EA to Employees: "Sorry, we cant pay you..." -- The EA Discussion Thre

punqsux

punqsux

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"...we bought too many licenses."

Jan 27th update: EA Lays off Employees
http://www.joystiq.com/entry/1234000003029221

with about 10 topics floating around, i figured we could put all EA news and debate in one thread.

lets get a few guidelines going here before we get started.

most people who dislike EA for their business practices...
-can admit madden is a good game
-never said they make bad business decisions
-base much of their dislike on how these practices hurt the consumer
-understand that the NFL, ESPN, ect. also signed these contracts, and are equally, if not more, to blame.
-know one person boycotting wont bring EA to their knees, but believe in the overall power of the consumer.
i added this so people dont put words in others mouths.

please dont post the following in here...
-EA SUCKS!!1
-yes i hate ea too for doing whats best for business. /sarcasm
-MADDEN OWNS 2K5!! (or vice versa)
-SEGA should make mutant leauge football 2!! (EA owns Mutant Leauge...)
these have been said more than enough times, lets stop beating that dead horse.

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HEADLINES
Jan 18th 2005 - MLB and NBA To Go Exclusive?
http://sports.ign.com/articles/580/580468p1.html

Jan 17th 2005 - EA to take on film and TV giants
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4180453.stm

Jan 17th 2004 - EA Signs 15 Year Exclusive Deal With ESPN
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/01/17/news_6116473.html

Jan 10th 2005 - EA Gets Exclusive Rights to AFL
http://ps2.gamespy.com/playstation-2/afl-2006/578631p1.html?fromint=1

Jan 6th 2005 - Infogrames Will Help Ubisoft Fight EA Takeover
http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=292683

Jan 4th 2005 - EA Denies Bidding on NBA Exclusive Contract
http://www.neoseeker.com/news/story/4190/

Dec 23rd 2004 - Take-Two Buying Visual Concepts?
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/12/23/news_6115592.html

Dec 21st 2004 - Rumors Arise About EA Bid Being Rejected for NBA Exclusivity
http://www.totalvideogames.com/pages/articles/index.php?article_id=6970

Dec 20th 2004 - EA Buys 19.9% of Ubisoft Shares
http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/574/574446p1.html

Dec 13th 2004 - EA Signs NFL 5 Year Exclusive Deal
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/12/13/news_6114977.html

Nov. 10th 2004 - EA Employee Conditions are made public
http://www.livejournal.com/users/ea_spouse/
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ok lets get this going, keep it clean and intelligent!
 
you could also add the link to that interview saying how ea wanted to get bigger than disney, and how playing as robbie williams would be kick ass and all that. its in a thread around here somewhere
 
[quote name='gstvtec2']what does this mean for the new espn baseball?????????[/quote]

mlb 2k5? i believe it will launch as planned.
 
Thanks mods. I don't understand why anyone would get worked up over this. The sky is not falling. Football video games should amount to a very small amount of the enjoyment you can get out of your PS2, Xbox, or Gamecube. Move onto something else. Judging by their silence, I'm guessing Sega has.
 
Sad day to see the NFL, and now possibly the MLB and NBA get sold off to the highest bidder. We all lose because there will be less choice, and Billy won't know why his fav. game (Insert Pro Sports League 200* here) won't be under the Christmas tree this year.
 
Billy won't know why his fav. game (Insert Pro Sports League 200* here) won't be under the Christmas tree this year.
Click to expand...

LOL, that or Billy will be thrilled that his parents actually bought him Madden this year instead of cheapo ESPN 2K6 *ducks under table*
 
At least some control has been taken for this. I'd like to think you're right, Punq, in the outlines you gave of what most of those speaking out against EA feel. I believe the more rational ones feel that way, but I have seen many who don't quite seem to get it. That's when things get silly. Even I realize this may not be best for the consumer.

Also, people, don't forget that the NFL and ESPN are just as much to blame for allowing exclusivity on their licenses. If you're going to be mad at EA merely for the rights they've recently acquired in the sports game genre, be equally mad at these groups (again, every right to do so, but I allow it MAY not be best for the consumer...maybe). It's funny how EA did this with NASCAR a year or two ago, and little fuss was made.
 
It's funny how EA did this with NASCAR a year or two ago, and little fuss was made.
Click to expand...

Not to rock the boat... but despite what Fox News tells people, NASCAR is not a sport and NASCAR drivers are not athletes. Seriously, it's a series of left turns. What is physically demanding about a sport, nay, activity in which you sit down in a car, put your foot on the gas, and occasionally turn your steering wheel? People train for it... sure. People train to be hair stylists, but you don't call Laura Bush's hairdresser the greatest athelete alive today.
 
