On October 21, 2008, Electronic Arts' sports division will unleash upon salivating PC gamers its most recent installment of
NHL 09 for $49.99 MSRP. "Winner of 7 Sports Game of the Year Awards," the NHL series as brought to us by EA Sports has, over the last 17 years, has been one of the best reviewed franchises in video game history, as well as one of the most beloved. However, not is all as cheery or as optimistic as EA would make it out to be. For the past 2 years, PC gamers have found themselves in unfamiliar territory: having their favored version of
NHL 07 or
NHL 08 be, in many ways, an inferior version to those on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 consoles. I, and many like myself, are crying foul; some of us privately, some of us on whatever medium we can, such as EA's official "
NHL PC" boards. The uproar has gone unaddressed by Electronic Arts since the complaining began shortly after
NHL 07 was unveiled and the truth of the matter became that we PC gamers were about to be left in the dust for no apparent reason. Here I am going to personally investigate the matter as best I can, because I for one would prefer that the facts be made apparent and public.
First, I'm going to address the main question at hand: why doesn't Electronic Arts update the PC version of their NHL series to the level the current generation consoles (X360, PS3) is on? Here's my quick list of theories, each of which I'll address:
- Poor PC market
- Piracy
- Laziness
The first two are theories very commonly used by the denizens of EA's NHL PC forums, and the last one is my own. Before I get to them, I want to get into a brief history of the NHL series, as brought to us by EA Sports.
The first three NHL games Electronic Arts published and released (
NHL Hockey,
NHLPA Hockey '93, and the immortal
NHL '94) were and still are considered today to be landmarks in not just the sports gaming world but overall. Many people bought Sega Genesis consoles in the early-90's simply because of at least one of those three games. Yet, on the whole, each game was not entirely different from the other. Yes, there were certain features added that made big impacts on the series and improved them dramatically (from
Hockey to
'93, NHLPA licensing; from
'93 to
'94, slap-shots and compiled stats for playoffs), but early on this set a tone that would become all too familiar for those who have followed the ascent of the EA Sports brand. Sure enough, from one game to the next there were a few changes here and there (aside from the obvious roster changes, logo changes, etc.) but nothing the really marked an innovative paradigm shift in the series that would make people stand up and say, "Hey, that's worth buying this game for!" Of course, at the time, the concept of annual releases for games was barely new.
In 1993, however, while
NHL '94 was making waves on the console market, Electronic Arts also released
NHL Hockey for MS-DOS. While lacking the vaunted one-timer, this began the long tradition of the PC version of EA Sports' titles being the standard to which the other versions would be compared. Though it's unfair to compare the differences between the Genesis version of NHL '94 to the MS-DOS version of NHL Hockey (particularly since the ROM size of NHL 94 for the Genesis is 1 MB and NHL Hockey for DOS was on a CD), here's a sample of the key differences between both games:
- NHL Hockey featured a full, 82-game NHL season, with full stat tracking and league leaders, as well as the ability to export and import rosters and stats. NHL 94 had only the Stanley Cup playoffs, and tracked stats only for your team and your opponents. No support for exporting or importing anything, as it isn't technically possible with the Genesis anyway.
- NHL Hockey featured higher-resolution graphics and textures, as well as more animations, than its console counterpart.
- NHL Hockey had more in-depth intermissions, and you could even save games in the middle of playing.
- NHL Hockey also had the capacity for better sound.
Again, I realize it's an uneven playing field, but it helps secure my point: for 12 more years you could this sort of leaps-and-bounds comparisons between the PC versions of NHL whatever-year and the console versions and say, "There's a big difference between them." Now, and for the last 2 years, the shoe is on the other foot.
So why, all of a sudden, did EA Sports make their abrupt change to give the consoles more respect than the PCs? It is here where I should note that PCs are entirely capable of matching wits or parts with any console on the market, and that there are games out there that are not only PC-exclusive but challenge systems as well. In fact, one of the most recent and most well-known of which is an EA-produced game:
Crysis. I wish I was joking, but the fact of the matter is that PCs are far more suitable for the sort of annual release practice that EA Sports indulges in due to their adaptability. But, here we are,
NHL 09 is out on the PC in one month and EA has no defense for its actions. It's so difficult to fathom that EA hasn't responded that fans of the NHL series are making up reasons as to why they didn't bother updating
NHL 09 for the PC (which I've already posted above). The first one:
- The PC market is too poor, or is poorer as compared to the console market.
This one is a no-brainer:
false. If EA truly thought the PC market wasn't feasible for new releases, they wouldn't be coming out with NHL 09 for the PC at all. And EA is hardly out for the niché market, either. EA makes games that are popular,
good and they sell. Since they sell, they continue to publish them. Whether or not they or their developers put enough effort into the games they make...that's another issue to be discussed shortly.
A counter-argument would be to point at EA Sports' vaunted Madden series. On April 1, 2008, EA Sports' new president Peter Moore announced that a PC version of the game would not be released in 2009, stating:
...I’ll reiterate what I said a couple of weeks ago in this space…the PC presents some very serious business challenges to us in the sports category, particularly because so many of you all are playing your favorite sports games on the PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii. (link)
(Peter Moore, of course, was a big name in Microsoft's Xbox division and, before that, was president and COO of Sega of America during the rise and fall of the Dreamcast. That's mostly irrelevant, certainly, but that's why I have this all in parenthesis.)
