Fucking goddamn EA again...

Electronic Arts, ESPN hook up in exclusive 15-year deal

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/01/17/news_6116473.html

this is fucking retarded...

 

EA simply has marketing pull that no other producer can leverage. There will be no uproar of serious note until someone like Disney buys up EA and then every game is based off a single engine because it is cheaper...

 

Now that would be kinda shitty. Till then, I don't see why the panties are bunched over this crap.

 

I'm only pissed off because, again like mentioned in the other 3 threads, I dont like Madden, and now it's the only choice for a NFL football game.

My only alternative is to not play it.

 

Or play what you have. I don't get how people just drop $40 a year on 2-3 games just for a new roster.

 

I guess it depends on the market segment and how people feel directly affected. Say Harris Teeter started buying all the Food Lions, Bi-Los, Winn-Dixies etc and left you with nothing but Harris-Teeters there would be marching in the streets. If GM bought out Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, Honda and Nissan it would probably result in a civil war.

The video gaming industry being absorbed by some monopolistic corporation is trivial in the minds of most people and obviously the government is not concerned because the bottom line is that they cannot really get any siginificant fines and services from a company like EA.

Just really sucks that by the time it does affect the mainstream, EA will be another IBM and there will be little anyone can do to change things for the better...

 

Horrible analogy. Not everybody consumes video games like they're bags of chips. And it's far from monopolistic that one company bought the rights rather than another - the USFL tried that tack and it got them nowhere. At the worst, it means someone will end up potentially playing a college football game instead, or re-playing the same game that they had played a year ago. Big, big hardship there.

And comparing them to IBM's a poor analogy, too, since I built my system and chances are what you're posting from? IT's not an IBM either, and I doubt there are that many who are posting from an IBM machine. If something did happen to stifle any video game competition (and I'm not talking about one small portion of the market), innovation and free market would balance it out. Remember Intel having the market share and AMD was only making secondary chipsets? It's still not a fair battle, but AMD's competing.

The world isn't ending just because EA has more money to bid than smaller companies.

 

That's the problem with just one company producing games, no variety and no competition to make them push the creative envelope

 

I've never called EA a monopoly, because they aren't. however, they have ruined the football game market. Let's say even in 5 years or whenever, that the NFL wants to open the agreement back up for anyone to make a NFL game. EA will be the only company with the ability to make one. So EA will be able to sign the NFL deal again for whatever the hell they want to. Every other developer will not only have to attain everything like logos and player faces, but also build a completely new game engine.

I never considered myself paying money every year just for roster updates. the NFL2k/ESPN game has been changing every year since I first bought it on the dreamcast. This stops innovation in the genre because one company is making the game. Even if someone did get into the genre later on, it will still be beat by EA just for the fact that they'd have to start from scratch. Sega has tweaked their game over 5 or 6 years to get it where it is.

 

They've ruined the football game market -even though it hasn't gone into effect yet? Isn't that just a bit dramatic?
Do they not still have to compete against critics? Do they not still have to compete against college football games and within the sports market?

Oh, and EA won't simply be able to buy the market any time they want. CBS had football for how long? And then they lost it to Fox, correct? And then NBC lost theirs to CBS. If Madden isn't your game, and it obviously isn't or else you wouldn't be complaining, then just don't buy it.