How the Sports Video game industry has expanded
By Winston Jones
Links to Pages I found:
Getting more detail about the past 20 years with sports video games evolving and producing more and more in the industries like EA, Nintendo, XBOX, Playstation, etc, is definitely a discussion that needs more emphasis and more excitement. Overall, more and more people are starting to realize how the last 20 years of spending 50–60$ for a game is becoming way more common now and is becoming harder to buy for certain users of consoles and PC gaming.
The sports gaming industries like EA sports and 2k started some of the greatest games ever evented many years ago:
Comprassions between EA and 2k
EA sports total years:
1982–2021( current) (39)
Number of Employees
9,800
Prices of EA sports games compared 2000–2021:
2000: Around $10–15
2021: Around $60–70
In 21 years, the pricing of games jumped up nearly 6 times its original value that’s crazy to think about today!
EA Total game production/revenue in 2021:
$5.63 billion
EA Total games sold:
About 43 Million total games
2k Total Years:
2005–2021( current) (16)
Prices of 2k games compared 2000–2021:
2000 $2–5
2021: $40–60
Price went about 10–15 times higher in 20 years! Unbelievable
2k total game revenue in 2021:
$3.37 Billion
2k total games sold:
197 total games
Knowing about this comparison currently, it would seem like EA is the better Franchise for making sports games, but that is not correct. Many makers and news stations blame EA for their glitching and slow internet in games. The players of EA games, in general, have asked for many explanations for too much reality and non-upgraded games over the past 20 years, this is wearing out our industries everywhere because of the high demand for gaming.
The sports gaming industry really took flight once EA released more and more sports games like Madden 94 and NCAA football 2000 came out( so on and so forth into the future). These examples of games caught viewers' and streamers' attention and made sales more constant towards sports games from EA because the prices were less back in 2000 and the covers were much more worth keeping as collector's items.
Around 2005, developers like 2k and the Wii system comes out just 2 years after, in 2007, that’s when some of the best and most likable multiplayer and better-selling games ever came out. For example on this list: the #15 on the video at the bottom I linked had Wii sports as the #15 best sports game ever of all time. This shows that many other developers and creators changed the gaming landscape with different types of modes in games and different systems as well from the major compound companies like Nintendo and Playstation/Xbox.
Later on, when NBA 2k11 came out it was one of the best games ever made in Sports gaming history (made by 2k). This sparked 2k’s franchise and made 2k as a company that produces millions and millions of dollars. Ever since then NBA 2k releases a game every year.
Another franchise people forget to talk about is Nintendo and the development of Mario games and Zelda over 30–35 years worth of gaming through their services. Nintendo has been around since 1889, which is one of the longest franchises if not the longest that’s been around making games.
Even though Nintendo doesn’t make tons of sports games, it incorporated some other developers like 2k and RBI Baseball over the past couple of years. Now you’ll see almost lots of people around the world buying a Nintendo switch for a cheaper price and a cheaper warranty rate than a PS4/PS5 or XBOX console.
It’s crazy to watch the main 3 developers in Video game history go after it every single year. EA and Nintendo hate each other, so they don’t incorporate games like the Madden series or NHL series to the Switch or any Nintendo product. This idea of consumerism through sports gaming is crazy to think about.
Imagining a world without these types of games and seeing multiple shelves and cases of video games wasted seems like a disaster waiting to occur, to not only people in the world. The markets all over the world and businesses creating these amazing games would have to file for bankruptcy because of the market crashing with no sales being made. Now that’s the worst-case scenario in the future.
Going off the subject of which franchise and which company is going to be more successful going forward. The people of the world need to realize how far we have come, and how much more production has happened over the past 20–25 years, it needs to be cherished and remembered for years to come.
The gaming industry is doing its job on selling and editing/correcting their games as best as they can, but it’s so impressive that they were able to change the way we view gaming through sports gaming and get to the mountaintop of sales production. The start of gaming will always be a mystery and the way we view it will always be unknown, it’s a constant search for evidence. But until the sports gaming production is always going to improve every year moving forward into the foreseeable future.