EA: It IS the Game
Posted December 13th, 2004 @ 11:57pm by Erik J. Barzeski
EA has signed a five-year agreement with the NFL for exclusive rights to use NFL players, teams, and stadiums.
HOLY FREAKIN' SHIT, MAN!!!
Sega's NFL2K5 series is much, much, much better, costs $19, and has ESPN behind it. And yet EA has managed to completely destroy any chance they had of eking their way into the Madden stronghold with this move. I say again:
HOLY FREAKIN' SHIT, MAN!!!
Bye bye, Sega (et al). 🙁
P.S. Yes, I realize that my title is not as funny as I thought it was at first.
Donate Life
Posted 14 Dec 2004 at 1:17am #
Not only NFL2K* is better than EAs NFL. NHL2k* is much better then EAs NHL. i played EAs NHL from 95 to 2002 and after i got my XBox i bought NHL2k3 and wow this game rocks.
i dont know why all people play the EAs Series. There total buggy and only eye candy applications.
Sven
Posted 14 Dec 2004 at 3:02am #
For another take on EA, check out the User Friendly cartoon for Dec. 14!
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20041214
Posted 14 Dec 2004 at 5:47am #
My sympathies are definitely for Sega in this one. They have had the hard end of the stick for quite a while here and this may just completely destroy them.
Posted 14 Dec 2004 at 6:35am #
This infuriates me. We all know how monopolizing the market will stymie innovation, and this just goes to drive that into the ground. Who wants to play a game with fake players?
Sega was just starting to get a leg up on the market. Their brand awareness was growing, and this year's ESPN was better than Madden, even at $20. It's a damn shame.
Posted 14 Dec 2004 at 9:06am #
It's a sad, sad day. Sega has, maybe, two options now. (1) Concentrate on college football (2) Release a pro game with a fully functioning player, team, art editor and allow leagues to be shared by online users. Of course, as soon as someone posts an 'NFL" league, it would be shutdown by EA's lawyers for copyright infringement.
Posted 14 Dec 2004 at 10:08am #
Of course, there's now an online petition. It's well known what I think of online petitions.
Posted 14 Dec 2004 at 12:20pm #
Who is it in the corporate culture of these huge companies that gets these things to happen? Who would suggest that a company rely more on legal action than innovation and competition? It seems like a pretty short-term outlook on dominating the market to me.
Posted 15 Dec 2004 at 1:26pm #
Madden sucks now. Imagine them after 5 years of no innovation.
As mentioned on NSLog();, EA has very nicely taken the entire football video game genre and in one swift, decisive move, kicked everyone squah in the nuts. EA somehow ($$) managed to secure an exclusive license to make football games...
Posted 19 Dec 2004 at 8:17pm #
NFL always pushes for single vendor on direct licenses. I don't think this would be the end of Sega doing football video games though. Why not NCAA? In this part of the country at least, college football outdraws pro football considerably.