All Pro Football 2k8

that's a matter of opinion.

 

Licensing rules the gaming world, it is what made tecmobowl, nba live, and all the originals so powerful. It was the first time you could play with the players. It was no longer a game. It was living the dream. So I think no license will be the death of the game. EA will all but obliterate it. ESPN is a close second to the nfl, but even espn is nothing without the nfl. The players rule.

 

As a gamer, you should have a higher opinion of that. I would expect that opinion of the dude who throws down 500 on a system just to play Madden. If anyone were to tell me they'd buy an inferior product just because they'd have Vince Young as a QB instead of #10, then they're just plain dumb and shallow about what they purchase.

 

What people like better and what they want is a matter of opinion and neither you or I really have the right to say what is right or wrong.

NFL put up the rights to be sold, and EA bought them. If the 2K series bought them instead of EA I am almost 100% no one would be complaining as loudly as they are because EA bought them.

It is smart business and that is what gaming is, a business.

 

And my point is that WE suffer, and if WE were smart, we'd stop encouraging such "smart" business decisions.

 

Who encourages it? EA are copping it for producing poor NFL games (according to some)

 

Everyone who buys Madden is encouraging EA and other companies to pull monopolies on liscencing (i.e. hurting the market for that game), and thus losses the spirit of competition. When that happens, developers get lazy (notice, Madden only adds a pitiful handful of features and roster updates, yet you're paying 50 dollars for it).

SO, if you want to send a message, stop buying the stupid product. EA and other companies knows we're a bunch of brainless consumers who will buy whatever is put in front of us, because there is nothing else to buy. THAT's the reason people are so pissed at EA, because WE are the one's suffering. I don't give a **** if it was a good business deal, I'm the one who suffers with so-so football gaming. It's the same reason I took my copy back to EB games after a month; I realized I had been suckered into the same product that I've bought since 2004.

 

In theory that should work, yet some people still like Madden and will buy it (as I said before it is a matter of opinion which is better Madden or 2k).

As for EA buying the rights, I don't agree with it but I can see their point of view on it.

 

In a competitive enviroment, you are allowed to squash your competition. Right? Or do you want parity, so that no game can get any advantage over any other. It is a fine line. If everyone can have the same license, then everyone should have the same engine too, but that doesn't stimulate anything.

I personally think that all games should have licensing, because it benefits me, but licensing is there to proctect the nfl, not me, so they have the right to do as they please.

 

Firstly, licensing is not about protecting anything other than profit.
Secondly, the license isn't about parity, in fact I would argue it's the exact opposite. The one to benefit the most from a license that isn't available to everybody is the one with the weakest product.
And lastly, as soon as you make an exclusive license you eliminate the competitive environment, and as everybody knows, competition drives innovation.