Lono_Lives
01-21-2008, 07:07 PM
January 21st, 2008 · 1 Comment (http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/index.php/2008/01/four-whats-for-which-i-want-answers.html#comments)
by Doc (http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/index.php/author/Doc/)
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4whats-top.jpg
I’m sick of being lied to, ignored, misled, and cheated. What better way to get back at “The Man” than by posting a feature article on a tiny little gaming blog in a remote corner of the internet? So here they are. If you can answer these four semi-rhetorical questions (all cleverly formulated to start with the word “what”) I’ll be forever in your debt, and you have my vote if you ever decide to run for president.
Ready to get started? Then hop along to the next page and see what kind of answers YOU can some up with.
Gaming Payola: What’s it going to take?
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4whats-prada.jpgOn November 28th, 2007 the internet came to a screeching halt when Gamespot terminated the employment of long-time Editorial Director, Jeff Gerstmann. Writers get hired and fired on a daily basis in this business, but this case was exacerbated by unconfirmed rumors, leaked from within Gamespot’s ranks. Within moments, Kotaku was reporting those rumors, which included accusations that Gamespot’s decision to terminate Gerstmann was influenced by Kane & Lynch:Dean Men developer, Eidos, who pulled their advertising, and hundreds of thousands of future contracts after Gerstmann’s mediocre review of the title.
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4whats-scientology.jpgTo make matters worse, Gamespot apparently got advice from the Church of Scientology when it came to their PR plan in this matter. An agonizing week later, Gamespot ran an interview (of itself) where the overall tone was “Nu-Uh! Did not!,” followed by a nauseatingly contrived reader/staff memorial to Gerstmann. By the time Gamespot figured out that the world was falling apart around them, their credibility had moved all of its crap out of that nice 3-story townhouse and was residing in a cardboard box on skid row.
In the months that have followed this controversy, writers and staff at Gamespot have been jumping ship like drunken rats, with each survivor bring with him stories that support the rumors, while also sort-of exonerating Gamespot. The blame, apparently, lay with CNet, Gamespot’s parent company.
Freelance reviewer, Frank Provo, told the truth as he saw it, when he recently got the hell out of Dodge.
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4whatscnet.jpg“I believe CNet management let Jeff go for all the wrong reasons. I believe CNet intends to soften the site’s tone and push for higher scores to make advertisers happy.”
Others, including Alex Navaro, seconded the motion while asserting that local Gamespot management had acted solely on the orders issued from CNet-topolis.
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4whatsquestion.gifCNet’s position on this has remained firm. In a press release on the matter, they told us all that they had never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,ever, never, ever, ever fired an employee due to advertiser pressures, ever, ever, never, ever, ever. Sadly, there’s only so much that they CAN say, since anything more particular to Gerstmann’s case would violate his rights or some hogwash. Who cares about his rights, when the credibility of the sacred Gamespot review score hangs in the balance? What kind of world are we living in?
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4whatsegm.gif
More recently, EGM (kissin’ cousin of 1UP.com) editor Dan Hsu published a bombshell that seems to reinforce what many gamers suspected: That game companies can literally buy great reviews if they really want to. EGM, apparently, got blacklisted from pre-release coverage by Midway, Sony Sports, and Ubisoft due to what they felt were “unfairly low review scores.”
Of course they’re unfair…. TO THEM. Like these guys are going to sit up and say, “Hey… ha ha,.. you got us! That game does suck. Good catch.”
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4whatsfail.gifIf these companies were looking to defend their brands they can officially add another tally mark to the “miserable failures” column. Hats off to EGM for exposing the seedy underbelly of the Video Game industry. What is happened there was nothing short of attempted payola, something that has been outlawed and litigated HEAVILY in the radio industry where I work.
I have a lot of questions that I’d love to get a straight answer on.
