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

[TheButter]

I was too young to have seen it for myself, never knew 2k was even a thing until a few years ago.

Played the 2k22 mod today and It's amazing.

DBs don't bull**** and actually allow touch passes to be dropped into the bucket. The presentation, halftime show, physics, are all top of the line.

How did EA win? It's not even close to 2k5's level. Not even Madden 08.

[jd@os]

My memory is a bit foggy so someone please correct me if I'm wrong (I haven't been a football gamer since the early to mid 2000s), but if I recall correctly, EA gained the exclusive rights for the NFL game and won that way.
It seemed to me that in the early 2000s, EA Sports (Madden and Live) had the bells and whistles when it came to features and their games were genuinely fun where 2K games were more serious (some people say "sim" but to each his own).

If you played 2K back then, it was as if you were on to a tv show that a lot of people didn't know about, and you tried to put your friends on. Then of course 2K dropped its prices to $19.99 for a time and more people gave it a shot and word started spreading.

I do think there is a YouTube video about this if you are interested.

[SmashMan]

To generate buzz, 2K sold NFL 2K5 brand new for $20.

NFL reportedly wasn’t happy about that and felt it devalued their brand when their other licensing partners were selling games for the standard industry price. They then took offers for the exclusive license and the partner with the most money and who the NFL already had a good working relationship with won the bidding.

EA had (unsuccessfully) lobbied for an exclusive license before that; and with the way the NFL has done business since there surely would’ve been an exclusive deal with someone at some point anyway, but 2K5’s price point was the main reason things happened the way they did when they did.

[Blzer]

[simbayless]

Right here👇👇👇
https://youtu.be/opVrXaunAQc

[NYJets]

Quote: Originally Posted by TheButter

How did EA win? It's not even close to 2k5's level. Not even Madden 08.

Madden was the name brand. Been around for years on all the most popular systems. 2k sports was new, and was on the Dreamcast which didn't sell too well so not a lot of people knew about them. When Dreamcast officially failed they moved the games to ps2 and xbox, but since Madden was the biggest name and was a pretty good product, 2K football didn't sell well at all. And then as others have said, 2K decided on a one time $20 price tag because they knew they had the better product and felt if they could just find a way to get people to try it they could turn things around. Then obviously Madden went exclusive.

[spankdatazz22]

Quote: Originally Posted by simbayless

Right here������ https://youtu.be/opVrXaunAQc

This is pretty accurate. It had nothing to do with the NFL feeling their brand was being devalued by the NFL2K5 price point, although that's the narrative Madden fans have tried to push over the years. The year the NFL went exclusive, within months the NCAA also went exclusive to EA. EA was trying to put 2K out of business.

EA was doing what Microsoft used to do before they were broken up by the government for antitrust practices - kill competition in areas their products weren't as strong in until their products could compete or surpass the competition.

Problem was, after the exclusivity announcements, the quality of Madden actually went backwards. Significantly backwards. Fortunately for EA, with no competition, people began to forget and eventually accepted Madden for what it was.

Funny it's been 15+years and you have a generation of gamers that are completely oblivious to how good Madden and NFL2K used to be, relative to the PS2/Xbox gaming generation.

[CM Hooe]

Quote: Originally Posted by spankdatazz22

EA was doing what Microsoft used to do before they were broken up by the government for antitrust practices - kill competition in areas their products weren't as strong in until their products could compete or surpass the competition.

I'm not really sure where to start with this thought, but let's make the obvious factual corrections:

- though the original ruling did call for Microsoft to be split into two companies, the final settlement of United States vs Microsoft Corporation neither called for nor resulted in in the fracture of the company. Microsoft was still allowed to continue developing first-party software in-house and was allowed to continue bundling with Windows its own software such as Internet Explorer after the settlement.

- one private corporation entering into an exclusive intellectual property licensing agreement with another - in this case, Electronic Arts with both the NFL and NFLPI - does not constitute the creation of monopoly conditions in the video game industry, nor does it constitute an anti-trust violation. The existence of any video game published by a company other than Electronic Arts - for example, Fortnite - is enough to demonstrate this. We can also more specifically point to any other non-EA football video game which has appeared for sale since the agreement was signed to demonstrate that a viable marketplace for football video games still exists: Blitz The League, All Pro Football 2K8, Backbreaker, Maximum Football, Axis Football, BCFX, etc.

A comparison between the Microsoft anti-trust litigation and the private business dealings between the NFL and Electronic Arts is misleading, inaccurate, and agenda-driven. It is more importantly irrelevant because the case facts of the Microsoft litigation are entirely different and have nothing to do with intellectual property rights.