EA/NFL Extend NFL Exclusive License by One Year to 2013

[ryan36]

Quote: Originally Posted by TexasBorn1

Its dismissed because every other popular franchise sees increases with each new game. Street Fighter, COD, Halo, Gran Turismo, Forza, Gears of War, you name it. The NFL is huge here and their flagship title should see increases or it should at least be seeing consistency. Its not like the NFL audience is small, the mainstream crowd loves it

Can you point me to which of the games you cited is a yearly release?

[mestevo]

Quote: Originally Posted by LiquorLogic

COD and Halo seem to be doing just fine.

And music games are floundering, Madden must be amazing to be bucking that trend? Point is you're comparing 2 different gamers and calling them the same thing. Growth in one type of game doesn't mean they all should grow.

[ryan36]

Quote: Originally Posted by EddieV

You guys spend so much time defending EA...lol. Every great game sees its sales go up from one iteration to the next. Like COD, Halo, GT, etc. Madden's sales have been on the side since the exclusive license, no matter how much some of these guys would like to believe otherwise.

Again, which of these are a yearly release?

[kjcheezhead]

Quote:

Ryan 36

It's a different animal. Coke is so widely consumed that 35% of market share for Pepsi is still a feasible, profitable business model.

35% of 5 million is 1.75 million. Isn't that enough sales to be a profitable game? That's not including NFL fans sitting on the sidelines or ones that would purchase both NFL titles.



KJ, you're overestimating your importance here, as a dissatisfied gamer. Most NFL fans follow their team first, and buy a football game second. NOBODY is gonna turn their back on the Packers because Madden sucks. This decision will NEVER catch up to the NFL outside of the video game world. NEVER. It's an isolated niche, man. Yes, many football fans don't enjoy Madden. But not enough to make so much as a RIPPLE in anything the NFL cares about.

As a hardcore gamer and fan, yes the NFL has me hooked. At some point tho people make the jump from a casual fan to hardcare fan that spends hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on NFL products. The fans that don't enjoy madden and turn to other sports or COD don't always make that jump to hardcore fan.

Business moves like this can catch up to the NFL eventually. Maybe not overnight, but eventually. MLB was America's pastime once upon a time and the NFL was the one that couldn't touch it.

[LiquorLogic]

Quote: Originally Posted by rgiles36

So who's going to capture the mainstream NFL-videogame appeal then? That's the benefit of the license: they can't lose. Not only b/c of the brand that's built with the name, Madden, but b/c no one can tap into the NFL videogame market. I'm unsure why the effect of the economy is dismissed by people on this board. I'm sure Halo & COD did their damage. But those games fall under a more broad genre, no?

What will happen is that EA will no longer want to pay for, or be able to pay for, the expensive exclusive license, and the NFL( more than likely) will just go back to letting multiple publishers produce a game to make up the difference.

The economy effect is dismissed because Halo and COD are doing their damage. The economy would effect every game no matter how broad the genre; they, Halo and COD, are part of the same industry as Madden. Don't you think that if Halo and COD could somehow be unaffected by the economy, then the only NFL game in town, a game that has been the top dog in football video games for two decades, would also be unaffected by the economy ? This all based on the assumption that the economy is the problem; in my opinion, it isn't.

Quote: Originally Posted by mestevo

And music games are floundering, Madden must be amazing to be bucking that trend? Point is you're comparing 2 different gamers and calling them the same thing. Growth in one type of game doesn't mean they all should grow.

So it's a coincidence that Madden sales started to decline when EA got the exclusive license, and have continued to decline ever since then ?

Music games are a trend.

[Rocky]

[mestevo]

Quote: Originally Posted by LiquorLogic

What will happen is that EA will no longer want to pay for, or be able to pay for, the expensive exclusive license, and the NFL( more than likely) will just go back to letting multiple publishers produce a game to make up the difference. The economy effect is dismissed because Halo and COD are doing their damage. The economy would effect every game no matter how broad the genre; they, Halo and COD, are part of the same industry as Madden. Don't you think that if Halo and COD could somehow be unaffected by the economy, then the only NFL game in town, a game that has been the top dog in football video games for two decades, would also be unaffected by the economy ? This all based on the assumption that the economy is the problem; in my opinion, it isn't.

It's not the economy, its the market.

[LiquorLogic]

Quote: Originally Posted by ryan36

Again, which of these are a yearly release?

Isn't COD a yearly release ?

[Giants4Natic]

Quote: Originally Posted by LiquorLogic

Isn't COD a yearly release ?

COD did not release a game every year before the last couple of years and they started because they saw the miliions of dollars being made.

Let's be honest the changes to COD on a yearly basis are not what you expect when the company is making that kind of money but it sells and the bottom line is money

But you also get many people bashing COD just like they do with Madden

[TexasBorn1]

Quote: Originally Posted by ryan36

Can you point me to which of the games you cited is a yearly release?

COD has a yearly release and is criticized for not making huge strides, yet it breaks records every year

Rock Band is getting bigger and bigger

Being a yearly release wasn't a problem for Madden in the past. People gobbled it up like Call of Duty and it got bigger and bigger every single year. Why does being a yearly release matter now? They have exclusive rights to what people regard as the most popular sport in the country and that people say all the other sports can't hold a candle too, yet they see a sales drop. Yeah, you will say the % is insignificant, but it exists. They could be making more money, but a segment of people who used to happily buy their product no longer do so. And again let me state I have absolutely no problem with Madden. I am just pointing out that they are losing out on profit when they are in a very advantageous situation