What happens next? How can anyone possibly trust a review score from a corporate-operated gaming site? What kind of fallout will CNet see in this? How much longer are the big game developers going to have carte blanche to run around in a cash firetruck, spraying Ben Franklins on every bad review score that affects them? Who in the hell has the power to get to the bottom of this thing and get some (*gasp… dare I say it?) regulation on these fools? What really happened to Jeff Gerstmann? It’s abundantly apparent that his pink slip may turn out to be our ticket to a huge song and dance routine. These mega-publishers continue to sail their yachts further and further into uncharted waters, testing just how far gamers will let them go.
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4whatsminnow.jpg
I just hope they’ve piled a lot of supplies on their little SS Minnow, because I have a feeling it won’t be long before they find themselves swallowed up by a hate-hurricane. When you piss of a gamer, they don’t just stop buying your games. They also tell a hundred friends, who also tell a hundred friends. Before long, wealthy men in big suits are sitting around a gigantic board room table, trying to figure out how to salvage their image.
So my first “What for which I want an answer” is:
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4whatshands.jpg (http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/index.php/2008/01/four-whats-for-which-i-want-answers.html/4whatshandsjpg/)
What is it going to take to get you pissed off enough about the state of gaming journalism and broad-daylight payoffs, to do something about it?
Xbox Live Holiday Outage: What’s the big deal?
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4whatsxbl.jpg
When I turned on my Xbox over the holidays, I wasn’t hoping for much. Just the reassuring swooshing sound with the reversed musical note that signaled the beginning of a long happy night of Call of Duty 4. What I got, and what millions of Xbox Live subscribers got, was a frustrating series of headaches and blank stares. The service that I depend on for my gaming, my movies, and my social scene(pathetic but true), was on the fritz, and nearly unusable.
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4whats.jpg
After nearly a month of silent hand-wringing, Microsoft finally issued a statement to it’s MVP’s (apparently they lost the email addresses of us common-folk) saying that something was indeed wrong over the holidays. There was nothing in there about exactly WHAT happened, just that they were having some issues, that there was NOT an OUTAGE and that things would be back to normal soon.
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4whats-torches.jpg
By this time, the more dramatic gamers in our midst were already dousing t-shirts with kerosene and wrapping them around sticks. There were even rumors of lawsuits brought on by the “not-outage.” By the time all is said and done, mother Microsoft ended up issuing a free game (that exciting scuba-combat 2-d title we’ve always wanted) for our troubles.
Personally, I’ll take it. Sure I’d rather have a choice of at least three games, but since I wasn’t really interested in holding out my hand to begin with, I can’t complain. YES it was a pain in the ass. YES it’s gonna be a while until you accrue enough vacation time to be able to do that much gaming again. YES it’s retarded that they seem to have ignored all of those XBL subscription cards that got activated since Thanksgiving. Sure, all of those things are, arguably, true.
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4whatspennies.jpg
At the end of the day, the service that you pay somewhere between 4 and 5 dollars a month for, wasn’t working as well as you would have liked for a couple of weeks. It doesn’t change the fact that, for the most part, Xbox Live remains one of the smartest, sturdiest, and useful things ever to happen to console gaming.
To the PS3 fanboys (both of you) over there in the corner, dancing a jig: You should pray that Sony gets a tenth of a clue and comes up with something that at least deserves to live in the same zipcode as XBL. Enjoy your trophy case, and your avatar. You and the other dozen online PS3 players will probably impress the hell out of each other as you simultaneously try to convince yourselves that you aren’t playing a console version of Second Life.
So, for all of the fuss. For all of the drama. For all of the agonizing screams over this holiday outage on XBL, may I introduce to you the second of my 5 “What’s for Which I Want Answers.”
What’s the big deal?
Sony Gaming Community Relations: What Relations?
