Electronic Arts continues it's dealings

1942 Views 26 Replies 12 Participants Last post by ShadowDancer, Apr 14, 2005

ShadowDancer

Discussion Starter · Feb 4, 2005

http://news.com.com/Electronic+Arts-Ubisoft+stock+grab+OKd/2110-1047_3-5562694.html

Seems like their turning into a monopoly of sorts. This comes after they made a deal with the NFL giving them exclusive rights to the NFL's players, teams and stadiums. Also they made a 15 year deal with ESPN and their content. They also have the Lord of the Rings rights, Harry Potter rights, and I bet it's not going to stop.

So are they becoming a sort of monopoly or is this good for growth in the gaming industry? In one hand the NFL rights and ESPN rights was a big blow to Visual Concepts and Sega in which afterwards Visual Concepts was sold to Take Two. In the other hand, wasn't Ubisoft struggling and were in the red a lot?

1 - 20 of 27 Posts

Cid Highwind

· #2 · Feb 4, 2005

I don't like the sound of all of this, especially when one company buys exclusive rights of a sports federation. EA is known for high quality sports games, but there should always be an option for other producers to have licensed names in their games as well. A monopoly in this context is not good for gamers, but only for EA.

industrian

· #3 · Feb 4, 2005

Having official sporting rights should not put off developers wanting to develop sports titles. Using "but they've got all the rights" as an excuse to not develop independent sports games is just lazy.

I mean, not having official rights never put off Konami from developing the International Superstar Soccer and Pro Evolution Soccer series. They did just well using fake names until the PS2. And their titles are waaay better than the excrement EA slap on a disk every year.

I call on all developers to not give into this. Konami made it big with the ISS and PES series' with no advertising. A small developer can make it big by making a good game and attracting a cult following. Licenses are overrated anyways.

Cid Highwind

· #4 · Feb 5, 2005

industrian said:
Having official sporting rights should not put off developers wanting to develop sports titles. Using "but they've got all the rights" as an excuse to not develop independent sports games is just lazy.

I mean, not having official rights never put off Konami from developing the International Superstar Soccer and Pro Evolution Soccer series. They did just well using fake names until the PS2. And their titles are waaay better than the excrement EA slap on a disk every year.

I call on all developers to not give into this. Konami made it big with the ISS and PES series' with no advertising. A small developer can make it big by making a good game and attracting a cult following. Licenses are overrated anyways.

Licenses add a lot to the realism, I prefer real players over some fake names. It's not that I like sports games without real names, for I loved Soccer Shootout on the SNES alot more than FIFA97. But having real names adds something nice. I have never played Pro Evolution Soccer :emb: , but tell me, if you can choose between a PES with or without licensed players and clubs, which one would you choose?

Noob'Slayer

· #5 · Feb 5, 2005

Cid Highwind said:
... but tell me, if you can choose between a PES with or without licensed players and clubs, which one would you choose?

from the beginning we/pes/iss (winning eleven, pro evolution soccer, international superstar soccer) series had no licenses. but they had everything else that fifa/uefa series didnt have.

fifa's gameplay is a laugh. just watching the results of last WCG's fifa2004 cup results proves it. almost every match had 10 goals average. on other hand wepesiss is for people who wants to play possibly realeast football games. in wepesiss everything gets better with each year, offering tremendious and deep gameplay.

and nowdays you can modify everything in them: tactics, formations, teams, player names, kits and what so ever. there are fan-made patches & option files that let you have fully licensed teams which you can install in no time. unlike EA, konami hears what customers want, and each year the implement fine gameplay improvements, which are pretty good.

thats why PES4 won the GOTY award on soccergaming.com - the most prestigious footie game site on the net, getting more than 50% of all votes. Football Manager 2005 from SI Games came 2nd and Fifa2005 was 3rd.

just to help you make the choise, here are the average scores from all gaming sites:

Fifa 2004 (with full licenses): 76%
http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/914856.asp?q=fifa 2004

WE7 aka PES3 (with almost no licenses): 92%
http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/920084.asp?q=winning eleven

lately konami made more money and they try to get more licenses for the games but as you see from the beginning, the licenses are not as important as they seem :wave:

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Cid Highwind

· #6 · Feb 5, 2005

I completely agree with you, but my point is that if you can choose between a game, let's take the latest PES as example:
You have two identical games, the only difference is that one is with the licenses and one without. Which one would you choose?

