How did the whole 2k vs EA market war happen?

[Thunderhorse]

Quote: Originally Posted by Ev14

Madden definitely goes the way of NBA Live if not for the exclusive license. I don't believe EA would have completely given up, but they'd be behind 2K based on the gameplay of 360/PS3 Madden vs APF 2K8 (https://www.reddit.com/r/Madden/comm...rs_in_apf_2k8/). A fully licensed "NFL 2K8" does a lot of damage in the marketplace.

I think Take Two would have beat them but not purely based on gameplay. Football is a complicated sport and not many people have enough intimate familiarity with the sport to appreciate little things like gap integrity and realistic player movement. While 2K clearly invested more effort into realism with their product, I don't believe it was beneficial in the long run outside of proving the product was simply superior from an artistic standpoint.

2K has been the more innovative brand and has created revenue opportunity outside of their ultimate team game mode. I'm sure it exists but I cannot remember that last innovation from EA that was foundationally groundbreaking. Ultimately if the two bodies were allowed to compete on equal footing I suspect Take Two's passion and creativity would have won out, but that's not a hill I would die on because EA's devs were not really afforded that opportunity either, apparently.

[J_Posse]

I think one point we forget about from this time period was that both NFL Fever and NFL GameDay (PS2) were discontinued.

How much did Microsoft getting out of the sports gaming space (very prematurely) & Sony/989 Sports "taking a break" (on PS2) feed into the NFL decision to go exclusive?

Official HQ of Bills Backer/Spurs Nation

[spankdatazz22]

Quote: Originally Posted by J_Posse

I think one point we forget about from this time period was that both NFL Fever and NFL GameDay (PS2) were discontinued. How much did Microsoft getting out of the sports gaming space (very prematurely) & Sony/989 Sports "taking a break" (on PS2) fed into the NFL decision to go exclusive?

It's an interesting point. I would say ultimately it factored in to some degree but probably not much. EA has admitted they had been pursuing exclusivity for years, prior to the actual announcement.

I'm assuming EA likely was making offers WAY above/beyond what the NFL could potentially get from multiple licensees, whether Sony or Microsoft were still in the mix or not.

Some people try to justify the exclusivity announcement by saying the NFL prefers exclusive partners, and I don't disagree. But who's to say the NFL considered that for videogames at the time? What if Microsoft threw considerable money at the NFL to make NFL Fever viable or the same for Sony's NFL Gameday? Gamers moan about lack of choice but the fact was at the time, gamers weren't supporting other titles to the degree the publishers needed them to, to make the games worth developing. That's why Fever and Gameday went away. I knew a few people that liked some of what Gameday was doing at the time. But Madden was just so far beyond where most games were back then. Even though it was frustrating people and becoming stale, it was the complete package: gameplay, franchise depth, options, etc. It was when Madden went next gen a few years later that the game imploded and became a mess. At the time, NFL2K was the only legitimate threat and their arrow was pointed up - where Madden's was probably pointed sideways.

Regardless of the NFL deciding to go exclusive, it's obvious EA acted to kill any threat of competition by signing so many other exclusive deals as pointed out earlier in the thread: NCAA, ESPN, the Arena League, etc. - ESPN and Arena League being laughable in retrospect given they never used either license much or at all. It's EXTREMELY unlikely these companies somehow decided, independently, to become exclusive licensors all around the same time.

[jerwoods]

watching the madden doc goddell will never kill madden

the only way i see 2k nfl back is

1 EA sports goes under
or 2
go the apf 2k8 way

[Shinobimusashi]

Not sure if it's been mentioned in this thread or if anyone here is that old enough to remember but it really started on the Sega Genesis. Sega's own NFL games were better than the Madden games, they were always one year ahead of them with the features, they had the NFL license first with NFL Sports Talk 93 while Madden 93 still used generic city names. They had the NFPA license first with NFL 94 while Madden 94 still used player numbers(and continued to just use player numbers on the SNES port of Madden 95, they only got the NFLPA license on the Genesis version because Sega had it for NFL 94-95).

Then the real kicker is NFL 95 vs Madden 95 a good decade before 2K5 came out, NFL 95 was so much better than Madden 95 it was scary, so much more depth.

-Madden 95 has like 27 players rated at 99 some of them were random no namers while NFL 95 player ratings were so much more realistic using the same 99 point rating system.

-NFL 95 was loaded with so much more stats and info, you could look up the ratings for like 10 different categories for every player, also all of their 1993 stats are in the game so it's like a virtual football card collection on the cart.

-The music and sound of NFL 95 blew away Madden 95, the hip hop beats still stuck in my head all these years later.

-The season mode just worked better all the way around, you could also trade players without limits, you couldn't edit rosters at all in Madden, this was a HUGE deal at the time these games came out because Deion Sanders was the most popular player that offseason and he waited til the last minute to pick a team as a free agent, he ended up signing with San Francisco after both games came out. You could trade him to San Francisco in NFL 95 but he was stuck on the Falcons in Madden 95 and there was nothing you could do about it.

NFL 95 was a technical achievement as far as graphics, the way the field scaled and moved for the passing game was next level. It was a Genesis exclusive and gamers had mostly went to the SNES by 1994 so I feel like NFL 95 kinda flew under the radar but it scared EA they were completely outdone in every way, the next year they went all out for Madden 96 on the Genesis.

The whole rivalry dissolved as Sega faded out of the console market, they pissed away the NFL franchise on the Saturn because Sega of Japan took over and was clueless about what football meant to the US and it's impact on the Genesis. EA didn't **** with the Dreamcast so when it died and Sega started moving all their IP's to the XBOX/PS2/GC as a third party publisher in 2001 it was back on.