As
fellow c-blogger B-Radicate reported earlier, EA has extended their video game exclusivity agreement with the NFL by three years. It was originally slated to expire in 2009, but now, EA has locked up the license through 2012. Most people seem to think that this deal means that the apocalypse is imminent, but I don’t necessarily agree. Read on, friends, read on...
No, this is not what Madden NFL 09 will look like
I’ve always been a fan of EA Sports titles over 2K Sports games — I just like the way they “feel” and control. In general, however, I hate the idea of exclusivity; it stifles creativity and allows developers to rest on their laurels, year after year.
(Aside: I was thinking of doing a “Good Idea, Bad Idea” on exclusivity agreements, but I realized that I couldn’t find anything good to say about them.) 2K Sports owns the baseball license, and I really didn’t like
Major League Baseball 2K7 (in fact, I’m much more interested in Sony’s
MLB 08: The Show this year). But I absolutely loved EA’s last baseball game,
MVP Baseball 2005 on the PS2, and it’s a damn shame that they can’t make them anymore.
Now, it’s important to note something that Peter Moore mentioned in his
interview with IGN: he said that it was the NFL who originally looked into having an exclusive deal with a publisher, and EA just turned out to be the highest bidder. Is that their fault? No. That’s capitalism, and there’s nothing wrong with it. Much of the blame should be placed on the sports themselves — that is, the NFL and the MLB — for offering an exclusivity deal in the first place. But EA’s not innocent, of course; what
is wrong with EA is the
Madden games that they’ve put out since the deal went into effect, which have all been largely lackluster titles compared to the pre-exclusivity games.
Of course, I’m at a special disadvantage as a PS3 owner; the 360 versions of
Madden games have been serviceable, but the PS3 ports have been a different story altogether. The week before
Madden NFL 08 came out on August 14, 2007, Best Buy was offering a deal: pre-order
Madden, and get $10 off any other regularly-priced game. So I pre-ordered it and got
Warhawk (which wasn’t to be released for another two weeks) for $49.99. But I saw the error of my ways (or rather, EA’s ways) after I had the game in my hands. IGN gave the 360 version an 8.7 in their
review, but the PS3 version of the game
was scored a full point lower, a 7.7 out of 10. I read through both reviews in their entirety, and the only difference between them was the mention of the graphical shortcomings of the PS3 version of the game. After playing the game myself a few times and being disgusted, I put it aside on my shelf, and in December, I got rid of it for a measly 650 Goozex points.
So what I’m essentially saying is this: I wouldn’t fault EA and 2K Sports as much for their respective exclusivity deals if they just
made good games. Is that so much to ask? And if you have to, use the PS3 as the lead platform for development (or at least start development on the PS3 version earlier). There’s absolutely no excuse at this point for either of the versions to have any major graphical or gameplay inadequacies, and that was the case with both
Madden NFL 08 and
MLB 2K7. In any case, at least I have an alternative for baseball: 2K Sports’ exclusivity deal only covers
third-party games, so SCEA is free to develop their own baseball video game. I eagerly anticipate
MLB 08: The Show, and I definitely have some interest in
Madden NFL 09, though after last year’s shenanigans, that interest is lukewarm. Make me believe again, EA...that’s all I want...
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Have you ever read Free Culture? It explains how locking down creative control for the sole purpose of giving unlimited freedom for a single entity is the worst possible thing that can happen to culture. You should give it a look some time.
exclusivity is lousy. especially when it gets into the wrong hands. i preferred the 2k football games and the EA baseball games, and now i can't play either. meh.
I don't know how this is discouranging other companies from making NFL games though. I mean look at Konami and WE(or PES, whatever you want to call it), it generates alot of pseudo names for its soccer players and even without having all the right players and all the proper team names it is still 4x better than the FIFA series.
@Tragic Hero: Yeah, people have tried that. 2K Sports, locked out of making an NFL game, did All-Pro Football 2K8, but it failed to recapture the magic of NFL 2K5. Plus, football is different than soccer...it’s arguably the most popular sport in America, and even playing with retired Hall of Famers (which is what All-Pro Football 2K8 allowed you to do) isn’t the same as running over people with Brandon Jacobs or sacking them with Michael Strahan.