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4whatsony.jpg
This “what” may be a little too inside for casual readers, but it makes my list. As a blogger, nothing is more frustrating than being treated like a second-class citizen by big companies. Sarcastic Gamer is just one of literally thousands of independent outlets that cover gaming, day in and day out. Singularly, few of us possess the reach of the mega-sites within the enormous gaming community. But what seperates MS and Sony (Winner and Loser in the NextGen console war) so drastically, in my opinion, is Sony’s complete ignorance of the fact that, as a whole, bloggers represent a deafening voice and play a critical role in what truly informed gamers buy, do, play, and think.
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4whatxbox.jpg
In obvious acknowledgement of this, Microsoft formed the Xbox Community Team. A small but tireless group of people whose primary objective seems to be to let these hardworking bloggers know that they matter. From providing these sites with opportunities that would otherwise go to something owned by CNet or Gamestop, to quickly answering the flood of questions that bombard their email box, no site seems too small for MS to worry about.
In contrast, Sony seems to reserve its human resources for only the most gigantic of sites. I know many bloggers that have completely wasted their finger-calories, typing elaborate introductions to Sony that have gone totally unanswered.
I thought it was just us. If it WERE just us, I guess I could understand. Maybe they didn’t like one of our little ditties, like “How You Killed Your Brand (http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/index.php/2007/10/how-you-killed-your-brand-officially.html)” or “No Frickin Games. (http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/index.php/2007/06/no-frickin-games-new-ps3-song.html)”
To be fair, “Ring of Fire (http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/index.php/2007/06/ring-of-fire.html)” is one of our more popular parody songs to date, and our MS Surface parody (http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/index.php/2007/06/ms-surface-how-we-would-have-done-it.html)is about to pass 2 million views on Youtube. That hasn’t stopped us from getting on a first-name-basis with the Xbox , Surface, and Zune teams at MS.
They return emails. They make us feel like we matter.
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4what-army.jpg
I think underestimating the little guys, may be turn out to be one of the Sony’s biggest
miscalculations. Bloggers, collectively, are a force to be reckoned with. While we at Sarcastic Gamer don’t go out of our way to write crappy things about Sony, it can be really difficult to be all that jazzed about a company that won’t return a frickin email. Plus, when Mega-Spot and its overfed brethren are the only ones with access to people who can answer questions, the only thing WE get to go on, half the time, is regurgitated news and rumors. Honestly, the rumors are a lot more fun.How hard would it be for Sony to at least acknowledge the role that bloggers play in their failure and prosperity? When are they going to parachute down from their ivory tower and find out that not all bloggers have BO and add z’s to the end of all of their werdz?
For ignoring the snot out of all but the largest outlets, I’m directing my third “What for which I want an answer” to Sony, and its PS3 Community Relations Team:
What Community Relations?
NCAA: What the hell are you doing?
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/2k7.jpg
Recently, 2K backed out of negotiations with the NCAA over licensing the next installment of its College Hoops franchise. EA is widely thought to have played a major role in this, having already secured exclusivity with the NFL, and MLB. Most informed gamers seem to be of the opinion that a college basketball exclusivity deal with EA is just around the corner. But if the NCAA knew what was waiting for them around that corner, if they give two free throws about the future of their game image, they’d be sprinting back to the bargaining table with 2K.
Before the NFL sold its soul to EA, Madden was one of the most respected titles in the entire sports genre. While NFL2K was always a distant second in the football fracas, their relentless presence seemed to spur constant innovation on both sides. We got new camera angles, gameplay mechanics, and game modes. Things were always getting better. Even the NFL players were playing the games like mindless zombies.
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/whatsmadden.jpg
Fast Forward a few years and an exclusivity deal later. When was the last time anyone got excited about a new football game? The genre is literally dying in popularity. The games are showing up on the used shelves for pennies on the dollar compared with other titles that came out at the same time. Exclusivity is killing the football video game.
Without something to run from, EA Sports has slowed innovation in Madden to a walk, maybe even a dead stop if you ask some people. I once defended this company, saying something moronic like “it’s football… what more do you want?” The problem is, that we are letting EA answer this question for us.
