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EA Sports is a brand name used by Electronic Arts since 1993 to distribute games based on Sport s. Formerly a gimmick inside Electronic Arts sports games, that tried to mimic real-life sports networks, calling themselves "EA Sports Network" (EASN) with pictures or endorsements of real commentators such as Ron Barr and John Madden , it soon grew up to become a sub-label on its own, releasing games such as FIFA, NHL, Madden NFL , and NCAA Football. EA Sports' early Motto , ''If it's in the game, it's in the game'' (today the motto is just ''It's in the game.'') reflects the aim of the early games to portrait reality as best as the technology would allow. Unlike other companies, EA Sports has no special ties to a single platform, all games are released for the best-selling active platforms, sometimes long after most other companies abandon them (''FIFA 98'', ''Madden NFL 98'', ''NBA Live 98'', and ''NHL 98'' were released for the Sega Mega Drive/Sega Genesis and the Super Nintendo throughout 1997; and Madden NFL 2005 and FIFA 2005 had PlayStation releases in 2004). 16 BIT ERA After establishing with some highly regarded titles from 1987-1992, most notably ''), the exception being the Madden games, which featured Madden himself. All boxes would remain this way until 1997 , when individual players starred alone, and although the ''99'' titles featured one unusual dark blue case, the all-white boxes returned next year. The first titles were released for both Sega 's 16-bit console, the Mega Drive / Sega Genesis , and Nintendo 's SNES (among other platforms, but only regularly for these two). In fact, some attribute the success of Sega's console partly on the strength of the sports catalog provided by EA Sports. On the other hand, the lack of them on the next Sega console, the Saturn is believed to be one of the reasons it failed on the American market. 32 BIT ERA TO PRESENT As the 16-bit era came to a close, and powerful 3D-capable consoles appeared, EA had to reinvent their franchises, and some of the earliest titles failed to live up to their 2D predecessors' reputation. However, in 1998 two games received very positive feedback - ''FIFA 98: Road to World Cup'' and ''NHL 98''. Later that year, ''World Cup 98'' broke the bad reputation of "official videogames" by receiving high marks almost unanimously. As fluidity in gameplay caught up with graphics, EA soon had to face another problem: the lack of improvement over previous titles, or as fans dubbed it, "sequelitis". The first years of the 21st Century were problematic, with many fans left wondering about why they should bother with the next release, when few new features are added, gameplay was not improved (it was more action-oriented than some of their newer competitors) and their long-asked requests were not answered. A new sublabel also appeared, dubbed EA Sports BIG, which specialized on Extreme Sports or unconventional takes on sports, such as Def Jam Vendetta , NFL Street , NBA Street , SSX , FIFA Street and Freekstyle . SERIES AND GAMES Most EA Sports games are distinguished by year, as most games are released on a yearly basis. However, as EA Sports is the leading purchaser of official licenses, it's not uncommon that in a short span several games of the same sport but with different licenses are released: ''FIFA 98'' was shortly followed by ''World Cup 98'' (as EA has the license for the FIFA World Cup and the European Football Championship , it happens regularly in two-year intervals) and college football or basketball games based on both NBA Live and Madden NFL. The earlier titles released until 1996 are referred by fans as the ''classic'' series.
:preceded by ''The NBA Playoffs'' ( 1989 - 1993 ), and ''NBA Showdown'' ( 1993 ).
:EA Sports also released several other games, most notably the games with World Cup and European Championship licenses.
:Three Elitserien titles were also released in Sweden :Three SM-liiga titles were released in Finland
:Preceded by ''FIFA Soccer Manager'' (1996) and the ''Premier League Manager'' series.
:Australian Rugby League was released on Sega Mega Drive/Genesis as you play through the 1995 ARL season and the other ARL 96 was on PC depicting the 1996 ARL season.
:Started at Rugby World Cup 1995 on Sega Mega Drive/Genesis which went on to Rugby 2001 (A late version of Rugby World Cup 1999) PC only, Rugby, Rugby 2004, Rugby 2005, and Rugby 2006 all on Playstation 2 and XBOX as well as PC
:First version released in February 2006
:Cricket started out with Ian Botham International Cricket 1996 (called Cricket 96 in Australia); Its sequel was Cricket 97 which was complemented with Cricket 97: Ashes Tour Edition. Following releases include Cricket Ashes Tour (1998), Cricket World Cup 99 (1999) and Cricket 2000. From then onwards, the series was a biennial one, with the releases of Cricket 2002 and 2004. It has returned to being an annual release with the recent release of Cricket 2005 There are other series, including ''F1 Championship'' (discontinued after Sony acquired the exclusive license for the Formula 1 championship), ''Superbike'' and others with a limited distribution such as '' AFL ''. EXCLUSIVITY DEALS In 2003 EA purchased the license to NASCAR , ending competition from Papyrus and Infogrames . Many loyal fans of the NASCAR Racing Series games by Papyrus (which by that time was a division of NBC Universal minority owner Vivendi, with NBC holding broadcast rights) resent EA for that and currently boycott all EA games. More recently, just a Month After purchasing the license of the UEFA Champions League (previously owned by Eidos ) in November 2004 , EA announced an exclusive deal (rumoured to be worth around US $ 1 B ) with the NFL and the NFL Players Association (Players Inc.) making them the sole provider of licensed NFL video games until 2010 , which effectively removes the competition from the market, who will not be allowed to feature real NFL players or teams in their games. It is considered that one of the main reasons behind the deal is related with Take Two 's aggressive pricing with their ESPN -licensed series, which were retailed at Budget Price , about half the price of a regular EA Sports game. It is believed that the same move was attempted in late 2004 on the NBA , but it was refused and afterwards EA executives denied making any offer to the Basketball association. However, their "exclusive spree" continued on January 2005 when a deal with the Arena Football League (AFL) was announced, but with less impact on the market, as the license was previously vacant. A new deal was done just days after the AFL deal, when former SEGA/Take Two partners ESPN signed a 15-year deal with EA Sports. In 2005, EA also completed an exclusivity deal with the NCAA, allowing EA to produce the only officially licensed college football game. However, the exclusive rights to NCAA basketball was not included in this deal allowing 2K sports to continue their College Hoops 2K series. The only real loss of these deals was of the MLB series, which went for five years (starting in 2006 ) to Take Two Interactive . EA Sports responded by using its exclusivity deal with the NCAA to continue its '' MVP Baseball Series '' in 2006, featuring collegiate baseball teams instead of professionals. MVP 06 NCAA Baseball was the first college baseball video game produced for a console. 06 GAMES
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