EA retains its NFL cash cow till 2013

If you've played games by EA or watched the gaming industry over the years, two things stand out. EA has released increasingly repetitive unimaginative sports games and bought studio's to supply what it couldn't produce itself.

If you Google "why EA is evil", you'll most likely end up in forum discussing how ea ruins games by churning out endless sequels or destroying the office culture of companies like Westwood that produced the command and conquer series. While these issues are important and going to be discussed at length in a future post, lets focus on the topic that makes up the rational behind 75% of the anti-EA fervor. EA sports games and the series that started it all, EA's NFL games.

While not all EA sports games are necessarily bad, they are repetitive and could go downhill if EA ever had genuine competition. Releasing a new NFL game each year with nothing more then a different roster of players and slightly different team line-ups is not worth the price of a full game. Its as simple as that.

Why ? Digital downloading is picking up and Microsoft is seeing untold success from Xbox Live. Why can't we just pay 10-20 dollars online to download an update for our previous years purchase of NFL 07 or 06 ?

EA could use the time and resources to develop a truly innovative and graphically stunning sequel even if it were to be released in two year or cause there to be a year without an EA NFL game. Fans would flock to buy the superior product knowing it took more time and effort to develop because generally a longer wait equals higher quality. No one bitched and moaned about GTA IV getting delayed because we all wanted a high quality product for our 60 dollars.

Sadly EA probably won't do anything like what's described above, just continue to hold a monopoly on the market because its built itself a house of cards.

That all being said, the deal to extend EA's licensing of National Football League games until 2013 is pretty straight forward.

The deal covers all forms of console video games

• hand held


• home


• console based online features

A shimer of hope however is that the deal allows EA access to NFL films and the NFL network, "to enrich its game experience". Below are some quotes.

"This is all about bringing authenticity and realism to NFL videogames," commented Eric Grubman, president of NFL Ventures.

"EA Sports continually works to maintain the cutting edge for NFL products across a variety of gaming platforms. We like the fact that they never rest."

"For nearly two decades, EA Sports has been bringing sports fans closer to the great game of football through the breakthrough interactive experiences of our videogames," said Peter Moore, president of EA Sports.

"Game quality is our top priority, and we're committed to pushing our gameplay innovation, connecting football fans via rich online experiences and delivering the most visually stunning sports games on the market," he went on to say.

Obviously I would disagree with a few of those points made by Peter Moore and Eric Grubman but hey, I'm just a gamer...the guy who buys there products.

Source: Game industry.bizz