Should NFL continue to give EA Sports exclusive rights?

[Trill Co$by]

Since 2004, the studio known as EA Sports has had the distinct edge of keeping the NFL (and I believe the NCAAF) exclusive rights for football games, that was originally to be five years long... only it was extended until 2012. Well, 2012 is over and, as of right now, nothing is entirely set in stone as a complete agreement... at least none that I've read.

So going with that assumption, should the NFL continue to let EA Sports hold exclusive rights OR should the NFL allow other gaming companies (2kSports comes to mind) take swing at producing games as well?

A side question: What do you think a company like 2kSports would do with the chance to produce an NFL game?

In my opinion, Madden has lost its luster over the years. It's had absolutely no competition at all for years, and really that's not a good thing. The WWE itself became a stale company once the WCW and ECW were gone. Sure the indies started to boom more as a result, but in the end, the WWE juggernaut was becoming annoying. It was the only big wrestling company around. In a sense, WWE had the rights to being the only big company until TNA (and in some ways, ROH) came about to give people an alternative.

Likewise, Madden has had the exclusive rights since 2004... that's 8 years alone that they've had rights to continue making NFL games, and in 8 years, the most improvement that we got was QB vision... which was eventually taken out. So, to me, giving the rights to multiple companies would not only boost NFL revenue, but it would make Madden as well as other franchises to pop up a chance to make a lot more money and in the end better games.

Personally, I think 2kSports would destroy EA Sports, and that's just with the NBA games to go off of.

 

[GI Cake]

Nope, no, no, hell no, no. The NFL and the NFLPA should not give exclusive rights to EA Sports. John Madden and his fat, gruby hands have slowly, slowly been spinning in circles with their Football games. Other than Madden's 09 and Madden 13, the Madden games have been sucking major asshole.

Know why Madden games have been slowly getting worse and worse? Because they can, because their is no present reason to improve. They're the only football game on the market, and because of that they will make millions of dollars no matter what they put in the game. EA Sports knows that, and they could put a Madden 14 sticker on a potato and they will stand to make a profit.

Fact of the matter is, competition is the reason why Video Games have evolved from Pong. If you make the better game, you hold a better reason why people should buy your product instead of the other game. You see it in First Person Shooters, RPG's, and fighting games. It is just confusing why the Sports market can stand to only have one company with exclusive rights like EA Sports to Football and 2K to the NBA. If the NFL and the NFLPA allow 2K to try there hand at a sports game along with EA Sports, and vice versa for EA Sports to the NBA, then we could see the quality of games improve drastically.

 

[Richard Blonoff]

The last 2k game was one of, if not the best NFL game ever. I'd like to see EA face some competition.

That said, if EA is willing to pay enough to buy those rights, then yeah the NFL should do it. In the end it is all about money, and EA has more of it.

The license EA had with the NCAA did recently expire, but outside of college football, which EA is the best at, there isn't a huge market for college sports games.

Oh and Pancock, EA can make NBA games, it is just that they suck. They were going to revamp the NBA Live series as NBA Elite, but when the demo released it was so buggy and received such negative reaction they scrapped it.