@The-Excel: No, I haven’t heard of it, but it certainly looks intriguing. Thanks for the link; I’ll definitely give it a read when I get the chance.
Look at All Pro Football 2K8. It was a brilliant idea that was terribly executed and I am still at a loss as to how 2K screwed that up so terribly. I'm not a graphics whore but it looks like an awfully ported PS2 game on my 360. Not to mention that the fundamental gameplay is drastically different from ESPN 2K5 and just generally shitty.
Heh, nice NY references.
But anyways, I still it just depends with how much effort someone wants to put into a football game. Again with winning Eleven, you would think Euros around the world would care about having all the proper players and teams rather than playing with semi-generics but they enjoy the gameplay over the names.
And All-Pro Football 2K8 just didn't seem like it was made with a lot of love. Just seemed like someone wanting to trying to capitalize on the Madden Craze.
Well one thing people tend to forget about the NFL, MLB, and all other sport organizations is that like EA, they are businesses, and they will do whatever profits them the most in the long run. There is a lot wrong with capitalism, the video game industry is just one of the few things suffering from it due to these exclusivity rights. And EA is claiming that they are going to get their act together when it comes to developing for the PS3. Hopefully they do.
imo the problem is we keep buying em, even if we hate em. :/
@ BrOnXbOmBr21
I wrote a similar article on /another website/ that was similar to this, but yours is a bit more in-depth and from the perspective of a sports game lover. Great read as always man.
I'm just curious as to how the MLB license goes with sony and 2k. I know there is MLB 06, MLB 06: The Show, and MLB 07: The show, I own all three.. But there is also the 2k games MLB 2k5-2k7. And as far as I know MLB 08: The Show and MLB 2k8 are both being released.. And I do realize you mentioned both in your blog, just looking for some clarification.
the mlb licenses only to first parties and 2k. Nintendo Sony and microsoft can make mlb games as well as 2k
@brucie97: Yeah, jdub28 has it covered; I apologize if I was somewhat unclear. Essentially, the exclusivity deal that MLB has with 2K Sports only applies to third-party games, which means that no third-party developer except 2K Sports can make an officially-licensed baseball game. However, first-party developers (like SCEA, Microsoft Game Studios, and Nintendo EAD) are exempt from the deal, so they’re perfectly within their rights to make officially-licensed baseball games.
@Excremento: Hm...by chance, would you be referring to this article? Because if you are, I would like to thank you for making me spit out my Coke from laughing so hard at that header image. But yeah, sports games have always been very near and dear to my heart, so these kinds of things are personal issues for me.
@Tragic Hero, DrNutt: I can’t comment on All-Pro Football 2K8 personally because I didn’t play it, but the general consensus seems to be that it had a ton of promise, but turned out to be poorly executed. (No franchise mode, in this day and age? Are you kidding me?)
@MasterMS: Yeah, I agree with you 100%. That’s probably why the NFL originally offered up an exclusivity deal; they wanted to maximize profits for them (and the highest-bidding publisher). EA has been doing good things recently, though, now that Activision has humbled them by taking the spot of #1 publisher.
Holy crap, that was long.
To be honest, All Pro 2K8 is worth at least a rent to witness the failed promise firsthand. The lack of a franchise didn't even bother me so much as the hastily-ported looking graphics that look terrible and the fact that the game played entirely different from the last in the ESPN 2K series. It was like they threw out everything worthwhile from the franchise and said, "Hey, but look, it's got old guys in it!"
I used to love the madden games but the ones in the recent past have been lacklustre to say the least. It seems that now they have the rights to it they couldn't care less because it will sell well anyway. That happened to the FIFA games, they had to go woah wait a minute we need to make these games good for people to buy them. Hopefully a renaisance like that will happen to the ol' madden series.
To me, the bigger problem isn't that there is an exclusivity deal in the first place, but that EA releases the same game every year. Let's be honest, even back when the NFL license was available to multiple companies, games were developed similarly every single year, no matter the developer. The exception was the Blitz series, which can survive without the license. All the exclusivity deal did was take away the feasibility of another rehashed football franchise.
Also, I wanted to bring this up on Failcast and totally forgot about it. Sorry!