and introducing new features as well in Madden. That was the beauty of having competition in the market, you could look at the competitor and think, "How do we top that?"
I sure hope we do not have stale games with roster updates and better graphics.
- Sonnyjz
The first thing that came to my mind when I heard it was that "long contracts mean weak projections." You have to have a lot of years to demand a lot of dollars. If ESPN's projections for growth in this arena were better, there'd be a lot more pressure for shorter contracts so they could return to the auction block sooner.
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EA 1, Customers 0
EA prides itself on making games which are as true to the sport as possible. They get the actual teams, players, rules, graphics, etc. I remember back around the 16-bit times there were games that tried to be like that. Namely the early EA games and stuff like QB Club, etc. But these games didn't do as well as others.
By others I mean one of the top, if not the top, coin munchers of all time, NBA Jam. Look at games like Ice Hockey for the NES or Baseball Simulator 1000. Nobody cared that the teams were made up or didn't include real star players. In fact, some games including star players tended to really suck, see Gretzky Hockey for NES.
It's almost impossible to compete with EA in the arena of "real" sports games. If you want to have a chance you have to stop trying to emulate the major leagues and take the sport to a new creative level. Something like Baseball Simulator on modern hardware with 3d graphics and online play would be freakin' awesome! Or hell, Bases Loaded, perhaps the best baseball game ever made it had no real players or teams. Nintendo is slightly on the ball with its mario golf/tennis/kart/baseball series. But those games aren't in competition with EA.
I'm confident that a creative developer can take them on without any official-ness.
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So EA can brand their games with ESPN. Woohoo. Big f***ing deal. I don't see how this is of any real importance (unless I'm missing something?)
The exclusive NFL deal was a lot worse for competition..
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Let's assume that EA dominates the sports gaming market. The problem for that is that it could kill off that market in the process.
Imagine that if only one music group controlled a genre of music, e.g., if only the Rolling Stones played the blues (it's a joke damit!). Overtime fans of the blues would get bored of the same content being produced and would stop listening.
This could happen here too. Variety in gaming helps the entire gaming industry by keeping people excited and interested.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Madden 95 for the Sega Genesis was indeed a kick-ass game and I'm glad to see them offering it in this form. But of course, there's the huge drawback of having ancient players on there that nobody cares about -- I'd rather play as TEAM PITTSBURGH with QB#7 than the Steelers with Neil O'Donnell. And good thing my favorite team isn't the Ravens, or the Texans, or the Titans (well, that's a good thing anyway).
Why didn't they think to throw the brand new teams and rosters onto the old Madden 95 shell? Wouldn't that be sweet to play an old game like that and get to use Michael Vick or LaDainian Tomlinson (or whomever)? I haven't kept up with the emulation scene lately but if I recall correctly, a lot of guys work hard to recreate those old sports games with new players -- I can't imagine that for a game like Madden 95, EA would have to spend much time at all adapting it given that they have all the data and licensing on hand already.
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Isn't so much that they screwed Sega over, yet again, or that real NFL players won't be in any Sega football game, or that the teams won't be either. You could very easily create fake teams that looked like their real-life counterparts, and players that mimicked the real ones, then jsut give options to change the names on everything. The thing you can't get around, however, is that they can't use the real stadiums.
And, as far as I know, they don't have an exclusive license on college football. I think Sega should refocus their efforts on college football, and simply blow away the market while they still have a chance.
This is a great opportunity for Take Two (or frankly any game developer) to open up the community aspect of their games to open source development. Take your code, release it, and sponsor some development. Encourage moving the platform to a more P2P based, rather than centralized, service. Allow roster upgrades to come from the community instead of from the company. Let community members have full control over how they see leagues, reputations, and rank policy should work. Only good can come from it.
If the company isn't officially sponsoring the roster updates, it creates a legal shield. The community code and backend can't possibly be a moneymaker, as almost no one picks their sports games based on which online community features work best (the actual online connection is a different story). And imagine the goodwill generated by bringing a whole boatload of geeks (many of whom are gamers) onto your side. People already work terrible hours for unfair compensation just to be a part of gaming, why not pay them nothing, still reap the benefits, and screw EA out of the money they paid for official licensing?
Some portion of the gameplay would suffer as I imagine you couldn't have the play-by-play announcers saying guys names (though even that has possible solutions). The positives, as I see them, more than outweigh the negatives, however.
