Part 1 Can Be Found Here
This is a continuation of my article about the evil history of EA and Madden.
Chapter Three: December 13, 2004
===========================
Call it a smart business move, call it necessary, call it whatever you want, it was the closest thing to a monopoly you could possibly get without truly calling it a monopoly. While EA has done stuff like this in the past, with 2002’s purchasing of Nascar rights being the best example, it was not as impactful as this day. EA claims NFL was selling their licensing to the highest bidder, while the gamers themselves believe EA was approaching them to do this. Otherwise, it would be pure coincidence that a mere few months after the 2K series really took a good shot a Madden that EA signs an exclusive deal allowing them and only them to make NFL video games. The news of this buyout was at first a heavy buzz of rumors that was constantly being denied.
Is the NFL capable of allowing such a near-monopoly? Of course, it’s known as the No Fun League to investors and old-schoolers, and is known for quite drastic decisions to protect and maintain its image and top-of-the-mountain outlook. They have exclusive deals with all types of companies all over the place. Ever notice how ESPN can’t show NFL highlights on their website? You can thank the restrictive nonsense of the NFL for that. They even tried trademarking “Who Dat” for crying out loud. But those that followed the rivalry best truly believe that EA sought this deal, and for many years before it happened. Using their superior income and superior relationship with the NFL, the deal became a reality. If there is a greedy bunch of people that would allow such killing of competition, it would be the evil higher-ups of the NFL.
December 13, 2004, just a month after Madden 2005 finally lowered its price to consumers (but still being the same price as ESPN 2K5), EA uses their pocketbooks to defeat the competition, by literally eliminating them. Not only does EA gain access to all sorts of NFL history and all the NFL licensing goodness, but the competitors are barred from doing anything NFL-like. For the next five years, Madden will be your first choice, because it will be your only choice. No more Gameday, no more Fever, no more Quarterback Club, and no NFL Blitz. Those bastardos eliminated the best in arcade football.
Ed Nebb back in 2004 said it best:
“We believe that the decisions of the National Football League and Players Inc. to grant an exclusive license for videogames do a tremendous disservice to the consumers and sports fans whose funds ultimately support the NFL, by limiting their choices, curbing creativity and almost certainly leading to higher game prices.”
Sega will never admit it, but the company took a nasty, nasty blow with this news. Sega ‘s used-to-be-reliable-but-suddenly-a-joke Sonic franchise was a disaster, the only thing making them very good money were the sports games, especially the football ones. Now, not only can they not make NFL games, but they get to see EA potentially spike the prices and/or half-ass the production values since they are up against nobody. Furthermore, they have no reason to dip any prices throughout the entirety of the contract. Why the NFL allows this makes no sense, since you are better off earning money from multiple sources rather than one. And what if Madden loses its value? Then you are stuck earning money just from them. To this day, the legality of this move is being debated in court, especially after EA updated the license a few years ago.
So with no challenger, what happens to the quality of Madden games from here on out?
Chapter Four: It All Falls Down
=========================
Good news for EA after the release of Madden NFL 06: PS2’s sales were the third best in the history of the franchise. The bad news: the XBox 360 version was a disaster, the reviews were lower across the board for critics and gamers alike, the sales were definitely low, and the inevitable cries of foul have begun to run amok. The fears of NFL gaming fans everywhere were being met: EA took a giant step backwards in the latest installment now that the license is just theirs for the taking. While Visual Concepts would try to compete with All-Football Pro, their sales were laughably low. Without the NFL, it will never become a success no matter how good it is.
Then there were the other business moves to further alter the state of sports gaming. Take-Two Interactive in a sign of obvious revenge got their hands on the MLB license, but allows for them and the console companies to make MLB games. But, EA is barred from making MLB video games. In a sense of pure irony, EA was actually one of the better companies for making baseball video games. Not long after that, EA counteracts by signing an exclusive deal with ESPN, eliminating any chance of the MLB 2K series to use ESPN like they did with the NFL.
Madden 07 would become an even bigger disaster, with slower sales, weaker reviews, and obvious declining quality. The version with the best reviews was actually the Nintendo Wii installment, which nobody bought (Nintendo sports games never sell, but I’ll save that for another article). The reputation amongst gamers has gone down the crapper, but could it be that non-casuals are noticing the decline as well? Madden 2008 would be the deciding factor.
EA Sports will never admit this, but the reputation of this franchise was going downhill, and fast. Madden 2008 for the PS2 sold less than its 2003 counterpart, even though the PS2 had over 120 million sales by 08. The reviews were still much weaker than they used to be. Sony no longer had the superior version of Madden like the olden days, the XBox 360 had the top version in the business, but its sales were still lagging. If you were to combine the sales of the XBox 360 and PS2 Madden 2008 games, they still don’t measure up to the sales of Madden 2004 for the PS2. Madden 2008 for the Playstation 3 isn’t even among the 15 best-selling Maddens in gaming history, with multiple PSX versions outselling it.
The game engines were the same in Madden year after year, the drastic changes that used to occur don’t occur anymore. The problems in each edition were beginning to build up and every year they try to fix some of the issues, they create some more. The presentation of Madden just isn’t that great anymore, it never hypes you up for some football like the 2K and much earlier editions of Madden did. While it took a while for the backlash towards Madden to begin, it was surely happening. The protests were definitely beginning to mount, you can see it on the sales, the Youtube videos, and the scathing articles posted from upset gamers around the internet.
Madden 2009’s sales were eerily similar to the 2008 edition (in the XBox 360 installments), and so were the reviews. Nothing changed, nothing improved, and the franchise has hit a stalemate. You would think with no competition and the NFL actually improving in popularity, this would help Madden sales, right? EA would renew their license for the next five years prior to the release of Madden 2009, which turned out to become another disappointment.