[quote name='Survivor Charlie']
It's funny how EA did this with NASCAR a year or two ago, and little fuss was made.
Click to expand...

Not to rock the boat... but despite what Fox News tells people, NASCAR is not a sport and NASCAR drivers are not athletes. Seriously, it's a series of left turns. What is physically demanding about a sport, nay, activity in which you sit down in a car, put your foot on the gas, and occasionally turn your steering wheel? People train for it... sure. People train to be hair stylists, but you don't call Laura Bush's hairdresser the greatest athelete alive today.[/quote]

Harsh, but I agree to a certain degree. But, the writing was on the wall, and most ignored it. Not the first time or last time that it will happen.
 
[quote name='Survivor Charlie']Football video games should amount to a very small amount of the enjoyment you can get out of your PS2, Xbox, or Gamecube. [/quote]

while true, sports are easily the most mainstream games on the market. (save for halo, gta, ect.) and alot of companies (sega, midway) relied on the revenue brought in by this cash cow. Im not saying this will be their demise, however they may need a year or two to recover from this (should mlb and nba go exclusive)

and im willing the bet that if EA wanted to, right now, they could buy the entire NHL ^^
 
on the nascar note:

they may not be "running with a ball" athletes, but they are highly skilled drivers with alot of endurance.

you can debate all you want, but you cant deny that.
 
[quote name='punqsux']on the nascar note:

they may not be "running with a ball" athletes, but they are highly skilled drivers with alot of endurance.

you can debate all you want, but you cant deny that.[/quote]

To quote George Carlin: A bunch of rednecks going around in a circle doesn't impress me. And soccer isn't a sport because there's dots on the ball. My rules. I make them up.
 
[quote name='epobirs'][quote name='punqsux']on the nascar note:

they may not be "running with a ball" athletes, but they are highly skilled drivers with alot of endurance.

you can debate all you want, but you cant deny that.[/quote]

To quote George Carlin: A bunch of rednecks going around in a circle doesn't impress me. And soccer isn't a sport because there's dots on the ball. My rules. I make them up.[/quote]

fair enough. i dont like nascar i was just stating my views on it, since the topic was brought up.
 
To demonstrate how exclusive licensing kills off sports competition, Konami has decided to offer their Winning Eleven soccer franchise to US Xbox gamers this year. Those fools. Don't they know EA will send it ninja IP lawyers over to slay them in their beds?
 
[quote name='epobirs']To demonstrate how exclusive licensing kills off sports competition, Konami has decided to offer their Winning Eleven soccer franchise to US Xbox gamers this year. Those fools. Don't they know EA will send it ninja IP lawyers over to slay them in their beds?[/quote]

im not sure if that was a joke or not, but you cant compare an exclusive license to fifa to an exclusive license to the nfl in america. American sports fans usually dont care at all about soccer, and why shuold they? soccer was never properly marketed to the united states, and people oft dont look past the cleverly marketed.
 
[quote name='Survivor Charlie']Thanks mods. I don't understand why anyone would get worked up over this. The sky is not falling. Football video games should amount to a very small amount of the enjoyment you can get out of your PS2, Xbox, or Gamecube. Move onto something else. Judging by their silence, I'm guessing Sega has.[/quote]

Electronic Arts, according to pre-holiday sales, controls 20% of the market. This means that one out of every five games sold is an EA game.

I find their business moves to be predatory (while many will argue that such activity is simply the nature of business), and I don't think that EA is culpable just because of their sports exclusivity. They have cannibalized countless development studios (others know far more about this than I do) as well.

I don't want to argue about game quality, because I don't consider that to be the issue.

I don't want EA to dominate the software market the way they are, just like I don't want only one console to exist for any given iteration of gaming.

Electronic Arts has moved beyond the business model of "make great games and the customers will flock to you." Acquisitions, contracts, negotiations, and other boardroom business dealings are becoming the norm for them; you soon won't be buying their games because they are good, but because you have no other choice. If you want a new NFL game next year, you must buy EA. This is just the start of more and more deals.

While I want to think Take-Two is being defensive and reactive in their MLB attempt (if it's true), I still abhor the concept of exclusivity.

Tell and X-Box owner who loves WWE wrestling that exclusivity is good. Yech!

myke.
...more later. kanji quiz now.

myke.
 
[quote name='Survivor Charlie']
Billy won't know why his fav. game (Insert Pro Sports League 200* here) won't be under the Christmas tree this year.
Click to expand...

