When going to a place like Game Stop or any other store that sells video games to buy a football game whether pro or college, the choice is simple. If you’re in to professional sports games then your choice will be Madden, if your in to college football games then your pick will be NCAA Football. Are these games so much better than other football games? I know what you’re thinking, that’s a dumb question. The reason that’s a dumb question and the reason the choice is so simple is because of one thing, competition. Competition, or lack thereof, is what makes the decision an easy one because there aren’t any other college or pro football video games on the market.
Don’t get me wrong I’m as big a fan of the NCAA Football franchise as anybody and Madden definitely has it’s strengths, but imagine how much better they could be if there was another college football game or NFL game out there competing for the consumer. NCAA Football has for the most part never had to compete with any other college football game , and while I believe it is a great game anyway, I think it would be much more than just a few new features and modes each year if it had a direct competitor. The game is great every year, but I feel like they just try to add something to keep you coming back instead of trying to make the best game ever.
The Madden franchise hasn’t had a direct competitor since the 2k sports franchise’s, NFL 2k5, which was last game released for the franchise. I feel like EA does even less for the Madden franchise each year. I think they just do enough to get by and they know gamers will still buy it regardless of how different it was from the last year, I know this from experience because I’ve purchased Madden every year for as long as I can remember. And even though Madden is a great franchise, I think the 2k series is my favorite pro football series of all time.I think companies that have direct competitors produce better video games, just look at the MLB franchises.
Personally I prefer the MLB The Show franchise and I think its probably my favorites sports game, but even 2k produces a baseball game that people like every year. And I feel as if The Show gets better every year because of this competition, and the same could probably be said about the MLB 2k franchise.Even when it comes to basketball, the competition forces the video game companies to produce a great game to be able to compete.
NBA Live and NBA 2k are franchises that come out with games that people enjoy year after year. And at first I was a fan of the NBA Live franchise, but over the last few years I’ve become a NBA 2k fan and I think the reason for this is because of the gameplay, it just seems more realistic and more smooth.It doesn’t stop with just basketball or baseball though, we can even use hockey as an example. From 20o0 up until 2010, the EA NHL franchise had to compete with the 2k version , NHL 2k. I feel like over this time I enjoyed both of these video games because both companies were trying to create the best hockey game. I haven’t bought the EA version of NHL in the past few years, but I’m sure since 2k isn’t pushing them it hasn’t been as good as in the past.Don’t get me wrong, NCAA Football and Madden are great games and franchises. And my argument isn’t that they need to be better. My argument is simply, if they had competition, imagine how much better they could possibly be. What is keeping this from happening? Could be a number of things; copyrights, the NCAA, the NFL, money, no one to compete? Who knows.
(previously posted on sportsrants.com/nextlevelsports)