Sports video games are a huge business -- and for many years, it was an extremely competitive space. I remember a few years back trying to wade through half a dozen different baseball video game titles to figure out which one was worth buying. However, a few years back, video game giant EA started signing "exclusive" deals with a variety of sporting leagues, including the NFL. These "exclusive" deals supposedly meant that only EA could produce games with the names and stats of real players -- a huge selling point among most fans. And, of course, in gaining exclusivity, EA has completely cashed in. However, a bunch of angry video gamers are now suing the company for anticompetitive conduct, noting that these exclusive deals killed off all the competition, allowing EA to drastically raise its prices.
Next-Gen.Biz writes: "The NPD Group has revealed the top 10 selling games of all time in the U.S. market.
Ripten's Chad Lakkis writes:
The Hollywood Reporter, by Kimberly Nordyke on Jan 16, 2008:
Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey picks what he believes will be the biggest sellers of 2008.
Jan. 2, 2008 -- MSNBC tallied in their Game of the Year readers' votes between December 19 and 27. "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare" garnered 33 percent of the over 17,000 votes and is MSNBC Readers' Game of the Year. The runner-up was "Bioshock" at 22 percent of the votes. The second runner-up was "Mass Effect" at 10 percent.
MSNBC video game section has been polling gamers about their favorite games in a number of categories, trying to narrow down the search for the Game of the Year.
Kotaku's Brian Crecente has a leaked copy of the National Institute on Media and the Family's annual Media Wise Video Game Report Card, set to be officially released tomorrow. This year's report card is broken into five parts:
The best selling games in units sold, across all platforms, for the year are as follows, with more year-to-date sales data available at the source.
Analysts said Tuesday that Electronic Arts is cutting prices on sports games such as "NBA Live 08," "Madden NFL 08" and "Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08," which the analysts said is a bad sign going into the holiday season.