I've heard some talk of a series that's kind of like the tv series Playmakers, also something about a All Pro game using maybe people from the Hall of Fame (they are not part of the NFL Players Association anymore)
but what about just going with the old XFL? there was some pretty cools tuff in there that could make a video game quite fun... and it's got to be pretty cheap, same idea and all behind it, but you can go nuts with the features since XFL probably would have liked them...
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What I thought most interesting in the article was the quote from the Morgan Securities analyst. He said, "There's nothing illegal or unethical about what EA is doing....Microsoft did the same kind of things to improve its position."
Isn't it funny how seemingly incompatible those two phrases are? Nearly everyone these days recognizes that Microsoft is a monopoly, including the government. How exactly does one think you get to be a monopoly? It's by doing the sort of things that EA is doing (in the beginning), which may very well be ethical and legal (but which leave a very bad taste in most consumers mouths anyway). You then end up wielding that newfound power in most unethical and illegal manners.
I just think it's quite enlightening to see a market analyst recognize the same initial markers in EA's behaviors. Sure, there's nothing illegal (but I'd argue unethical for awhile) in snagging so many exclusive licenses, but it remains to be seen what EA will do with their newfound implicit power. I somehow have a difficulty in believing that EA is going to "use its power for good, not evil". (I'm sure Digital Illusions, Ubisoft, and the hoards of EA employees would agree...)Londovir
Londovir
A few out-of-context statements from a bunch of financial analysts is in depth analysis now?
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As always, when someone corners a market, this is the time for other companies to look at what makes sports games fun and come at this from a brand new angle. Sports games that abstract away some of the rules of the game to increase action or speed, new sports, new types of players (but more thought out than "what about Orcs with football helmets?" or "hey what if the players were robots?" type of ideas) though a Warcraft style sport game where teams can be made up of different races and players can mix and match to their hearts content would be interesting...
Anyway, whether these are stupid ideas or not, now is the time for game designers to innovate instead of whine about EA. If they get truly desperate, they can always go and find some Finnish computer science student who's been thinking about designing a game engine. I hear they have great ideas...
I wonder if that means EA employees will only have to work 90-hour weeks...
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I look at it this, the glass is half-full, way. The ESPN license will change the EA football franchise away from Madden. Because, the way I see it, Madden is one of the weakest parts of that franchise. I like Al Michaeals on the play-by-play, but all the repetative MAdden-isms are awful.
I preferred the ESPN football the last few years. The gameplay was better in ESPN/Sega, but not so much so that one was much better than the other. But the voice over work was much less irritating and made for a better game experience.
The exclusivity for EA and the NFL is a serious problem and I think it will lower the innovation in the football genre and it concerns me greatly, but ESPN licensing, is not that big of a deal to me.
A brand name and a sport are two separate things... Wake me up when they award copyrights on the rules to baseball, hockey and football.
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I posted this on a previous story, but now it's truly on-topic. I did a comic strip about this on Wednesday.
The thing that's galling about this is the amount of lip-service that EA has given in the past to supporting the video game ecosystem. They've maintained they don't want to be the only video game developer, they just want to be the best. However, as soon as they are faced with truly healthy competition, their response is to burn a lot of resources killing it off. EA was never in danger of losing the NFL license, and the ESPN brand carries less weight than the Madden brand in the football game market. They have mentioned some possible features with ESPN data-feeds, but to me this deal just feels like insult to injury.
Wake me up when Mario Golf out sells Tiger Woods PGA Tour.
the bad players were because they had no time to practice, put it into the video games and MAKE the players better. that problem is solved.
the rule changes could add a fresh new thing to video game football, and the presentation could be anything it wants.
I agree that the XFL in real life did suck. there was no talent to speak of since it was all in the NFL instead.
But who cares about real talent in a football game? A game like this could bring in more money than the whole XFL did in it's less than one season...
we played games with fake teams and players. Will kids not buy a good game with fake "almost real" names. The Cows with Mikail Syria or something like that.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
I'm not at liberty to provide the details (because I worked for the game company), but ESPN once signed an "exclusive" deal with Radical Entertainment and that went... badly.
Just because EA is involved doesn't mean a) it will succede, and b) that ESPN won't cancel the deal if they're unhappy.
*sigh* Bad memories... *starts rocking back and forth sucking thumb*
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I don't think that any company out to make money wants anything to do with the XFL. That was a money-sucking venture from the get go and lost a LOT of people a LOT of money. Even the name XFL is now associated with flopping.
