EA Sports…It’s in the game…again. forever. crap.
Do you love John Madden Football 2008? I sure hope so.
Today, Electronic Arts (EA) announced that its EXCLUSIVE licensing agreements with the NFL and the NFL PLAYERS to develop and distribute football video games have been extended. The extensions, which were negotiated separately are extensions of the original December 2004 agreement, and will carry EA’s exclusive licensing into February 2013. From EA,
This is all about bringing authenticity and realism to NFL videogames ,” said 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.”
“This is great news and it means we can continue to produce the best interactive experience possible. It also allows NFL PLAYERS, the NFL and EA to continue to build our brands,” said Gene Upshaw, Chairman of NFL PLAYERS and Executive Director of the National Football League Players Association. “We offer a very unique experience.”
Alrighty…Five more years of Madden football. I’m not going to lie, I purchase the game every single year, and would be 
willing to put my skills up against anyone else’s, but seriously…another exclusive deal? I understand that the NFL has a great commodity, and deals such as these enable the NFL to take money in hand over fist (Madden 2008 generated over 2 billion dollars in retail sales), but the NFL clearly doesn’t care a whole lot about the people buying the product. EA’s video game monopoly allows them to make 1 change to Madden, update the rosters, and sell essentially the same product for 60-70 dollars each year. Now, back before 2004, when other football games could use NFL Players (ahem, the NFL 2K series, for example) EA was forced to actually try and make a decent product at a decent price. Honestly, it is more than likely that EA went after this exclusive deal back in 2004 because they were worried about ESPN and other series cutting into their market share (this was back when the ESPN game was selling for $20 dollars to EA’s $40 dollar game). Those were the days. Until 2013, looks like all we have to look forward to is updated rosters, and…well, yeah, just updated rosters. E-A-Sports. It’s in the Game, and the one you have now is going to look pretty darn familiar in 2012.
Sure, I’m being a little harsh towards EA sports, and yes, Madden is a great game…I just wish consumers had a choice.
EA: Extends Interactive Video game agreements with NFL & NFL Players
This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 12th, 2008 at 10:20 pm and is filed under Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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I haven’t studied their marketing/spending very much, but I do know this. Just before Christmas I saw Under Armour ads on just about EVERY popular sports website. They were literally EVERYWHERE. It will be interesting to see if that was a one-time campaign or part of a larger strategy and if it is successful.
Yeah…it will be interesting to see what kind of numbers they have 1st quarter of 2009. Although I still expect them to be down, due to the recession, maybe the marketing campaign will be able to temper the storm a bit.
It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense.