NBA and Five Publishers Sign Exclusive Contract
3/25/2005 at 2:28 PM
In response to EA's market domineering actions, Sony tries to follow suit.
The NBA (National Basketball Association) signed five or six year contracts with the following publishers: Atari, Electronics Arts, Midway, Sony, and Take-Two Interactive. These five publishers have the exclusive rights to publish NBA videogames this coming Fall and Winter. This whole situation arose because in December of 2004, Electronics Arts signed an exclusive five year contract with the NFL (National Football League) making them the only publisher capable of making official NFL licensed videogames which includes the “Madden NFL” series and the “NFL Street” series.
Take-Two Interactive, who is well known for its sports videogames developed by Sega (and of course for owning Rockstar Games), was the first to sign an “exclusive” contract with the NBA, and their actions were later followed by the other four publishers. Electronics Arts who responded by also signing an “exclusive” contract with the NBA, also decided to sign an “exclusive” contract with the AFL (Arena Football League), not leaving any area of the professional football world available to another publisher.
Take-Two Interactive responded to Electronics Arts’ exclusive AFL publishing rights by signing an “exclusive” third party contract with the MLB (Major League Baseball). This contract allows other publishers such as Electronics Arts and Midway to publish baseball videogames, but Take-Two Interactive is the only publisher with “exclusive” rights to the MLB. Ultimately, this “move” for “exclusive” publishing rights with professional sports organizations is good for the publishers but bad for the consumers, with a lack of competition in the sports videogame market, the quality of future sports videogames could decrease along with the price of future sports videogames expected to increase.
All of this is bad news for Ubisoft, who is popular for the Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell series and Prince of Persia series, because they had hoped and planned to enter the sports videogame market by publishing their own NBA videogame using Microsoft’s old XSN videogame engine which was used for the failed “NBA Inside Drive” series. But this whole situation has given Ubisoft “great” ideas, leading them to sign an “exclusive” publishing and sponsorship contract with And 1, meaning a potential Street Hoops 2 or another similar videogame could be released in the time to come.
Electronics Arts will continue to make videogames for its “NBA Live” series. Take-Two Interactive will continue to make videogames for its “NBA 2K” series. Sony will continue to make videogames for its “NBA Shootout” series but for the PS2 and PSP only. Atari will continue to make videogames for its “Backyard Basketball” series which targets young children. And finally, Electronics Arts and Midway will share the “extreme” basketball category by continuing to make “NBA Street” and “NBA Ballers” videogames. All in all, previously made basketball videogames will most likely be continued to be made, all that the “exclusive” NBA publishing contracts do is keep other companies out of the business.
Article by Jaronn Romes, GamingWorld X
Source: Sony
Our Comments
Jaronn Romes: Apparently these publishers assume the average gamer will finalize a purchase decision based on brand, and they may be correct, when consumers try to decide which game will provide the highest level of authenticity. The question remains: will these publishers find their developers sacrificing gameplay as they wallow in the blissful comfort of knowing their product's exclusivity grants them certain success?
