Whatever happened to player endorsed/sponsored sports games?

[savageone]

I had a bit of a classic gaming binge last night, ended up playing a few sports titles for a change of pace. While going through titles it occurred to me that in the 8/16-bit era a huge amount of the games were endorsed/sponsored by well known players of the time.

I'm talking about games like Ken Griffey Jr Baseball, Ivan Stewart Off Road, Joe Montana Football, etc and so on. The list goes on forever. Anyone here can probably name numerous titles even if they've never played them. Then there seems to be huge drop off in the PSX/N64/Saturn era. And how many come to mind from the last 10 years?

It's not incredibly interesting but it does seem like this is a thing of the past.

Does anyone know what happened with this style of marketing?

[Collector_Gaming]

Well in terms of extreme sports theres a ton

Tony Hawks Pro Skater series PS1/N64/GBC - all modern systems
Dave Mirras Pro BMX PS1
Bob Burquist had a skateboarding game for the Dream cast but i can't remember what it was called
Andy Macdonald had "MTV Skateboarding Featuring Andy Macdonald" for PS1

Colin Macrae has a Rally Racing series (started back in the PS1 days) thats still around (its now called "Dirt" yea i know they say Ken Block presents it but it still has the colin macrae name sake on it) for Ps3 and Xbox 360
which also for those games first one had Travis Pastrana's name stamped to it and last 2 had ken blocks name stamped to it.

I feel like i know another one but i can't remember off the top of my head

[mobiusclimber]

I think the reason is there just aren't the Joe Montanas or Ken Griffey Jrs in sports right now. Plus, modern athletes seem to end up embroiled in scandal. I'm sure game companies pretty much decided that spending a ton of money to get an endorsement when the player is just going to get arrested for spousal abuse, dog fighting, or sticking steroids in another players' ass wasn't worth it.

[Bojay1997]

I think the reason is there just aren't the Joe Montanas or Ken Griffey Jrs in sports right now. Plus, modern athletes seem to end up embroiled in scandal. I'm sure game companies pretty much decided that spending a ton of money to get an endorsement when the player is just going to get arrested for spousal abuse, dog fighting, or sticking steroids in another players' ass wasn't worth it.

This is the dilemna EA is facing with Tiger Woods. Frankly, there are just fewer mainstream sports games out there and building them around a particular athlete doesn't make a whole lot of economic sense, although there are clearly some exceptions like Gretzky Challenge for the Wii and the various extreme sports games others have mentioned.

[bangtango]

I can think of two reasons, neither of which may be 100% correct but I'll give it a shot.

1. A lot of those games which were endorsed by athletes either didn't contain real professional teams (just city names) or they didn't have any real players in the game, other than the person endorsing it (and even then that wasn't always a given). Nowadays if you don't have real players or teams, you might as well not even waste money to develop the game. At least not for a console.

2. Cutting down on licensing costs. An athlete endorsed baseball game with all the fixings, for example, would require one fee to get the MLB license for all the teams, a second fee for an MLBPA license to get all the players and then a third fee to get the player to endorse the game. Same thing with the NBA, NFL, NHL, etc. Generally it is easier to save money and only pay for the teams and players.

[kupomogli]

Tiger Woods games are still getting yearly releases.

[understatement]

I feel like i know another one but i can't remember off the top of my head

Shaun White

[Collector_Gaming]

2. Cutting down on licensing costs. An athlete endorsed baseball game with all the fixings, for example, would require one fee to get the MLB license for all the teams, a second fee for an MLBPA license to get all the players and then a third fee to get the player to endorse the game. Same thing with the NBA, NFL, NHL, etc. Generally it is easier to save money and only pay for the teams and players.

to me from a business stand point it would be better that way too.

I mean has a game ever really sold substantially better then another just because its licensed by x professional athlete.

I think Madden series sold well not because of john maddens name sake (remember the first game or 2 didn't actually sell really well when compared next to say Techmo Bowl) but because the insider info they got from madden and all the athletes they dealt with over the years to help make it the best selling football series ever

Now where a professional athlete will come into play in helping a game succeed imo is when they lend their inside look on the sport to the game.

For instance Tony Hawk helped Activision create the best selling skateboarder series EVER! It wasn't his name that made the game sell. It was the fact he knew everything there was to know about skateboarding and helped them understand it and what he feels a gamers gonna wanna see.

[Kitsune Sniper]

Colin Macrae has a Rally Racing series (started back in the PS1 days) thats still around (its now called "Dirt" yea i know they say Ken Block presents it but it still has the colin macrae name sake on it) for Ps3 and Xbox 360
which also for those games first one had Travis Pastrana's name stamped to it and last 2 had ken blocks name stamped to it.

There's no more games with Colin McRae because of his accidental death a few years ago.

The very first game on the PS1 was pretty good. It's the only racing game I can actually play and think is fair for newbies like me.