To be fair, EA Sports does have "some very serious business challenges" in its PC market, primarily due to fans doing their games, but not their business, a service. For example, every version of NBA Live, MVP Baseball, NHL Hockey, FIFA Soccer and Madden NFL as been modded in some way, shape or form by fans, primarily graphically and with rosters. EA has unfortunately missed the message, which is "Improve your games so fans don't have to." I don't see Konami bailing out of making
Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 for the PC, do you? The PES series (and, before that, the Winning Eleven series) has been one of the most fan-modded games in recent memory, and is year after year better-reviewed and well-received than EA's FIFA series (which plays a role in this, more later). Or maybe the "very serious business challenges" have more to do with...
- Piracy is destroying the marketability of PC games.
On January 12, 2008, community manager for Infinity Ward (
Call of Duty 4) Robert Bowling said this on his blog:
On another PC related note, we pulled some disturbing numbers this past week about the amount of PC players currently playing Multiplayer (which was fantastic). What wasn’t fantastic was the percentage of those numbers who were playing on stolen copies of the game on stolen / cracked CD keys of pirated copies (and that was only people playing online). (link)
Welcome to 1999! We have a special gift for you! It's called
Napster.
I'm a self-proclaimed pirate. I don't advocate it, but I do it because it's cheaper than buying something I may not love enough to have been happy I paid $50-$60+ dollars for. Piracy has been an issue for the major media (TV, movies, music, software, books, etc.) for as long as there's been a way to copy them and distribute them for cheaper than what their actual owners do. In the 2007 documentary
Good Copy Bad Copy, MPAA CEO Dan Glickman even states (paraphrasing), "Piracy will never be stopped, but...they will try to make it as difficult and tedious as possible." The music industry has seen a major reform since the days of Naptster, with many bands now trying to sweeten their music offerings with other downloads, and iTunes making things more approachable for many. Of course, the video game industry made USD $9.5B in 2007, so maybe the comparison isn't fair. Unless you can't ignore the fact that the film industry raked in USD $9.63B in the same year. Piracy is an issue for all and an issue for none simulatenously. Improve your product, lower your prices, or lose your business. That's
capitalism.
Unlike numbers for sales, numbers are piracy are near impossible to collect. In the case of
Call of Duty 4, apparently not so much. In general however, when I read about people complaining about piracy, I think they're complaining about below expectations sales, which could also be due to a crappy product. But piracy is the best scapegoat in the media industries because no one likes to argue when the law is bandied about. However changing attitudes in the music industry may ultimately change opinions on that matter. Or maybe not, when console game prices have gone up $10 apiece and Blu-ray DVDs have done the same.
Regardless,
NHL 09 wasn't updated because EA doesn't want another game to be pirated. That's
false, and ridiculous. If they were that worried about piracy they wouldn't have released
NHL 09 at all, or
FIFA 09, or
Tiger Woods 09. They would've stuck with the tougher-to-pirate console versions. No, I think they didn't update
NHL 09 because of the next theory, which I'm introducing to the argument:
EA Sports made this theory moot a month before I even made it, by announcing the
FIFA 09 will be "next-gen" for the PC.
WHAT?!
Sure enough, I've played the demo and it plays and looks like it will be very similar to the console versions, if not the same. This blows me and my theory away. However, one very reasonable counter argument to this would be that EA isn't as concerned with the competitiveness of the NHL series as they are the FIFA series.
Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 was next-gen and has been stealing EA's business away year-after-year, fan-made modifications and all. One thought is that EA had no other choice but to remain competitive with its FIFA franchise and their only choice was and has been for years to try and keep up with Konami. Fine, that's a pretty good counter-argument.
I still think they're lazy. As I've stated before, NBA Live is modified constantly by the community, and this year, like Madden NFL, there will not be a PC version. All this points to is EA giving up on trying to make things better so that PC gamers don't have to pirate their games.
Now, if there is an argument in favor of EA, they would be more than glad to point out that there have been some updates for the PC version of
NHL 09, which I'd be also glad to point out:
- Jerseys, graphics and rosters (yawn)
- Be A Pro
That's two things. Sure, I'm ignoring Rookie Mode and all the European Leagues, but I and all my fellow NHL fans don't care. If they hadn't done the typical jersey, graphics and rosters updates, we'd still be playing NHL Hockey. That's the biggest gimmie ever.
Be A Pro mode, however, is a gigantic slap in the face. Instead of a full-fledged update to meet or beat the features on the consoles, we get this? A piece, a taste of what we could've had if we got a nice, new console? Bullshit. EA Sports, you've been doing this sort of crap for years. You wonder why people pirate your game. It's because no one wants to spend $50 on one new major feature every year. Not anymore.
Frankly I can't come up with a solid answer as to why EA Sports didn't update NHL 09, primarily thanks to their treatment of their other franchises. They aren't releasing Madden 09, despite it being their #1 franchise, even though it's probably the least modified of all their franchises. They aren't releasing NBA Live 09, which the fans would probably update to the standards EA would anyway. They are not only releasing FIFA Soccer 09 but bringing it up to speed with its console versions, but probably only because PES09 will be taking away more of its business.
I've got it. It's a combination of laziness and lack of competition. But, wait. EA never really had much competition on the PC. Plus they are came out with a widely-panned Tiger Woods 09. Shit.
(The irony in all this is that the console versions of NHL 09 will see a landmark update: the EA Sports Hockey League. An MMO. Which dominate PCs.)
85242
35212
Dopefish