My prediction as well as the predictions of many others came ringing true: EA scaled back, stop trying, and didn’t strive to craft that ultimate football experience. They didn’t make the game deeper, they didn’t improve the animations, the presentation was still bland (even with ESPN on the side), and there was no reason to not miss the 2K franchise of the earlier part of the decade. The gaming industry was on a steady increase of quality games, quality moments, and top-notch competition. EA Sports on the other hand, was going the other way.
Chapter Five: Bottom Line
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Madden still sucks. The 2010 edition received slightly higher sales, but the reviews were still much lower than they used to be before the NFL license was purchased. And now we bring ourselves to Madden 2011, which has gotten better reviews from critics, but pitiful reviews from the gamers. Madden 2011 switched gears and tried becoming more casual-friendly. With Nintendo Wii changing the gaming world forever, EA Sports tried following the same trend of making their games more accessible to the mainstream crowd. In another cruel move to the epic purist fans of football video games, Madden has become a watered-down production of what it used to be. And we must continue suffering from this for the next couple of years, unless that darn license becomes renewed yet again. With the stock of EA remaining quite high, I don’t see that relationship ending anytime soon.
I tell you this story, not only because it is a sad tale of a great gaming franchise dying because of the cruelty of Big Business, but because it is a story that without me you’ll probably never ever hear again. With ESPN and NFL joining forces with EA, and with EA being quite a vicious company at the face of criticism, none of the big names in game publishing would dare defy and protest the status of football gaming. EA has been known to edit Wikipedia to erase past names and erase its reputation as an evil company. ESPN had its own “History of Madden” article but reduced the December 13, 2004 event into a very small blurb that was not expanded upon. For some odd reason, nobody important dares step up to the plate and announce that what EA Sports is doing is wrong by all means.
We all must band together and cease the purchasing of these Madden games. We must allow for the licensing to discontinue, and show the NFL that competition in the gaming world is the much better alternative rather than give all of the rights to only one company. I will never touch a Madden product after witnessing the disaster that I witnessed in my Nintendo Wii.
We gamers deserve better.
Bring on NFL on Fox 2K14!
Part Six: Additional Material
========================
If you are interested in more about this Madden vs. 2K5 debate, I recommend these videos:
ESPN NFL 2K5 Deep Video Presentation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCW-Z4FCJjA
vs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEC-eDm1gC0&feature=related
ESPN NFL 2K5 vs. Future Madden Editions
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n27G-7-N6Jk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvdKTuXZeh0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQI6CjGTtoY&feature=related
ESPN NFL 2K5 Gameplay:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2xr8jX2Lg0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7bFeL7GWlo
Best-Selling Madden Games Worldwide (in millions):
1
Madden NFL 2005 (PS2)
EA Sports
4.46
2
Madden NFL 2004 (PS2)
EA Sports
4.03
3
Madden NFL 06 (PS2)
EA Sports
3.92
4
Madden NFL 07 (PS2)
EA Sports
3.65
5
Madden NFL 2003 (PS2)
Electronic Arts
3.28
6
Madden NFL 10 (X360)
EA Sports
2.55
7
Madden NFL 08 (X360)
Electronic Arts
2.42
8
Madden NFL 09 (X360)
EA Sports
2.42
9
Madden NFL 2002 (PS2)
EA Sports
2.38
10
Madden NFL 08 (PS2)
Electronic Arts
2.20
11
Madden NFL 10 (PS3)
EA Sports
2.02
12
Madden NFL 07 (X360)
EA Sports
1.91
13
Madden NFL 09 (PS3)
EA Sports
1.71
14
Madden NFL 06 (XB)
EA Sports
1.57
15
Madden NFL 99 (PS)
Electronic Arts
1.54
Average Scores
(according to Gamestats)
PS2/PS3 (PS2 in parenthesis in the later years)
========================
Madden 2004:
Press: 9.0
Gamers: 8.7
ESPN Football
Press: 9.0
Gamers: 9.0
=================
Madden 2005:
Press: 8.9
Gamers: 8.4
ESPN NFL 2K5
Press: 9.0
Gamers: 9.0
================
Madden 2006:
Press: 8.7
Gamers: 8.9
Madden 2007:
Press: 7.9 (8.3)
Gamers: 7.0 (8.3)
Madden 2008:
Press: 8.3 (7.7)
Gamers: 7.6 (8.3)
Madden 2009:
Press: 8.6 (7.0)
Gamers: 8.0 (7.3)
Madden 2010:
Press: 8.4 (8.0)
Gamers: 8.4 (7.5)
Madden 2011:
Press: 9.0
Gamers: 6.7
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wii:
Madden 2007
Press: 7.9
Gamers: 8.4
Madden 2008
Press: 7.4
Gamers: 7.9
Madden 2009
Press: 8.0
Gamers: 7.5
Madden 2010
Press: 7.5
Gamers: 6.9
Madden 2011:
Press: 8.0
Gamers: 7.8
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gamecube
Madden 2004
Press: 9.2
Gamer: 9.0
Madden 2005
Press: 9.0
Gamer: 9.0
Madden 2006:
Press: 8.5
Gamer: 8.7
Madden 2007:
Press: 8.0
Gamer: 7.8
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
XBox 360
Madden 2006
Press: 7.2
Gamer 7.5
Madden 2007
Press: 8.2
Gamer: 7.6
Madden 2008
Press: 8.5
Gamer: 8.1
Madden 2009
Press: 8.4
Gamer: 8.2
Madden 2010
Press: 8.5
Gamers: 8.3
Madden 2011
Press: 9.0
Gamers: 5.9
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Sources:
vgcharts.org
IGN.com
wikipedia.org
gamestats.com
gamespot.com
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