Both EA Sports and 2K Sports abandoned college basketball video games earlier this generation. What it came down to was college games, outside of football, simply don’t sell well – and they open themselves up to ongoing litigation regarding the use player likenesses. The recipe was one of high risk and low reward. Both companies – along with many others – have instead decided to dedicate resources to proven properties with greater potential return rather than investing in those that have little upside.

2K dropped out after College Hoops 2K8 (which will be remembered as one of the best sports games this gen) as the market simply couldn’t support two competing titles. Considering development costs the market was found to not be substantial enough to even support a single game. Only two years later EA bowed out following the disappointing NCAA Basketball 10.

I’ve continued to hear rumblings of a college basketball game in the works at EA Sports with the plan to release it bi-yearly. When, or if, that will end up materializing remains uncertain. There could be a window now though with the NBA lockout offering increased exposure for college basketball that goes beyond just the boom that is March Madness.

The idea however that all of the sudden a college basketball video game would sell a significant amount more given the NBA situation than it would have otherwise is a faulty one. If that was the case the TV ratings for college games would be on the rise right now. The only one that has registered a blip so far was the ‘Carrier Classic’ given its heavy promotion and airing on CBS ESPN in primetime with the unique setting of playing on an aircraft carrier.

A full-featured collegiate offering could be difficult to package as a digital-download, though EA did try somewhat with NCAA Basketball 09: March Madness edition which focused solely on the tournament. It didn’t sell all that well but the economic climate has changed and digitally distributed titles have become much more accepted since then.

All of this though still ignores that eventually the NBA will be back and the professional league titles will completely overshadow a college game that would presumably release after them on the schedule. It could try the February/March release time frame to capitalize on the tournament and distance itself from them but EA has experimented with that in the past and there was no positive effect on sales. The player likeness lawsuits have not been settled either making it a questionable decision to put out an additional product that could end up costing the company in damages in the future.

While the non-existent NBA season would have been a perfect opportunity for a company to offer up a college basketball game none could take the risk that it would play out this way as they still far outweigh the rewards. That won’t necessarily be the case forever – and the NBA is helping that process along with their extended lockout.

A critical hearing takes place tomorrow in the case of Sam Keller vs. the NCAA, Collegiate Licensing Company, and EA Sports. The lawsuit, originally filed in 2009, has reached the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after the argument to dismiss made by EA Sports regarding free speech protection as creative works of art was rejected last February. That First Amendment challenge has been watched closely and supported by Hollywood as it could affect their entertainment-based operations if challenged in the future.

The two most prominent and potentially damaging lawsuits that were filed separately, those being from Sam Keller and Ed O’Bannon, were combined into one large class action suit against the NCAA and its partners. Keller’s side has been arguing for the right to be compensated for having their likeness used while in school, while O’Bannon’s fight has been about paying for likenesses used after the student-athlete has left school. Several other former collegiate athletes have joined the class action including most recently Oscar Robertson.

The final result of the lawsuits will have a huge impact on how video games (amongst many other avenues such as jerseys, memorabilia, broadcast contracts and DVDs) can operate. Should the former athletes win it would lead to drastic changes for the video game landscape. College sports games would become completely generic in rosters and ratings and even the ability to use “roster sharing” would potentially have to be removed. The other option would be with the NCAA actually compensating players and in turn a company like EA Sports paying for full rights to use complete player likenesses even down to real names.

The difficulty in that stems from the costs involved and how the money would be split amongst players. High profile individuals would certainly have more claim to funds than those who barely make the team and never see the field. However that would get extremely messy to determine based on individual exposure, team exposure, and on-field performance. It could end up being a big pot that is split evenly but then there would probably be more lawsuits to come out of that. Regardless it is hard to imagine a company paying a huge sum for player likenesses since that would involve approximately 15,000 individuals each year getting a cut of what would need to be a large amount to be sufficient. The profit margin on college games are so slim to begin with.

If the lawsuit goes in the NCAA’s favor it would be status quo for the time being. Rosters would continue to be partially representative of the real-life players without crossing the boundaries that have been in place in the past. EA Sports has been trying for some time to obtain the rights to use player names in the game and had gained ground on a potential deal with the NCAA but the lawsuits pushed things off track. That discussion could be re-entered if the opportunity arises.

