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EA Sports vs. Take-Two
by Chris Remo, Aug 24, 2005 10:24am PDTTroy Wolverton of TheStreet.com has written an article describing the uphill battle faced by companies like Take-Two when trying to gain ground in the EA-dominated sports market. Sports comprise more than 19% of video game sales, and EA sports titles make up 62% of that. When Take-Two and Sega teamed up to put out the ESPN 2K line, they forced EA to cut prices, and succeeded in taking momentum away from the larger company's sports domination. However, EA simply followed up by securing exclusivity with the NFL, the NCAA, the AFL, and even ESPN. Take-Two has managed to secure the exclusive rights to make third-party Major League Baseball games, but analyst Michael Goodman believes that baseball games do not sell well enough to build a brand like football can.
"I don't believe baseball, hockey or basketball are popular enough to build a brand around," says Goodman. "They have a fan base, but I don't believe they're big enough to build an entire corporate identity." The loss of the ESPN brand represents a further challenge for Take-Two, forcing the company to essentially begin brand-building from scratch. That's in contrast to EA, which just put out the 16th version of its Madden. ...Take-Two also faces a well-financed competitor. EA is rumored to have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to get the exclusive on the NFL game. And if the company feels under threat in the other sports areas, it may well decide to throw money at them as well.Everyone knows that EA is the world's biggest video game publisher and that their sports label is a key brand, but it is nonetheless unnerving to see a publisher able to effectively negate its competition simply by virtue of having enough money to ensure its competition can't even make a certain category of games.
Comments
Case in point. Madden 06 flat out sucks. And it sucks because they knew there would be no ESPN 06 to make Madden look like ass.
This whole thing reeks of monopoly and needs to be broken up.
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I hate what EA has done to the sports genre. But that doesnt totally stop others from making sports games. I am really looking forward to the new Blitz that Midway is making. I cant wait to start giving players the juice and face mask tackling receivers!
The last NHL I played was 2004 for PC. It was a piece of shit - it tried to be like NBA jams with flaming shots and funny bells and whistles. How about a hockey game that looks and feels like real hockey.
It would have to be a game where you can see the entire ice (or a great portion of it) which is something that no hockey game has ever captured - also you have to be able to simulate setting up "the box". This proves to be hard because there only seems to be one speed in video hockey, where as in real hockey the game has many subtle speed changes.
Come to think of it, maybe it just can't be done (grabs skates to go play the best game ever in real life)
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Just a thought.
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Ummm, what category of games exactly is EA prevently other developers from making? Last I checked you don't need the NFL license to make a football game.
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“Strict regulations published by Athens 2004 last week dictate that spectators may be refused admission to events if they are carrying food or drinks made by companies that did not see fit to sponsor the games…….Staff will also be on the lookout for T-shirts, hats and bags displaying the unwelcome logos of non-sponsors. Stewards have been trained to detect people who may be wearing merchandise from the sponsors' rivals in the hope of catching the eyes of television audiences. Those arousing suspicion will be required to wear their T-shirts inside out.â€Â
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Out of the 26 games they are currently producing, there is ONE original title, and well... it's based on a movie license, so it's not that original.
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And did I read that correctly? No more EA official MLB titles?
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Nobody cares for Madden in the rest of the world, so not having football shouldn't be so much of a problem as this article says.
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