I can't believe this.....

And according to the latest issue of Game Informer, complete customization sounds like the road they're going down. Knowing the mod community, if they release a toolkit or something online we'll have it NFL'ized in no time.
 
Even if an NFL football game with fake player names were released, there's enough dedicated fans to produce an "unofficial" roster patch in a quick period of time. It's done for sims like Out of the Park Baseball (never even touched the "fake" league there myself) and even for EA's NCAA console games, where they don't even bother to give the players actual names (just #2, #28, etc.)

I wonder how much Sega/Take Two were paying for the licenses (and for related stuff like player image modelling) before. This may be a totally wild guess, but the savings from those could allow them to undercut EA's prices again. An NFL-less football game certainly won't be able to compete with Madden in the premium market, but if even a quarter of the 2 million or so people who bought ESPN NFL 2K5 buy 2K6 then maybe there's still a decent business model there.
 
Your talking to one of those people who does it for NCAA right here, lol. (I can't stand QB #11; I need Matt Leinart, lol). Me, along with many many others in the online sports gaming community would do this without any problem. There are already fan made PC roster editors out for the ESPN games so if we could get that for every aspect of the game, we'd turn it out.
 
Hey Quinton, I do think EA has had TONS of AAA games. Burnout 3 (which was also bought out), Some of the Lord of the Rings games, SSX, NBA Street, Def Jam, The Sims, etc. Regardless of my respect for their games, I'm still highly pissed at all this. But what can you do, eh? Wait....we work for a gaming website, so if they slack off of the Madden series, it's up to us to let them know that. If they could literally combine the best aspects of the ESPN games, and Madden games, maybe I'd nod them in agreement, and a job well done, but I don't think one, single game can do that.
In reality, I can't fault EA for making the deal....I fault the NFL moreso for doing something like that, and selling themselves like a cheap who...uh.....married person sticking to one company! On the same token, I don't really want Take Two/Sega buying out the MLB liscense either.
Besides, EA sucks even more because they don't want send us review product.
 
As far as naming goes...I don't see why the feature to generate random names isn't more useful. Rather then putting in real players, or typing in every name....just have them generated. Though, the option to type your own names in should definitely stay as well.
 
Brian, out of all those games you named from EA, as critically acclaimed as some of them are, with the exception of the Sims franchise none of those games are on a Halo or GTA level as far as prestige goes so that's why I say they're the kings of above average games (they've even [a]http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4180453.stm[aa]admitted it a few times lately[/a].) And whether I worked for a game website or not, I'm passionate enough about it to let them know how I feel in any way I can just because that's who I am. And oh yeah, saying EA sucks in a public forum that anyone (including EA) can see isn't good, or smart for that matter, for trying to land review stuff for the future man regardless of our current status. We shouldn't be stepping on toes before we even have our shoes on.
 
Regardless Quinton, it's a PUBLIC forum, and since we all have opinions, even if you work in the industry, it's both natural and rightful if I want to state my opinion in a general, public forum. Saying EA "sucks'" is no more offensive than you stating that "EA's really starting to tick me off". Besides, I do admit that they make some great games (so Madden isn't a AAA title either?).
 
Heh, forgot about Madden. You're right, this is a public forum, but unlike the other people here who are either editors on different parts of the site or just forum users, you're the main person in PR trying to negotiate with them so we can have those products to cover. If I'm at EA and see an editor from here say stuff like I've been saying, it really shouldn't be a problem because as a game journalist that's what I'm supposed to do. I realize you do a few reviews, but for the most part you're PR and to have one of our spokespeople badmouthing their company in general doesn't look too cool. If I was at EA and reading that MyGamer's PR's people saying we suck, why should I even bother with them? They're not losing any sleep over it because at the end of the day, we're still knocking on their door. Your position kinda requires that you watch what you say to an extent because it's your job to make us look good to other companies, whereas mine is a little more loose since it's my job to objectively criticize, and that's why I said they ticked me off.
 
Well in essence, I was saying it in a light, almost jokingly way (I mean, I just argued the point that I DID think they produced a few AAA titles..how serious could I have been about "sucking". But I meant it purely in the fact that I work my butt off every month to try to get them to send us info, review copies, etc. Surely, with enough money to buy out up-teen companies, they could spare something for the media market....our site in particular.
Either way...I like expressing my opinions and participating in the forums. If I had to watch everything I say that closely, then what would even be the point of participation? Though I really doubt that a forum would be a high priortity of EA's things to judge a site on, else they'd probably hold grudges against a ton of sites. There's much worse things said about EA and other companies in forums for sure. Eventually we'll get their attention though...no worries there.
But even from a PR perspective, I'm not happy with their decision (it definitely does suck!) to buy everything out...as they ARE one of the companies that's notoriously hard to get info/review copies from unless you're in a super top-tier of sites. Basically, until we get there...the more companies they buy out...the less info and things we'll get as a whole. Boo EA boo!

Still love the games though!
 
Oh yeah, there are real players available for download. But, they do not, do not, do not come with most of the sports simulations. Whether they are licensed or not... I can't say. But I can say that they usually ---mostly---do not come with the real players. The fact that you can download the real players' cards may be indicitive of a license. However, the point remains that you can get just as attached to the randomly generated ones as the real ones.

Also, they may have players with names like Jon Winters, who might actually be Pedro Martinez, as an example. Not indicitve of a license.
 
Yeah, I definitely agree about forming emotion attachments over fake-named players. Still got fond memories of Doug Mitchell, my record-setting running back in the original Front Page Sports: Football, who got tons of yards mainly because I couldn't figure out how to get a consistent passing game.
 
off topic EA spent millions on the nfl license, but I heard a rumor on egm that they may actually drop the def jam license on their next fighting game. Being a hip hop head this dissapoints me especially since with fight for ny the characters added so much more to the story
 
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