I am a fan of Tony Hawk.
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Any one want to buy Word Of Mouth?
http://www.wom.cc ?
Peace.
All this means is that sports games can only be branded "ESPN " by EA. That doesn't stop anyone else from making an NBA | NFL | videogame....right? ESPN is just a cable channel afterall.
Lots of games are sold at Christmas time by people who aren't necessarily gamers. A brand name helps assure buyers - nobody ever got tossed out of Christmas dinner for buying ESPN.
Utterly debased and corrupt crime empires that deserve each other almost as much as their fans do.
Just because EA locked up ESPN branding doesn't mean the others are going to just go away.
Well, yes, they should go away. They should go away and invent a new game that takes full advantage of the computer medium. Some new game that doesn't just copy the experience of watching a television program based on a bunch of guys running around a field and throwing an odd-shaped ball.
A video game based on football is two-degrees of seperation from the participants of the actual game itself. So go away and invent a game that brings the computer player into the game itself.
What type of game is that? I have no idea; I'm not a game designer. But I'm sure that this game will be more profitable and satisfying than anything ESPN does better on live-action television.
There are a lot of people out there who invent games. They would be willing to exchange their concepts for a percentage of the sales receipts. So instead of spending millions developing a video game based on a sport and a brand-name license in which you MUST have millions of sales units for any reasonable profit, make lots of new games with new concepts. Most will die on the vine, but some will really take off. When that happens, the profits for the game company will be much greater per unit because there won't be all the ESPN-license fees and royalities to pay off.
Sort of like how the record industry is supposed to work.
Combined with the NFL exclusive deal, this is one hell of a shot across the bow of all of EA's competitors.
CT
I don't really play sports games but I'm wondering what this really means for EA? Does this mean only they can put ESPN logos in their games? What benefit does that give the gamer? I don't really get it. This doesn't mean only they can use NFL player names and stats so why would someone really care?
I'd much rather see a system similar to Europe's football leagues with their unfetter capitalistic approach. Rather then having X historic teams around forever, teams operate basically as businesses. They do all their own licensing, etc. and as teams get better they start playing better teams.
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With the regards to the NFL EA aggreement, can another company make an agreement with the NFLPA to use the names of the players? They might not be able to use stadiums names/settings but if the NFLPA is a seperate entity could you make this agreement?
Why didn't they think to throw the brand new teams and rosters onto the old Madden 95 shell?
Simple, how are they going to sell the new game. The only major reason for buying the latest Madden - or any sports game is to upgrade to the latest teams/players/stats/etc... Marketing people would never allow them to sell Madden 95 with an updated roster.
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Okay, I'm not exactly an expert on how each sports league handles the contracts for their respective trademarks and exclusive use in video games, but I would be very surprised to learn that ESPN has a long term deal with each of them.
The article states that ESPN has only a 5-year deal with the NFL. What's to stop another network/entity from striking an exclusive deal after that contract terminates ? What if Murdock at Fox wants to become the next game mogule and uses his weight to get an exclusive Fox/NFL deal and pushes EA out (or Ted and TBS getting MLB) ? Would EA then be procluded from producing games that use NFL teams... with 10 years left on an essentially worthless deal ?
Doesn't this 15-year deal actually *weaken* EA's positition by making them more vunerable to market forces during the lifetime of the contract ?
Anyone here on
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
My favorite sports games have all been relatively unlicensed ones, with the exception of NBA Street which is a very loose use of the license and even largely revolves around non-licensed players.
With the other sports companies now focusing on their games instead of being true to the real thing or adhering to the various license standards, maybe we'll see more old school action oriented style sports games.
From the article: "It's a slap. It's a slam dunk. Pick your sports metaphor. This makes it tougher for people already facing an uphill battle to compete."
A slap??! Oh, he was talking about Warren Moon..
-- jimmycarter
"There's nothing illegal or unethical about what's EA's doing; it's just good business for them...It's downright predatory."
Thats a pretty good illustration of one of the dangers of "free market" capitalism: It needs good competition to remain healthy, and if there is nothing to ensure that it actually stays free market then those with the means will erect barriers to competition, and "the market" may not correct it. Nevermind that predatory business practices are technically illegal, I understand that they are not illegal in a way that the courts will do anything about it. But the analyst is so used to the system that he doesn't even see anything unethical about it.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
Hey, I'm a recent convert from EA to Sega football (PS2). I found NFL2K5 to be a far more enjoyable experience than Madden. With that in mind, this news disappointed me just as it did with so many others.