Having real names adds something to the game to me. And there are more gamers who prefer to have real names in it. It's not that it can make or break a game, because it won't be the decisive factor when buying a sports game to me (gameplay comes first), but since it can make a great game 'complete', I think that EA buying exclusive rights isn't good for anyone except EA, because to some gamers it does matter if they have the real players on the field or not.

industrian

· #7 · Feb 5, 2005

Personally my favourite football game is ISS Deluxe on the SNES. Who needs licenses?

However, EA do NOT run Football Manager yet. Let's just hope Sega keep that license.

ShadowDancer

Discussion Starter · #8 · Feb 5, 2005

Cid Highwind said:
I completely agree with you, but my point is that if you can choose between a game, let's take the latest PES as example:
You have two identical games, the only difference is that one is with the licenses and one without. Which one would you choose?

Having real names adds something to the game to me. And there are more gamers who prefer to have real names in it. It's not that it can make or break a game, because it won't be the decisive factor when buying a sports game to me (gameplay comes first), but since it can make a great game 'complete', I think that EA buying exclusive rights isn't good for anyone except EA, because to some gamers it does matter if they have the real players on the field or not.

A well known and jauggernaut of a game for the past 15 years in Madden has made EA worry seeing how the ESPN brand was gaining on them so they thought buying out the NFL exclusive rights would give them the edge. Maybe it has but we won't know until next year but I do know that the majority of the public will buy the Madden title over the NFL2k series next year unless Visual Concepts pulls a miracle out of their butt because the overall quality of the games were more or less about the same. Now EA owns the Madden license and maybe this will put the kibosh in the 2k series. I just hope Visual Concepts pulls something out.

Oh yeah, I have the Winning Eleven game instead of a Fifa game. I don't regret getting it even though the names are all fake.

sxamiga

· #9 · Feb 5, 2005

I don't know much about sports games, since I don't play 'em and I am not, particularly, interested in them. But I do like and play games like the Lord of the Rings series and the Harry Potter series. So I do know this about those games: EA has always done a very good job of portraying games with as "true to life" graphics as possible in a game. The producer(s) of the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings Movies like this as does J.K. Rowlings herself (the authoress of the Harry Potter books). This is why EA has been granted the license to produce games from these franchises. The same is, more than likely, probably true of the sports titles as well.
sx/amiga

Cid Highwind

· #10 · Feb 5, 2005

A bad soccer videogame doesn't do a bad name to the sport itself, but a bad game of a good book or movie can be a direct insult. There is a huge difference to something as wide and general as one sport, and one particular movie.

I don't like to see one company having monopoly when it comes down to the name of players and clubs, no matter how good the game is. Other companies should have the same possibilities when they create a game.

CD

· #11 · Feb 5, 2005

You ain't gonna push an american football game with made up names, ain't gonna happen.

EA got scared that SEGA pwned 'em, so they dropped the cash to crush 'em, they're a pretty bad monopoly now.. when you think about corporations in general there's so much rampant anti-trust it's absurd

Have fun when Madden 2006 costs $75 and there's not a damned thing anyone can do about it, lol.