To the NCAA, (like they’ll ever see this) my fourth and final “What for which I want an answer” is:
What the hell are you doing?
by Doc (http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/index.php/author/Doc/)
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4whats-top.jpg
I’m sick of being lied to, ignored, misled, and cheated. What better way to get back at “The Man” than by posting a feature article on a tiny little gaming blog in a remote corner of the internet? So here they are. If you can answer these four semi-rhetorical questions (all cleverly formulated to start with the word “what”) I’ll be forever in your debt, and you have my vote if you ever decide to run for president.
Ready to get started? Then hop along to the next page and see what kind of answers YOU can some up with.
Gaming Payola: What’s it going to take?
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4whats-prada.jpgOn November 28th, 2007 the internet came to a screeching halt when Gamespot terminated the employment of long-time Editorial Director, Jeff Gerstmann. Writers get hired and fired on a daily basis in this business, but this case was exacerbated by unconfirmed rumors, leaked from within Gamespot’s ranks. Within moments, Kotaku was reporting those rumors, which included accusations that Gamespot’s decision to terminate Gerstmann was influenced by Kane & Lynch:Dean Men developer, Eidos, who pulled their advertising, and hundreds of thousands of future contracts after Gerstmann’s mediocre review of the title.
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4whats-scientology.jpgTo make matters worse, Gamespot apparently got advice from the Church of Scientology when it came to their PR plan in this matter. An agonizing week later, Gamespot ran an interview (of itself) where the overall tone was “Nu-Uh! Did not!,” followed by a nauseatingly contrived reader/staff memorial to Gerstmann. By the time Gamespot figured out that the world was falling apart around them, their credibility had moved all of its crap out of that nice 3-story townhouse and was residing in a cardboard box on skid row.
In the months that have followed this controversy, writers and staff at Gamespot have been jumping ship like drunken rats, with each survivor bring with him stories that support the rumors, while also sort-of exonerating Gamespot. The blame, apparently, lay with CNet, Gamespot’s parent company.
Freelance reviewer, Frank Provo, told the truth as he saw it, when he recently got the hell out of Dodge.
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4whatscnet.jpg“I believe CNet management let Jeff go for all the wrong reasons. I believe CNet intends to soften the site’s tone and push for higher scores to make advertisers happy.”
Others, including Alex Navaro, seconded the motion while asserting that local Gamespot management had acted solely on the orders issued from CNet-topolis.
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4whatsquestion.gifCNet’s position on this has remained firm. In a press release on the matter, they told us all that they had never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,ever, never, ever, ever fired an employee due to advertiser pressures, ever, ever, never, ever, ever. Sadly, there’s only so much that they CAN say, since anything more particular to Gerstmann’s case would violate his rights or some hogwash. Who cares about his rights, when the credibility of the sacred Gamespot review score hangs in the balance? What kind of world are we living in?
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4whatsegm.gif
More recently, EGM (kissin’ cousin of 1UP.com) editor Dan Hsu published a bombshell that seems to reinforce what many gamers suspected: That game companies can literally buy great reviews if they really want to. EGM, apparently, got blacklisted from pre-release coverage by Midway, Sony Sports, and Ubisoft due to what they felt were “unfairly low review scores.”
Of course they’re unfair…. TO THEM. Like these guys are going to sit up and say, “Hey… ha ha,.. you got us! That game does suck. Good catch.”
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4whatsfail.gifIf these companies were looking to defend their brands they can officially add another tally mark to the “miserable failures” column. Hats off to EGM for exposing the seedy underbelly of the Video Game industry. What is happened there was nothing short of attempted payola, something that has been outlawed and litigated HEAVILY in the radio industry where I work.
I have a lot of questions that I’d love to get a straight answer on.
