EA Sports is in the second year of their exclusive NFL video game license. To celebrate they are releasing Madden 2007: Hall of Fame Edition, a special limited edition for the PlayStation 2 and the XBox 360.
EA is also releasing a Madden 2007 pay-per-view making-of special on August 4th.
Cost of the pay-per-view? Twenty dollars. For a one-hour special.
There is rarely a franchise big enough to warrant its own pay-per-view special, but EA thinks the upcoming Madden NFL 07 deserves some special coverage for the most serious fans of the series.
The 60-minute special, titled “Inside Madden NFL 07,“ will feature the game’s designers, as well as five top Madden players who will reveal player ratings, gaming tips and other behind-the-scenes goodies.
At one time, something like this would have been on a bonus disc, perhaps one a customer would get for pre-ordering the game. When I purchased The Godfather Special Edition I received a bonus DVD with documentaries on the making of the game and The Godfather and its cultural impact.
I don’t really care how they make Madden Football. Assume that making the special costs a million dollars. At twenty dollars a pop, fifty thousand viewers is all it would take for EA to break even. Fifty thousand viewers. Considering the insane quantities Madden sells every year for what amounts to updated rosters and an extra bell-and-whistle, EA will pull down far more than fifty thousand viewers. Madden isn’t just a game–it’s an experience.
But twenty dollars? To watch a one-hour documentary? Isn’t that excessive?
Don’t ask me why. I don’t understand it. I do know that EA will probably find that they’ve turned a tidy profit from selling something, at an excessive price, that they once gave away for free.
Naked greed is so ugly.
I think EA lost all respect from the fans. Lately, all they’ve become are a bunch of greedy, mony hungry people who will buy almost anyone to swallow up the competition. When they tried to buy Ubisoft, the managment there were smart enough to do whatever they could to block that from happening. Plus, EA is still charging 50 bucks for their products… Some of which happen to not be that good anyway.
On that note, it’s not that difficult to creat a Madden game after all these years. Same game, just update it. And if you ask me, I don’t think it’s worth the 49.99 price anyway.