Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
6
EA Sports and Planned Obsolescence
Sports games are a fascinating segment of the video game industry. Built
around wildly successful franchises with annual release schedules, versions
of the most popular sports games are among the top-selling games every
year. The market for console sports games is largely dominated by EA
Sports, a subdivision of Electronic Arts, which produces annual versions of
FIFA Soccer and the Madden football series. They also make a variety of
other sports titles that include NHL hockey, a Tiger Woods-branded golf
game, and Fight Night boxing. Although there are competing companies in
the genre, most notably 2K Sports, EA currently holds exclusive rights to
making video games based on NFL and NCAA football, and FIFA Soccer
is the best-selling soccer game in the industry, which makes EA's games of
particular relevance to the discourse of video games.
Within the context of words, design, and play, sports games are espe-
cially notable because the genre is predicated on regular releases of largely
similar games each year. Substantial upgrades and adjustments are often
made in the transition from one console generation to the next, but the
overwhelming majority of each new game is the same as what can be found
in the previous year's edition. In spite of the year-to-year similarity or per-
haps because of it, new versions of the games sell well and attract a vibrant
audience, even though the games themselves lose their resale value more
quickly than a new sports car driven of the dealer's lot. Resale value is not
necessarily a primary reason why people buy video games, but it highlights
the single most curious aspect of sports games: gamers know these games
have a much shorter shelf life than other games, yet line up to buy them
year after year.
As an active sports gamer who has more copies of Madden than I care
to publicly admit, I fi nd the cycle of the sports franchise fascinating. For-
tunately, using wordplay to carefully examine EA Sports points to several
reasons why sports franchises are successful and aids in the explanation
of how these games keep bringing players back year after year. Starting
with a set of popular sports licenses, building from and subtly adding to a
workable code base, and launching massive marketing campaigns enables
EA Sports games to thrive, even when annual upgrades may not be in the
best interest of gamers. Add in the increased importance of online play and
online access for player updates and game developers are even better able
 
 
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