What happens next? How can anyone possibly trust a review score from a corporate-operated gaming site? What kind of fallout will CNet see in this? How much longer are the big game developers going to have carte blanche to run around in a cash firetruck, spraying Ben Franklins on every bad review score that affects them? Who in the hell has the power to get to the bottom of this thing and get some (*gasp… dare I say it?) regulation on these fools? What really happened to Jeff Gerstmann? It’s abundantly apparent that his pink slip may turn out to be our ticket to a huge song and dance routine. These mega-publishers continue to sail their yachts further and further into uncharted waters, testing just how far gamers will let them go.
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4whatsminnow.jpg
I just hope they’ve piled a lot of supplies on their little SS Minnow, because I have a feeling it won’t be long before they find themselves swallowed up by a hate-hurricane. When you piss of a gamer, they don’t just stop buying your games. They also tell a hundred friends, who also tell a hundred friends. Before long, wealthy men in big suits are sitting around a gigantic board room table, trying to figure out how to salvage their image.
So my first “What for which I want an answer” is:
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4whatshands.jpg (http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/index.php/2008/01/four-whats-for-which-i-want-answers.html/4whatshandsjpg/)
What is it going to take to get you pissed off enough about the state of gaming journalism and broad-daylight payoffs, to do something about it?
Xbox Live Holiday Outage: What’s the big deal?
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4whatsxbl.jpg
When I turned on my Xbox over the holidays, I wasn’t hoping for much. Just the reassuring swooshing sound with the reversed musical note that signaled the beginning of a long happy night of Call of Duty 4. What I got, and what millions of Xbox Live subscribers got, was a frustrating series of headaches and blank stares. The service that I depend on for my gaming, my movies, and my social scene(pathetic but true), was on the fritz, and nearly unusable.
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4whats.jpg
After nearly a month of silent hand-wringing, Microsoft finally issued a statement to it’s MVP’s (apparently they lost the email addresses of us common-folk) saying that something was indeed wrong over the holidays. There was nothing in there about exactly WHAT happened, just that they were having some issues, that there was NOT an OUTAGE and that things would be back to normal soon.
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4whats-torches.jpg
By this time, the more dramatic gamers in our midst were already dousing t-shirts with kerosene and wrapping them around sticks. There were even rumors of lawsuits brought on by the “not-outage.” By the time all is said and done, mother Microsoft ended up issuing a free game (that exciting scuba-combat 2-d title we’ve always wanted) for our troubles.
Personally, I’ll take it. Sure I’d rather have a choice of at least three games, but since I wasn’t really interested in holding out my hand to begin with, I can’t complain. YES it was a pain in the ass. YES it’s gonna be a while until you accrue enough vacation time to be able to do that much gaming again. YES it’s retarded that they seem to have ignored all of those XBL subscription cards that got activated since Thanksgiving. Sure, all of those things are, arguably, true.
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4whatspennies.jpg
At the end of the day, the service that you pay somewhere between 4 and 5 dollars a month for, wasn’t working as well as you would have liked for a couple of weeks. It doesn’t change the fact that, for the most part, Xbox Live remains one of the smartest, sturdiest, and useful things ever to happen to console gaming.
To the PS3 fanboys (both of you) over there in the corner, dancing a jig: You should pray that Sony gets a tenth of a clue and comes up with something that at least deserves to live in the same zipcode as XBL. Enjoy your trophy case, and your avatar. You and the other dozen online PS3 players will probably impress the hell out of each other as you simultaneously try to convince yourselves that you aren’t playing a console version of Second Life.
So, for all of the fuss. For all of the drama. For all of the agonizing screams over this holiday outage on XBL, may I introduce to you the second of my 5 “What’s for Which I Want Answers.”
What’s the big deal?
Sony Gaming Community Relations: What Relations?
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4whatsony.jpg
This “what” may be a little too inside for casual readers, but it makes my list. As a blogger, nothing is more frustrating than being treated like a second-class citizen by big companies. Sarcastic Gamer is just one of literally thousands of independent outlets that cover gaming, day in and day out. Singularly, few of us possess the reach of the mega-sites within the enormous gaming community. But what seperates MS and Sony (Winner and Loser in the NextGen console war) so drastically, in my opinion, is Sony’s complete ignorance of the fact that, as a whole, bloggers represent a deafening voice and play a critical role in what truly informed gamers buy, do, play, and think.
