EA Needs To Ensure 2K's All-Pro Football Is 'Not Repeatable'

[Queasy]

Link

During the same Electronic Arts shareholder call which produced confirmation of The Godfather 2 and honest remarks on the Wii, EA's CEO John Riccitiello commented pointedly on the rivalry between the Peter Moore-helmed EA Sports and 2K Sports.

Specifically, when asked what competitors Electronic Arts was particularly looking to - a request Riccitiello echoed as which companies "keep them awake at night", one of the firms singled out by the EA exec was Take-Two.

Take-Two's 2K Sports division has just released All-Pro Football 2K8, the first football title from the company after Electronic Arts purchased exclusive rights to NFL teams and current players in 2005.

All-Pro Football 2K8 has attempted to make itself attractive, despite the lack of license, by negotiating many individual deals with former NFL stars such as Troy Aikman and Jerry Rice, and Riccitiello commented of the move:

"When you've got a competitor like Take-Two on the sports side, and they launch a football title using some of the industry legends, you want to make sure that ends up being a blip and is not repeatable, because we like to defend our franchises aggressively."

It's unclear how Riccitiello intends to stop further titles in 2K's series - the implication may be that he just intends EA Sports football titles to be so relatively successful, compared to All-Pro Football 2K8, that it will not be profitable for Take-Two to produce the game in subsequent years.

Lawsuits? Working out an exclusive deal with the NFLPA and the individual players? God forbid they work on just making their game better than the competition.

 

[lupi]

Originally posted by: Queasy

Lawsuits? Working out an exclusive deal with the NFLPA and the individual players? God forbid they work on just making their game better than the competition.

When your only competition becomes yourself, then that's an easy task

 

[herkulease]

they already have an exclusive deal with the NFLPA.

the only way to make all pro football not repeatable is to go after every individual former NFL star.

I'm sure 2k sports thought about it and ink the players to multiple year deals with the people they have in the game.

 

[waggy]

God i hate EA sports. now that they own the market the games suck.

 

[CKDragon]

I finally got around to playing the APF2K demo last night and unfortunately I wasn't terribly impressed. It's a shame because I'd love to honestly vote for competition with my $60 if it was actually worthwhile.

Actually, my biggest frustration was that it doesn't even have a control layout available on an option or help screen. This is the first downloadable demo I have played on the 360 so maybe that's par for the course, but that ticked me off that I wasn't able to access some of the more intricate in-game maneuvers because of an oversight on their part. I don't feel like I should have to hunt down a chart online.

 

[JackBurton]

Originally posted by: Queasy
Link

"When you've got a competitor like Take-Two on the sports side, and they launch a football title using some of the industry legends, you want to make sure that ends up being a blip and is not repeatable, because we like to defend our monopoly aggressively."

I went ahead and corrected that quote for you.

 

[Shortcut]

EA is an easy company to villify. Partly because they're sell a ton of games. But mainly cause it seems they're run by a motley crew of shiteating douchbags who ought to donkeypunch one another.