[Compute]

I remember playing Troy Aikman football and not liking it simply because it had no actual players or teams, just cities. At that point there were tons of games that DID have actual players and teams. Unless you can create a novelty factor (Mutant League Football), there's no point in making a this-could-be-the-nfl-or-not game. In the case of extreme sports, there's not really a league in the same sense that football, baseball, and basketball have a league. Therefore, having Tony Hawk's name on a skateboarding game doesn't suggest that the game will have all the players and teams from a skateboarding league.

If say, Michael Vick puts his name on a game, that's great for fans of MV and his team. What about people who are NOT fans of MV or his team? I can tell you that I definitely thought that "Sterling Sharpe's End2End" was better because it had a GB Packer player on the cover. Today I know that it wasn't any better than most of the other player-named titles.

[Collector_Gaming]

I remember playing Troy Aikman football and not liking it simply because it had no actual players or teams, just cities. At that point there were tons of games that DID have actual players and teams. Unless you can create a novelty factor (Mutant League Football), there's no point in making a this-could-be-the-nfl-or-not game. In the case of extreme sports, there's not really a league in the same sense that football, baseball, and basketball have a league. Therefore, having Tony Hawk's name on a skateboarding game doesn't suggest that the game will have all the players and teams from a skateboarding league.

yea but theres alot of licensing involved in say a skateboarding game

all the skaters used
all skateboard companies that provide decks, trucks, wheels, bearings, grip tape, shoes, shirts ect ect ect
and it wouldn't be a skateboard game unless it had all kinds of hit rock and rap songs

[G-Boobie]

I'm G-Boobie and I recommend you buy this Xtreme badminton game for DSi-ware. It's got shuttlecocks in it.

[Collector_Gaming]

I'm G-Boobie and I recommend you buy this Xtreme badminton game for DSi-ware. It's got shuttlecocks in it.

its got shuttlecocks in it you say?

http://www.collegechan.com/requests/src/1305230076185.jpg

[bangtango]

to me from a business stand point it would be better that way too.

I mean has a game ever really sold substantially better then another just because its licensed by x professional athlete.

I think Madden series sold well not because of john maddens name sake (remember the first game or 2 didn't actually sell really well when compared next to say Techmo Bowl) but because the insider info they got from madden and all the athletes they dealt with over the years to help make it the best selling football series ever.

In the case of Madden, what helped that game immensely is that they continued to produce it year after year with his name on it, in addition to improving it every year.

Under the right circumstances, somebody could have established a basketball or baseball series back then under a big-name endorsement, but that never really panned out. Whose name would you use in either case anyway?

I know Frank Thomas and Derek Jeter were both attached to Acclaim's All-Star Baseball for years. Otherwise do you recall anything resembling a multi-year baseball endorsement, because I don't :)

[Collector_Gaming]

in terms of basketball back in the day and still to this day michael jordan or larry bird (which they did for a NES game if you remember
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0f/Jordan_vs_Bird_-_One_on_One_Coverart.png)
or a few other great players could have lent their names

[Porksta]

Jerry Rice and his dog are endorsing a game.

[Suikoman444]

That's true. Something I almost want to try out, just to see how dog football works :P

[GameNinja]

Did Tony Hawk really contribute a lot to his namesake games? I really enjoyed the first one on N64 but I never thought he actually did anything with the game except give his likeness and name.

[Collector_Gaming]

Did Tony Hawk really contribute a lot to his namesake games? I really enjoyed the first one on N64 but I never thought he actually did anything with the game except give his likeness and name.

he gave his input on what the game should be like. Showed them how the tricks should look like and kinda add the skater appeal to the game and such.

[G-Boobie]

That's true. Something I almost want to try out, just to see how dog football works :P

Giant Bomb has a quick look up. Turns out it works very poorly.

[LaughingMAN.S9]

michael vicks pit fighting 2k4, GOTY edition

[nebrazca78]

Now that Electronic Arts is the only company that's allowed to produce NFL games, that pretty much killed the sport for everyone else. Everyone got used to and expects full rosters, and rightly so. Since there will be hardly anyone willing to make a football game without rosters, that also kills almost all potential for individual endorsement. And football was one of the biggest individually endorsed sports genres of the 90's.

But I agree with previous posters that individuals having the problem of being polarizing and/or ruining the company's image by committing crimes is the biggest reason we don't see it much anymore.

.

[bangtango]

Now that Electronic Arts is the only company that's allowed to produce NFL games, that pretty much killed the sport for everyone else. Everyone got used to and expects full rosters, and rightly so. Since there will be hardly anyone willing to make a football game without rosters, that also kills almost all potential for individual endorsement. And football was one of the biggest individually endorsed sports genres of the 90's.

But I agree with previous posters that individuals having the problem of being polarizing and/or ruining the company's image by committing crimes is the biggest reason we don't see it much anymore.

.

The other problem that used to come up is that whenever guys would endorse a sports game, that particular athlete usually wouldn't appear on the official roster for any games released by a competitor.

So you always had fake guys replacing Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Shaq, etc. in various NBA games.

My favorite fictitious athlete was "Redskins Linebacker" (first/last name) from some of the NFL 2K games, which resulted from Lavar Arrington having some convoluted NFLPA deal.