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4whatxbox.jpg
In obvious acknowledgement of this, Microsoft formed the Xbox Community Team. A small but tireless group of people whose primary objective seems to be to let these hardworking bloggers know that they matter. From providing these sites with opportunities that would otherwise go to something owned by CNet or Gamestop, to quickly answering the flood of questions that bombard their email box, no site seems too small for MS to worry about.
In contrast, Sony seems to reserve its human resources for only the most gigantic of sites. I know many bloggers that have completely wasted their finger-calories, typing elaborate introductions to Sony that have gone totally unanswered.
I thought it was just us. If it WERE just us, I guess I could understand. Maybe they didn’t like one of our little ditties, like “How You Killed Your Brand (http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/index.php/2007/10/how-you-killed-your-brand-officially.html)” or “No Frickin Games. (http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/index.php/2007/06/no-frickin-games-new-ps3-song.html)”
To be fair, “Ring of Fire (http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/index.php/2007/06/ring-of-fire.html)” is one of our more popular parody songs to date, and our MS Surface parody (http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/index.php/2007/06/ms-surface-how-we-would-have-done-it.html)is about to pass 2 million views on Youtube. That hasn’t stopped us from getting on a first-name-basis with the Xbox , Surface, and Zune teams at MS.
They return emails. They make us feel like we matter.
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4what-army.jpg
I think underestimating the little guys, may be turn out to be one of the Sony’s biggest
miscalculations. Bloggers, collectively, are a force to be reckoned with. While we at Sarcastic Gamer don’t go out of our way to write crappy things about Sony, it can be really difficult to be all that jazzed about a company that won’t return a frickin email. Plus, when Mega-Spot and its overfed brethren are the only ones with access to people who can answer questions, the only thing WE get to go on, half the time, is regurgitated news and rumors. Honestly, the rumors are a lot more fun.How hard would it be for Sony to at least acknowledge the role that bloggers play in their failure and prosperity? When are they going to parachute down from their ivory tower and find out that not all bloggers have BO and add z’s to the end of all of their werdz?
For ignoring the snot out of all but the largest outlets, I’m directing my third “What for which I want an answer” to Sony, and its PS3 Community Relations Team:
What Community Relations?
NCAA: What the hell are you doing?
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/2k7.jpg
Recently, 2K backed out of negotiations with the NCAA over licensing the next installment of its College Hoops franchise. EA is widely thought to have played a major role in this, having already secured exclusivity with the NFL, and MLB. Most informed gamers seem to be of the opinion that a college basketball exclusivity deal with EA is just around the corner. But if the NCAA knew what was waiting for them around that corner, if they give two free throws about the future of their game image, they’d be sprinting back to the bargaining table with 2K.
Before the NFL sold its soul to EA, Madden was one of the most respected titles in the entire sports genre. While NFL2K was always a distant second in the football fracas, their relentless presence seemed to spur constant innovation on both sides. We got new camera angles, gameplay mechanics, and game modes. Things were always getting better. Even the NFL players were playing the games like mindless zombies.
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/whatsmadden.jpg
Fast Forward a few years and an exclusivity deal later. When was the last time anyone got excited about a new football game? The genre is literally dying in popularity. The games are showing up on the used shelves for pennies on the dollar compared with other titles that came out at the same time. Exclusivity is killing the football video game.
Without something to run from, EA Sports has slowed innovation in Madden to a walk, maybe even a dead stop if you ask some people. I once defended this company, saying something moronic like “it’s football… what more do you want?” The problem is, that we are letting EA answer this question for us.
To the NCAA, (like they’ll ever see this) my fourth and final “What for which I want an answer” is:
What the hell are you doing?