LOL, that or Billy will be thrilled that his parents actually bought him Madden this year instead of cheapo ESPN 2K6 *ducks under table*[/quote]


Billy probably doesn't understand that ESPN 2K5 was the best sports game every released . . . although Madden is OK, so maybe Billy will be appeased with that. Too bad, though, because with the money that Mommy and Daddy spent on a marginally good football game, Billy could have had excellent titles from football, basketball AND hockey under the tree.
 
The real issue behind all these takeovers is the fact that most of this information will not reach the casual buyers/sports game buyers.

People did not reilize that they were getting ripped off by EASports all these years with tiny updates in sports titles, and instantly dismissed ESPN as a cheapo crap liscence.

People will not reilize that ESPN did not make any more NFL games because they can't, but rather they will make their own opinions, like concluding that ESPN couldn't afford to make anymore "cheapo crap" sports games because EA PWNED THEM.

EA will not publicly inform the masses of their plans to buy out smaller companies (considering they haven't for so long). Normally, these companies are tiny and possibly couldn't survive without the extra money, but finally, EA made a mistake for aiming too high (at Ubisoft) this time.

And besides, the target of EA's games are mostly the incredibly casual gamer up to age 30. These are the people who do not subscribe to magazines, do not look online for news, and do not have any really reliable source for business side news in the gaming industry, so they probably will not hear about these plans.

NOTE: These are just my two cents. I'm afraid that I did not read every article on the subject to check my sources and probably spelt probably and reilize wrong throughout this paper. I don't really care if you have your own arguments, I just don't want idiotic flaming (Bronze Flame Shield of Justice +1 equipped)
 
I see how this works for EA from a buisness stand point, but i got into espn this year and enjoyed it, making madden the ONLY football game is a bit extreme, madden might have always been the best but at least there was CHOICE. I really hope they dont buy exclusive licence with the NBA, I have always liked NBA 2k not a fan of Live.
 
Ubisoft says they have no idea what EA's intentions are with buying their stock.
Click to expand...

Well... then they're stupid. They're 2% away from having a controlling voice. However, there are SEVERAL laws that prevent a hostile takeover for the purposes of sabotaging the company. For example, EA can't gain the 22% needed to having a vote on policy then use that vote to prevent UBI from, say, resigning Tom Clancey with the intention of signing him themselves. Totally illegal under the Fair Trade Act, which applies to EA since they are in the US.

I don't expect EA to do a hostile takeover. Hostile merger... maybe. But even that is limiting. It's similar to Sammy taking over Sega but not being able to rock the boat. Sammy simply pumps in the money and collects royalties, intrest, etc. If EA forced UBI Soft to merge with them, they would have little to no power over content and management. There are several laws in the US and internationally to prevent it. Otherwise you would have companies like Microsoft snuffing the entire market out. EA won't be able to take over the video game industry outright. Systems are set up to prevent that from happening, so don't sweat it. It's called Anti-Trust. Any hostile takeover not done in good faith is highly illegal and can be punished with very very very large penalty (as in, billions potentially)

As far as the no change to Madden thing goes, it makes no difference to five million + Madden fans everyyear. It's the established brand, and a simple roster update and character models is all that is asked of it's user base. I don't care for football video games, so don't call me an EA booster. I'm not. I'm just saying that I've seen how people act over Madden. My local Gamecrazy has a Madden league every year and there are guys in the store from opening to close playing their league, making trades, updating rosters, etc. These people geefully pay for the new Madden year after year, trading their old copies in at the end of the season, and being totally satisfied with the whole experience. Love them or lump them, EA has unquestionably the best mass marketing of any game company ever. It's not even close.
 
Tell those EA employees out of a job that these were necessary moves. Had they not have spent all that money on the ESPN and NFL deals...
 
bump for the update
(i know ive missed a few stories on here so if anyone (looking in crash's direction) could link me to them it would be most appreciated ^^
 
[quote name='punqsux'][quote name='epobirs']To demonstrate how exclusive licensing kills off sports competition, Konami has decided to offer their Winning Eleven soccer franchise to US Xbox gamers this year. Those fools. Don't they know EA will send it ninja IP lawyers over to slay them in their beds?[/quote]

im not sure if that was a joke or not, but you cant compare an exclusive license to fifa to an exclusive license to the nfl in america. American sports fans usually dont care at all about soccer, and why shuold they? soccer was never properly marketed to the united states, and people oft dont look past the cleverly marketed.[/quote]

You miss the point. Winning Eleven does very good business in territories where soccer is the #1 spectator sport. You know, the game MOST of the world thinks of when they say football. The FIFA license is a helpful thing but hasn't prevented non-FIFA soccer games from doing well. This official license or death thing appears to be solely an American psychosis.
 
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