But, maybe the consumer will win in the end... If Sega continues with this engine, using fictional names and teams (since losing the NFL license), I wont feel so obligated to buy a new version each year.
Right now I buy the new version close to release day to ensure the current players, etc. But, will I care if my fictional Atlanta Flamingos or Cincinnati Beagles roster changes from one year to the next? No.
If the game play is there, I can live without the "real" players.
I also remember when the main character in my favorite video games was just a big block, and there were only 1 or 2 colors on the screen. We didn't mind back then, but try selling a game like that now and see what happens.
I agree with a couple of posts here in that the direction that non-EA sports game producers should take now is more of a fantasy tack. Forget using real stars and real names. Maybe don't even use ALL the real rules. How about getting back to *fun*, folks? Get creative, maybe? Here's one- Invent a networkable baseball game that uses all the modern 3D technology but has invented, larger-than-life characters with a certain amount of personality. (Remember the movie "Major League"?) Hire a good writer to create the characters and scripts maybe, and some B-movie actors to do voiceovers. Perhaps even have players that reflect sports in-jokes, something to grab the baseball fan gamer. (What pulls you in better than a joke about something that you know not everyone knows?) Caricatured players, caricatured game play. Maybe have a guy who can jump 6 feet in the air, or other such "slightly enhanced" human abilities. Let EA handle the "realistic simulation" market.
I would buy this kind of game in a second.
(On a related note, I wish that media producers would stop trying to pander to EVERYONE and would focus on a certain demographic that would then become rabid (and ever-purchasing) fans... I'm thinking, when is the last time a really good, and I mean really creatively good, hard sci-fi movie came out? Make a movie based on a Vernor Vinge novel or something, for God's sakes! But that's just my own lament...)
Nuts to the shot across the bow, this is a full on broadside.
I don't just mean creating guys with your own names and changing the colors of the uniforms. I mean being able to create your own bitmaps/textures for the uniform design, logo, and insignias on the field/endzones.
Then add a deep franchise mode like everyone is adding these days with college draft, managing concesions, etc etc. Leagues could start with a random pool of players and a draft. Players' names and appearances could be tweaked before the season started, but not their skill ratings (to keep it fair). Then every draft from then on would include fictional college players.
I know people like having their favorite NFL players on the screen in front of them, but if someone steps up and makes a game that offers a totally customizable experience (even with Stadium design, etc), I'm sure they would be able to keep a lot of sports-gamers in the fold.
ESPN has destroyed sports, from the way they are anazlyed, viewed and even played.
Take the NBA for instance. The game has changed and become a league where players are more concerned with getting on SportsCenter, than actually playing well and winning. Being on SportsCenter, probably means you made some amazing dunk and therefore will be getting notoriety for a quiet inconsequently part of the game.
On the analysis front, ESPN does a great job of injecting meaningless storylines into games. They over analyze sports, bring up meaningless statistics and really loose focus on the most important part of sports, the actual athletic contest.
This a terrible move for the future of sports games. ESPN will undoubtedly bash sports fans over the head with overblown tie-ins and advertisements.
For someone who loves sports and video games, I'm saddened by this corporate sponsorship.
100% Insightful
No. I love ESPN, but their in game content is useless, and it gets skipped over anyway. To suggest people will buy more because ESPN is on it is ridiculous. YOU might, but the rest of us probably won't.
What I am saying (not suggesting, btw) is that EA locks-in the ESPN crowd with this deal. In no way did I say it would bring in "the rest of us".
For the record (and to include my subjective opinion), I spent $50 and purchased NFL Fever first. I didn't like certain qualities of the game, so I decided to give the ESPN 2K5 a try since it was only another $20. I always skipped over the in-game content of NFL Fever as it was extremely repetitious. I find myself actually watching much of the in-game content on ESPN 2K5, it is very well done. ESPN didn't influence me to purchase the 2K5 game first, but it sure as hell will influence my decision when I go to purchase next years football product.
Now, this is my opinion as much as your post was your opinion. But I promise I won't make the ridiculous mistake to suggest that "the rest of us" are on my side.
CT
From TFA: "Longer term, we expect EA to extend its sports portfolio into sports that ESPN has historically been strong in, like X Games, bass fishing, and poker."
