The trend up buying up exclusive rights for professional (or college) sports is one of the worst things to happen to the video game industry in years.
For the purchasers of the licenses -- everything's peachy. However, for the gamers -- it is simply awful.
Electronic Arts has got the NFL, ESPN and NCAA Football. Take-Two has snagged up MLB.
Now, can anybody explain to me why any publisher is going to work with any developer to create a sports game featuring fictional teams and players? The fact of the matter is that particular genre of gaming lives and dies by producing products as close to the on-field (court, ice, whatever) product as possible. And when was the last time a major sports title carried fictional teams and players?
The scary thing is with the exclusive rights, why should a company like EA really attempt to improve the technology and gameplay of their Madden franchise now? EA's got the only true "real" NFL product now.
And why should Take-Two bother creating another professional football game? Sure, Take-Two can create a realistic playing football game, but you've shot yourself in the foot when you've got Patrick Minning throwing touchdowns to Reginald Mayne for the Indiana Studs. Take-Two/Sega couldn't outsell the competition even with the NFL license, and so what is going to happen now...?
The whole deal is great for those companies who hold the license but I just think it is a scary trend that is going to do nothing but hurt the overall quality of the games and, more importantly, gamers.
What was once a pretty cool cable channel aimed towards entertaining some geeks, myself included, is about to be dead.
I had a feeling Comcast/G4's purchase of TechTV was for nothing more than to get G4 into more homes, and that they didn't give a (Frank) about the TechTV brand, or anything they had done. And, it looks like Comcast got what they wanted and I was right.
I can't stand all the gaming content they show now. I don't want to watch people play video games, I want to play video games. I can handle watching clips and news shows about the games and such because that has some sort of interesting and informational value to it, but most of the shows on the network are just plain bad.
Oh, but now they are coming up with sure-fire winning show ideas such as centering a show around racing and guys drooling over women-in-video-games.
Ugh, forget them...
I think I'll just block them off my TV like I've done with MTV, Fox News and a few other channels...
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly.
For the purchasers of the licenses -- everything's peachy. However, for the gamers -- it is simply awful.
Electronic Arts has got the NFL, ESPN and NCAA Football. Take-Two has snagged up MLB.
Now, can anybody explain to me why any publisher is going to work with any developer to create a sports game featuring fictional teams and players? The fact of the matter is that particular genre of gaming lives and dies by producing products as close to the on-field (court, ice, whatever) product as possible. And when was the last time a major sports title carried fictional teams and players?
The scary thing is with the exclusive rights, why should a company like EA really attempt to improve the technology and gameplay of their Madden franchise now? EA's got the only true "real" NFL product now.
And why should Take-Two bother creating another professional football game? Sure, Take-Two can create a realistic playing football game, but you've shot yourself in the foot when you've got Patrick Minning throwing touchdowns to Reginald Mayne for the Indiana Studs. Take-Two/Sega couldn't outsell the competition even with the NFL license, and so what is going to happen now...?
The whole deal is great for those companies who hold the license but I just think it is a scary trend that is going to do nothing but hurt the overall quality of the games and, more importantly, gamers.
Well, it is official.
What was once a pretty cool cable channel aimed towards entertaining some geeks, myself included, is about to be dead.
I had a feeling Comcast/G4's purchase of TechTV was for nothing more than to get G4 into more homes, and that they didn't give a (Frank) about the TechTV brand, or anything they had done. And, it looks like Comcast got what they wanted and I was right.
I can't stand all the gaming content they show now. I don't want to watch people play video games, I want to play video games. I can handle watching clips and news shows about the games and such because that has some sort of interesting and informational value to it, but most of the shows on the network are just plain bad.
Oh, but now they are coming up with sure-fire winning show ideas such as centering a show around racing and guys drooling over women-in-video-games.
Ugh, forget them...
I think I'll just block them off my TV like I've done with MTV, Fox News and a few other channels...