Football Monopoly

This will be the first year in about 6 years that I probably won't buy any new football games. Why? If you follow these things, you already know the answer-- EA, EA, EA. I've been a fan of Sega/Visual Concepts' NFL 2K football series since its original incarnation on the Sega Dreamcast. I've given the Madden series a try, but, time and again, I keep returning to the 2K games. Unfortunately, as hard as Sega tried, they just couldn't cut into the sales numbers of the unstoppable Madden games. So, last year, they took a drastic step-- they released ESPN NFL 2K5 for the PS2 and Xbox at an unbelievably low $19.99 price point-- undercutting the price of the new Madden game by thirty dollars. This was further compunded by the fact that most gaming magazines and websites said that 2K5 was brilliant gaming-- on par with or even better than Madden.

Although 2K5 didn't cut into Madden's sales last year, Sega did sell millions and millions of copies of 2K5, enticing many die hard Madden fans to try the series due to the low price point. Many of these fans became believers in the 2K series due to this. Things were looking up for Sega.

Then, EA, running scared, took care of things in one fell swoop. Earlier this year, they persuaded the NFL to sign an exclusive licensing deal, eliminating any possibility of competition. Goodbye, 2K series. Goodbye, NFL Blitz. Goodbye, NFL Gameday (although, those games sucked.) EA couldn't outdo Sega fair and square, so they settled on using the power of their vast capital creating a monopoly.

Now, EA has the exclusive rights to both the NFL and the NCAA, as well as ESPN. This gives them free reign to do whatever they want, a bad thing for gamers. As we all learned in economics class, competition is good. EA was forced to push their dev teams to make Madden as great as possible because they had the looming threat of other football video games. Now that EA has the exclusive license, they can ease off and offer not much more than a few roster upgrades and rehash the same tired engine year after year. And, not surprisingly, it seems like that's exactly what they're doing. Then newly released Madden 06 is getting some of the lowest ratings I've seen for the series. The consensus being-- the game is good, but it hasn't advanced. Wonder why.

So this will be the first year for me without a new football game. I used to buy EA's NCAA Football game each year (a game I feel is superior to Madden) as well as Sega's 2K game. However, this year if I want a football fix, I'll just turn back to my copy of ESPN NFL 2K5 and be left to wonder what advances and gameplay innovations may have made in a 2K6 version-- if EA hadn't created a football monopoly.