Editorial: Exclusive Sports Licenses....Are They Really That Bad?

As most of you already know, NCAA 06 is out now and for the most part has got high praise. I myself enjoy it quite a bit and consider to be better than NCAA 04 which was the best in the series up until now. In a couple of weeks we will see the release of Madden 06 (Xbox, PS2, GC) which this year will be the only game in town if you want some NFL action. I bring this up because there are a lot of people up in arms over the whole NFL exclusive license thing. I'm going to be upfront right now and say I'm a Madden fan. I have nothing against the 2k crowd, it just wasn't my cup of tea. So in this little editorial, I shall step up on my soapbox and ask the question, "is it really so bad to just have Madden?"

I have read and heard more uproar over the NFL license than any other license that got purchased. For those of you who don't know how it went down, here is a quick refresher. EA acquires NFL license, EA acquires NCAA license, EA acquires AFL license, and then finally Take Two (2K Sports) acquires the MLB license albeit first-partys (Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo) can still make MLB products. EA has been labeled the villain in all of this for one reason or another. EA did what was right for their business, if they had not have stepped up and acquired the license, Take Two would have nabbed it. EA would've lost a huge chunk of revenue so I find it hard to fault them for wanting to continue making a profit off of one of their most well known franchises. Furthermore, EA got the NCAA license and harldy anyone was that upset. After all we know how the NCAA 2K football attempt turned out.

I like to look at it like this.....EA is going to make the NFL game, which lets the other talented developers who were making NFL games free to be creative and try things that were not possible with a restricted license, either that or join the EA team. Midway seems to have been the one to really take a step in a bold new direction with introduction of Blitz: The League. I'm very interested to see how a football game with a storyline (written by the guys responsible for Playmakers on ESPN) will fare. I like to describe it as kind of an over-the-top hollywood football game. I believe there is room on the market for sports games grounded in realism and those that take the basic rules just to twist them around into something creative without becoming the XFL. ;) If Blitz turns out well, I'm sure we'll see other developers who were in the sports game business starts turning out other creative ways to make those games. I've even read rumors that EA could be taking their MVP series and making a NCAA baseball game using that engine. I do not believe EA will sit on their Madden franchise and just rehash the same game every year with new rosters. I would imagine there is probably some stipulation in the contract with the NFL that safeguards against that kind of thing. After all, if a Madden game gets poor reviews than that in turn makes the NFL look bad for giving the license to EA. I'm not an EA fanboy...I actually preferred NHL 2k series to the EA NHL series. The basketball games were a toss-up for me with each series having their pros and cons.

That's my .02 on the whole license issue. Your comments are welcome as soon as I can get that flame retardant suit on ;)

For my next editorial, I will explore what the Next-Gen games might actually be like since we have been given basically nothing in the way of gameplay news.