EA scores 15 year deal with ESPN, lets loose giant "muwahaha"
1/17/2005 11:57:39 AM, by Eric Bangeman
If EA has its way, it will soon become as much of a household name in entertainment as Disney. However, it plans to do so by dominating the videogame industry rather than branching out into film or music. In the short-term, it hopes to double its revenues from their US$3 billion level by 2009, primarily by making the games appeal to a wider audience than they currently do.
In an update to our earlier version of this story, we have now learned that EA has signed a an exclusive deal with ESPN for ESPN-branded games. You may recall that EA stunned gamers last month when they locked up the rights to NFL-based games for five years, granting it exclusive rights to use NFL players, teams, and stadiums in its games. Now EA has scored another such deal that will grant the company a 15-year licenses to develop games based on ESPN's holdings. This comes as a serious blow to Sega Sammy Holdings and Take-Two Interactive Software, with whom ESPN previously dealt.
"If you think about who the logical partner for ESPN (is) given our position in media and where we are and EA's position in video games ... it is a natural two companies to put together," said John Skipper, an executive vice president with ESPN.
This is a sad day for ESPN NFL 2K5 fans, because not only is the NFL license now gone, but so is the ESPN brand.
All of this points to an ever-aggressive EA. Will we see similar deals reached with other sporting leagues? There have been rumors that EA has approached the NBA, but those rumors currently indicate that the NBA wasn't particularly interested. Now, however, that may change as the company's profile gets larger and larger (for better or for worse).
Meanwhile, EA is promising the media that they're going to bring emotion into gaming in new, exciting ways. According to EA Managing Director for European Publishing, the next generation of consoles will be key for their hopes.
"We will be able to bring more people into gaming because games will be more emotional."
Mr Florin predicted that the next round of games console would give developers enough power to create real emotion." It's the subtleties, the eyes, the mouth - 5,000 polygons doesn't really sell the emotion. With PS3 and Xbox 2, we can go on the main character with 30,000 to 50,000 polygons," he said.
EA also hopes that the increased power of the new consoles will help make gaming more mainstream. Despite the fact that over 50 percent of game sales are to adults, the gaming behemoth feels the need to counter what it sees as a widespread perception that games are for kids. Will creating "nontraditional" games featuring celebrities like Christina Aguliera be enough to draw nongamers in? Some analysts think so, but EA is going to have a hard time cracking nontraditional demographics (those above 30 years old).
The company will more than likely have to go down other roads to achieve its ambitious growth goals. Locking up the rights to all NFL titles for the next five years was a step in that direction. Acquisitions are another likely route for EA. Last month, it startled just about everyone by purchasing almost 20 percent of French game studio Ubisoft. While EA has not publicly admitted to plans to take Ubisoft over, there are not a whole lot of people in the game industry that believe its intentions are benign.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050117-4529.html
1/17/2005 11:57:39 AM, by Eric Bangeman
If EA has its way, it will soon become as much of a household name in entertainment as Disney. However, it plans to do so by dominating the videogame industry rather than branching out into film or music. In the short-term, it hopes to double its revenues from their US$3 billion level by 2009, primarily by making the games appeal to a wider audience than they currently do.
In an update to our earlier version of this story, we have now learned that EA has signed a an exclusive deal with ESPN for ESPN-branded games. You may recall that EA stunned gamers last month when they locked up the rights to NFL-based games for five years, granting it exclusive rights to use NFL players, teams, and stadiums in its games. Now EA has scored another such deal that will grant the company a 15-year licenses to develop games based on ESPN's holdings. This comes as a serious blow to Sega Sammy Holdings and Take-Two Interactive Software, with whom ESPN previously dealt.
"If you think about who the logical partner for ESPN (is) given our position in media and where we are and EA's position in video games ... it is a natural two companies to put together," said John Skipper, an executive vice president with ESPN.
This is a sad day for ESPN NFL 2K5 fans, because not only is the NFL license now gone, but so is the ESPN brand.
All of this points to an ever-aggressive EA. Will we see similar deals reached with other sporting leagues? There have been rumors that EA has approached the NBA, but those rumors currently indicate that the NBA wasn't particularly interested. Now, however, that may change as the company's profile gets larger and larger (for better or for worse).
Meanwhile, EA is promising the media that they're going to bring emotion into gaming in new, exciting ways. According to EA Managing Director for European Publishing, the next generation of consoles will be key for their hopes.
"We will be able to bring more people into gaming because games will be more emotional."
Mr Florin predicted that the next round of games console would give developers enough power to create real emotion." It's the subtleties, the eyes, the mouth - 5,000 polygons doesn't really sell the emotion. With PS3 and Xbox 2, we can go on the main character with 30,000 to 50,000 polygons," he said.
EA also hopes that the increased power of the new consoles will help make gaming more mainstream. Despite the fact that over 50 percent of game sales are to adults, the gaming behemoth feels the need to counter what it sees as a widespread perception that games are for kids. Will creating "nontraditional" games featuring celebrities like Christina Aguliera be enough to draw nongamers in? Some analysts think so, but EA is going to have a hard time cracking nontraditional demographics (those above 30 years old).
The company will more than likely have to go down other roads to achieve its ambitious growth goals. Locking up the rights to all NFL titles for the next five years was a step in that direction. Acquisitions are another likely route for EA. Last month, it startled just about everyone by purchasing almost 20 percent of French game studio Ubisoft. While EA has not publicly admitted to plans to take Ubisoft over, there are not a whole lot of people in the game industry that believe its intentions are benign.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050117-4529.html