Even fun comes with a price…
Sports videogame junkies I am quite sure by now that you have heard the news that Electronic Arts and ESPN have agreed to 15-year partnership giving EA access to ESPN’s broadcast, print, and online content. Also ESPN is throwing in their stable of personalities for all of its sports titles.
EA has been dominating the sports videogame market for more than a decade led by its franchise game Madden Football. Ironically EA’s main competitor has been ESPN sporting titles, which were produced by Sega Sammy Holdings and Take-Two Interactive Software Inc.
Earlier this year ESPN decided to drop the prices on all their videogames to $20. EA responded by lowering the prices of their games to $29.95 but ony after ESPN NFL 2K5 market share increased to nearly 40%. EA also recently signed an exclusive licensing deal with the NFL and the NFL Players Association removing any competition from one of the gaming industry’s most popular genres.
Is EA becoming the Microsoft of the videogame industry or was ESPN using Take Two / Sega as bait to sign a deal with EA? All in all we the consumer suffer the most, with no legitimate competition in sight will EA sporting titles continue to be innovative? Seriously one of the main reasons that sports videogames have become so popular and good was that there was plenty of competition to go around. Each separate publisher produced a game that appealed to a specific user. Some gamers were only concern with playing, others wanted added features such as dynasty and franchise modes and some gamers wanted the ability to create their own playbooks etc…
Now that option is all but eliminated, less competition less options for the consumer. Also the shrinking market will make it harder for new developers to come along with new ideas leading to a redundancy of options and features.
Business is business but monopolies only hurt us the consumer.
EA has been dominating the sports videogame market for more than a decade led by its franchise game Madden Football. Ironically EA’s main competitor has been ESPN sporting titles, which were produced by Sega Sammy Holdings and Take-Two Interactive Software Inc.
Earlier this year ESPN decided to drop the prices on all their videogames to $20. EA responded by lowering the prices of their games to $29.95 but ony after ESPN NFL 2K5 market share increased to nearly 40%. EA also recently signed an exclusive licensing deal with the NFL and the NFL Players Association removing any competition from one of the gaming industry’s most popular genres.
Is EA becoming the Microsoft of the videogame industry or was ESPN using Take Two / Sega as bait to sign a deal with EA? All in all we the consumer suffer the most, with no legitimate competition in sight will EA sporting titles continue to be innovative? Seriously one of the main reasons that sports videogames have become so popular and good was that there was plenty of competition to go around. Each separate publisher produced a game that appealed to a specific user. Some gamers were only concern with playing, others wanted added features such as dynasty and franchise modes and some gamers wanted the ability to create their own playbooks etc…
Now that option is all but eliminated, less competition less options for the consumer. Also the shrinking market will make it harder for new developers to come along with new ideas leading to a redundancy of options and features.
Business is business but monopolies only hurt us the consumer.
Comments