I-Chan

· #12 · Feb 5, 2005 (Edited)

sxamiga said:
I don't know much about sports games, since I don't play 'em and I am not, particularly, interested in them. But I do like and play games like the Lord of the Rings series and the Harry Potter series. So I do know this about those games: EA has always done a very good job of portraying games with as "true to life" graphics as possible in a game. The producer(s) of the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings Movies like this as does J.K. Rowlings herself (the authoress of the Harry Potter books). This is why EA has been granted the license to produce games from these franchises. The same is, more than likely, probably true of the sports titles as well.
sx/amiga

The difference is that, while important, graphics are thousands of miles behind gameplay when it comes to sports. Gameplay for the FIFA series is a joke. As it's been said, when you master the game, you can have totally unrealistic results. And until them, it's pretty easy to find flaws on the IA to take advantage. Konami soccer games offer true realistic gameplay instead, where it's next to impossible to have easy, unrealistic wins in the highest difficulty levels. And PES games happen to have an amazingly good looking engine, so EA hasn't got an advantage there, either.

It was money and not quality that bought FIFA's license for EA, and it's a true shame. I'll rather play football (soccer for you USA people) with fake names, than fake football with real names. That said, Konami has La Liga's (Spain's football competition) rights, so i enjoy both the best gameplay and real names for the players i care about

.

Dark Watcher

· #13 · Feb 8, 2005

CD said:
You ain't gonna push an american football game with made up names, ain't gonna happen.

EA got scared that SEGA pwned 'em, so they dropped the cash to crush 'em, they're a pretty bad monopoly now.. when you think about corporations in general there's so much rampant anti-trust it's absurd

Have fun when Madden 2006 costs $75 and there's not a damned thing anyone can do about it, lol.

CD pretty much nailed it on the head. Now that EA will have exclusive rights, their will be no competitive pricing or any real need to add competitive features for American Football sims. Since there is no real competition all EA has to do is cash in on updates with mere updated team rosters and stats, and they don't have to be concerned with competitive pricing.

Take Two and Sony (They were planning on updating their NFL Gameday series) now have to rethink their franchise strategy. The only good thing that may come of this could be innovation and creative freedom. You see...The same ESPN / NFL license that EA will abuse will also be a handicap. EA must adhere to the license, and cannot employ creative changes that may go against the NFL. Teams, playbooks, stats, etc are strictly regulated under the license. Perhaps Take-Two and Sony can exploit this in some way, and offer gamers something that will be lacking in an EA product.

Oh...from what we gather..With the ESPN license, EA is contemplating on giving old Madden the boot. Why keep paying the rich ole fart when you can use ESPN footage and commentators

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ShadowDancer

Discussion Starter · #14 · Feb 8, 2005

Would Gran Turismo be the great game it is without having any licenses or is this a different situation for the people having the idea that having a license does not make a great game?

Kane

· #15 · Feb 8, 2005

The Burnout series are superb games without the car licenses, same with GTA. That doesn't need licensing

Kanodin

· #16 · Feb 8, 2005

Wonder how long it's going to be before they (the Government) sues EA for being an Anti-Trust company.

Kane

· #17 · Feb 8, 2005

Never, as the government is run by corporations.

ShadowDancer

Discussion Starter · #18 · Feb 8, 2005

Kane said:
The Burnout series are superb games without the car licenses, same with GTA. That doesn't need licensing

*edit*

I misread your post.

Yeah those games are good without licenses but I dont think GT would be the same without it's license. No one wants to drive a generic car in that game and I think the licenses add something different to the GT series. Well more realism because it is a simulation.

Cid Highwind

· #19 · Feb 8, 2005

Kane said:
The Burnout series are superb games without the car licenses, same with GTA. That doesn't need licensing

Those games don't aim at realism, having real cars that drive like their reallife counterparts isn't the main point in the games you named, but in Gran Turismo it is.

Kane

· #20 · Feb 8, 2005

That said, there are games with a degree of rl physics which were great. Motorhead was a reasonable arcade/sim crossover, like GT is (don't give me that 'it's a sim' crap, it's blatently an arcade game trying to be sim).
There are many pure arcade races which don't need licenses which are superb: the Ridge Racer series, the Screamer series to name a couple.
The WE series has shown us (IMO) that you don't need licenses to make a great game.

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