Backbreaker Football, 15 Years Later: What Could've Been

December 1, 2004 is a date that will live on in infamy in the world of sports gamers — the day when EA Sports was given the exclusive NFL licensing for sim-based football games.

Earlier that year, Madden NFL 2005 was made rather uncomfortable by its foremost competitor in ESPN NFL 2K5. Not only was NFL 2K5 the superior game in virtually every way imaginable, but was sold at a cool $19.99 on release, undercutting the standard $49.99 retail price for video games at the time. So not only were you buying one of the best sports games on the market, you were getting it for a fraction of what Madden cost. It even forced EA Sports to drop Madden‘s price to $29.99 in order to compete.

Madden did eventually win the battle, but this kind of action meant war for EA, and one that they could lose (akin to how NBA Live were later be trounced by NBA 2K). Thus, the company negotiated an exclusive licensing deal with the NFL later that year, effectively killing Sega’s hit NFL 2K franchise.