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Businesses Entertainment Games

Midway Fine with NFL Split 28

Posted by Zonk from the when-you've-got-lemons dept.
JoeyPea writes "As seen on the front page of The Futon Critic and mentioned in this IGN article, Midway Games is apparently fine with EA's exclusive rights contract with the NFL. The complaints on the last Blitz were that there wasn't enough unecessary roughness that the franchise was previously known for. But now it looks like there won't be any pansy hits because of the NFL's licensing rules. The Blitz: Playmakers write-up mentions drug use and off-the-field habits, so perhaps you can expect more realism from Midway without the NFL's license."
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Midway Fine with NFL Split More

Midway Fine with NFL Split

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  • We didn't have much/anything to lose, so we really don't care.

    Cute.

    Meanwhile Visual Conepts/Take Two gets royally screwed. They had the superior product, but because they didn't bid the highest (if they got to bid at all) on the licensing rights, we'll either be stuck with a generic ESPN Football 2K6, or nothing at all. :(

    I don't have the link handy, but if you're bothing to read this story, please sign the petition to the NFL to rethink this (if that's even possible).

    • Re:Translation: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Jane_the_Great ( 778338 )
      The NFL won't back out of this agreement. It's a clear cut case of the NFL choosing to make a business move and screw the fans - regardless of the spin Upshaw tries to put on it.

      And the average fan isn't going to raise a stink about it [boycotts of NFL products], they'll just plop down their cash for Madden and be on with it. I've always liked the Madden series better but this gives me serious pause to consider whether I will be buying any football game next year.

      It was also hinted that EA might be in negot

      • Re:Translation: (Score:3, Informative)

        by McKinney83 ( 687821 )
        MVP worse than ESPN Baseball?

        Xbox: MVP Baseball 2004| Number of Reviews:69 Avg: 87.7%
        ESPN Major League Baseball| Number of Reviews: 57 Avg: 77.2%


        PS2:
        MVP Baseball 2004| Number of Reviews:68 Avg: 88.2%
        ESPN Major League Baseball| Number of Reviews: 46 Avg: 77.6%

        MVP's Avg : 87.95%
        ESPN's Avg: 77.4%


        This info is from gamerankings.com
      • "MVP Baseball is so bad, especially in comparison to Sega's much superior offering."
        Most folks say the same thing about Madden and NBA live being so bad compared to Sega's games.
  • This paradigm is cheap and trashy. Who cares if "Joe Player" beats his wife and gets thrown in jail? I would care if Warren Moon did. This is basically a ploy to hold the NFL hostage for their error in judgement. Even if the players don't have real names and the teams are bunk we know what it signifies. That there is something wrong with the NFL. It is a good move and maybe force the NFL to rethink its terrible sell-out we are all going to suffer for. This year Madden had to up the bar because someon
    • This year Madden had to up the bar because someone else came up with a new product comperable and sold it for $20. With no competition to rattle the sword expect the consumer to be the one who ends up suffering.

      Madden 2005 was already in the testing phase when Take Two announced the $20 price point. So to infer that Madden 2005 is excellent because of that is probably incorrect.

      ESPN 2k4 was fourth in sales last year behind Madden, NCAA 2004 and NFL Street insofar as sales of football games goes. I th
  • Just make a City of Heroes [cityofheroes.com] style football game where users can make their own teams, design their own players, logos, etc, and have a txt import function for player names & stats.
    • I highly doubt many people would want to create an entire season with realistic stats.
      • Deliver the game with generic logos and names and such, and give the players random names but ratings based upon the real players (Quarterback Michael Smith of the Atlanta ChickenHawks has an overall rating of 95). Make everything editable and the really anal fans can rename the players to what they really are.

        EA Sports does this (with players, not with the team names) in it's college football game.

      • But then they would put it online...
    • The idea of an MMO football game was one of the things that I thought would come about when I saw the first story about EA licensing on Slashdot, I think that this would be a really great idea if implemented well.
      People could actually create a player and give that player certain physical characteristics, then take that character from high school to college and then try to go pro.
      Stats at creation time could be things like height, weight, sex, and BMI. Players would have to trade off weight for strength and
  • So, Playmakers, the ESPN show featuring what amounted to video game simulation for its game scenes, and was canceled after pressure from an annoyed NFL, is now returning as a video game. The new game is being touted for its realism, as it will be based on a TV show that was produced with another video game.

    Oookay -- I have more patience now with the people complaining that the Doom movie will be unrealistic because it won't feature an invasion of Mars by the creatures of Hell.

  • You don't need to put a gun to my head to say that Sega is a better company than EA. But let's make it clear: the Player's League took a bid from Sega and Take Two just as they did from EA. The difference is that EA bid more. If they had the cash, Sega would have gladly cornered EA out of the market if they could, so this is not exactly like a mom and pop shop v. Walmart. This is a large corporation v. a larger corporation. I like Sega - love Sega - but this is the way the game is played.
    • Considering Sega was THE company for sports games back in the Genesis days and they didn't try to take out EA, your argument doesn't hold much water. This isn't a large corp vs large corp argument. Sega isn't the heavyweight it used to be, this is more of a formerly large corp vs THE corp.
  • Well, not the original, it was a EA game if I remember correctly, but I would love to see a similar football game for the current systems... or a parody of the NFL as mentioned for that matter. The standard sports games have become pretty stale in my opinion so I would love some variation that just made fun of football stereotypes, had mutant player and let you design your own players! Go for it Sega/ESPN!
  • Didn't the Madden franchise itself have to do without an NFL license in the past? Look where it is now.
    • That's the worst thing you can say. Last time Madden didn't have real numbers and teams was like 1991. There was virtually zero competition in the industry at the time.

      • madden 64 from 1997 didn't:

        Football fanatics, however, will be very disappointed to know that Madden 64 doesn't feature the full NFL license, so real team names, team colors and team stadiums are not present. This means that you could be stuck playing the Chicago Bulldozers instead of the mighty Bears -- and they might be purple. Acclaim grabbed all the NFL licensing rights for its NFL QB Club '98 early and EA was left playing catch up. However, EA did manage to get ahold of the NFLPA (NFL Players Assoc

  • so perhaps you can expect more realism from Midway without the NFL's license.

    That's too bad. I always liked the NFL Blitz series because of the cartoon-ish gameplay and simplified playbooks. It's not meant to be a realistic (American) football simulation. Same with the NBA Jams (I think that was the name) series of basketball games. If I wanted realism I would have played Madden or some other EA sports series. Both are good games, they just weren't trying to accomplish the same thing.

  • Midway put out the press release [netscape.com] today, giving some official details about the game.


    The Blitz announcement aligns perfectly to poo-poo on EA's big ol' NFL contract hoopla, and it sounds more interesting than merely another "watered down NFL sanctioned football games". Ouch!

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