Since when did poker become a "sport"??!
EA is the worst thing to happen to gaming.
They buy up companies and run them into the ground.
They leech off of sure money-makers and run them into the ground.
They hire bright young programmers and run them into the ground, knowing there are more waiting in the queue.
Finally, I will never forgive them for destroying Maxis and Westwood Studios.
I'm sick of the incessant sports games; they bought up and buried so many of the creative companies who would actually innovate and pose real competition, instead of rubber-stamping the same thing every year with a new roster and only minor actual gaming innovation.
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If EA is gonna try and buy up every piece of realism you can put into a game then its time to go the opposite route. Who remembers the best football game ever for Genesis? Mutant League Football where you could design a team of monsters and aliens and battle them out in the football field. I'm sure arcade football games will not suffer because they thrive on fiction and gameplay but realistic football will hurt eventhough games like Konami's Winning Eleven which has no official soccer license is still one of the world's most popular soccer games. EA may buy every brand in the world but they can never buy our freedom!
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as far as I know they are two separate corporate entities, though when the NFL signs, the PA usually follows. Does the agreement extend to the P.A. as well?
meaning, is there anything stopping Michael Vick from wearing a logo-less generic red and black jersey to promote a non-EA game?
having recognizable players in commercials and on the cover is certainly a step up from having nothing.
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Okay, thinking back roughly 15 years....
ESPN was THE cable sports channel, MTV was really Teenager Television, Microsoft's operating system was on nearly every PC, we had a president named George Bush, and we had U.S. troops fighting a war in Iraq.
Not that I disagree with your general point that things change, but you didn't pick the best example. And it's probably a good bet that ESPN will still be the most popular cable sports network; more importantly, that doesn't even matter, because it's really the exclusive NFL deal, and not the ESPN deal, that is going to kill off EA's football competition. The profit they will make from that deal will make the money they gave ESPN look like little more than spare change.
Now they just need to aquire the rights to Formula 1 back from eveil Sony and we can get an F1 console game back in the US.
--D
You're the type of guy that picked flowers, played with dolls and brushed their hair, aren't you?
f antasy.htm
Well, yes, most people named Simonetta pick flowers, have played with dolls and still brush their hair. Few of us are guys.
A very high percentage of people I meet that are like you are homosexual...
Admit it, you don't meet all that many people like us.
To every other realistic, red blooded, meat eating MAN who likes to watch football, drink beer, and look at cheerleaders I say let there be more football games. The more the merrier.
If you haven't already, you might want to check out Denis Leary's album "No Cure For Cancer" (download a few tracks from Kazaa). It's not a whole-grain critique of this mentality, it's an affirmation of its power.
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Personally, the thing that bothers me most about this isn't as much EA's actions as it is the NFL's.
Sure, pro football has always been about making money, but it seems of late the NFL is giving exclusive contracts to everyone. I can't watch all of the games unless I have direct tv and even if I do it's (I feel) an outrageous amount. Now only EA is allowed to make games about the NFL.
Personally I love the game, but feel that decisions should take the interest of the fans into account as well as the almighty dollar - and I can't think of any fan that I know that wouldn't want some choices as to the games they play or the TV service they use.
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As covered before, EA has exclusive rights to NASCAR on all consoles up to 2008. This caused Sierra/Papyrus to bow out of making NASCAR sims, and saddened the throngs who grew to love Papyrus' superior offerings. EA just released their demo for NASCAR SimRacing today (this game is supposed to be a separate version from the console releases, and coded specifically to be a hardcore sim). The general overwhelming consensus is that it sucks (I'm downloading it at the moment, will review later), and is nothing more than an 18 month revamp of NASCAR Thunder 2003.
You can read the carnage at these main NASCAR sim enthusiast sites:
Project Wildfire
Blackhole Motorsports
Those who look for silver linings can take comfort in Papyrus co-founder Dave Kaemmer teaming up with Boston Red Sox owner John Henry to create a new company called FIRST, in where they bought back the source code for NASCAR Racing 2003 from Vivendi. Hopefully the future game from FIRST will provide a good foundation to create a good NASCAR mod to pick up where NR2003 left off.
If I could mod this discussion, I'de put informatives on both ! Thanks for the help !
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
The major sports leagues (MLB, NFL, NBA, and well if there ever is an NHL again) have anti-trust exemptions.
However, I think this sort of behavior is the sort of thing that should violate that exemption.
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