College basketball games have always been weak sellers and no company is going to risk jumping in right now to create a new game with the lawsuits looming. College football seems likely to survive regardless of the final decision as the sales are more significant however it will have a big influence on the direction it goes. Certainly, even as the exclusive license expires after this year, EA is really the only company in a position to make the ongoing investment in an NCAA Football series. Whether they find it fiscally responsible to do so is another question.

Whatever the final ruling this will surely not be the final stop for the lawsuit. It is believed that it will eventually end up in the Supreme Court. That means it could be a few more years before the final ramifications, either way, are felt.

Within a three year span no sport has taken a hit in the sports gaming world as severely as basketball. There used to be five total titles with three NBA games and two NCAA games. Now there are two NBA titles (with one possibly on its last legs) and none for college. Why has this happened specifically to the NCAA offerings and what is the current outlook on the eventual future of college basketball gaming?

College Hoops from 2K Sports dropped out because the market couldn’t support two games. When I analyzed the situation, just two weeks before that was announced, it was clear that was the case. The conventional thinking at the time was March Madness, which became NCAA Basketball, would then be able to pick up sales that had been split between the two titles. That never happened.

So now NCAA Basketball is canceled and there will be no college basketball games for the foreseeable future. Low sales, with little potential for growth, and the impact of the lawsuits that currently are being faced are the main reasons for this. Despite EA having a quasi-exclusive, as they did not buy an exclusive license just no one else has been willing to pay what the CLC has asked for, they were unable to increase sales enough to justify the costs involved with making and distributing the game.

College basketball games have never sold well. They’ve always been viewed as a secondary title and one that had several disadvantages. The games would release just over a month after the NBA games and during a time when most sports fans couldn’t care less about college basketball. For most it just doesn’t get interesting until tournament time. Add to that how it was the last sports game released during the year. It would follow up a couple months packed full of sports titles and as such it was difficult to expect gamers to spend yet another $60 on something they may have felt indifference towards.

Interestingly the release date never seemed to make much of a difference. At one point EA tried pushing March Madness into January and the sales really didn’t change at all. That was during a time where the competition was still there and released in the normal November period. Both titles sold comparably to the surrounding years.

Many would argue that 2K Sports and EA Sports can only blame themselves for the failure of their franchises. The companies cut corners borrowing a lot from the NBA games, didn’t offer much in the way of innovation (no Online Dynasty as an example), and never marketed them strongly. NBA Live has also probably been a drag on NCAA’s potential the last few years. Had it been the other way around, with College Hoops 2K being the only college offering, it probably would have performed better.

However it all comes down to there being so little potential to increase sales regardless of what they did. There was just no plausible scenario where the games would have become big sellers. So the companies decided to invest in their respective NBA franchises instead.

Something that should not be overlooked are the lawsuits that the NCAA (and EA in one case) is currently facing regarding player representations in the video games. There is merit to the claims which threaten the legitimacy of future collegiate gaming. Already we’ve seen a move towards more generic and/or inaccurate rosters. What this means is a college basketball game with already limited appeal would be even worse off if the rosters had no relation to the real life teams.

Could another company jump in and make a college basketball game? It is possible but unlikely at this time given the market conditions and other issues that would be faced. There is little demand for a game right now and the rosters would probably have to be generic, whether it be to avoid litigation or as a result of the finding in the future. The most likely scenario might be a downloadble offering on XBL/PSN that would be tournament based. There is some potential there but it would not be up to the level of quality or depth that a typical retail offering would provide.

It was just a matter of time until EA Sports confirmed the cancellation of the NCAA Basketball franchise. On Monday I outlined all the indications that resulted in the conclusion that the series would not continue past this last release of NCAA Basketball 10. EA has now made a statement to Game Informer to put whatever question remained about its status to rest.

We do not have an NCAA Basketball game in development at this time, and we’re currently reviewing the future of our NCAA Basketball business. This was a difficult decision, but we remain a committed partner to the NCAA and its member institutions.

There was no exclusive license involved here but only EA Sports was willing to meet the CLC’s licensing costs. All the issues that prevented NCAA Basketball from being a success will likely discourage another company from jumping in given the current environment. I’ll likely write up a more detailed look at the future of college basketball games soon, however the biggest issues come down to low sales with little prospect for growth and the active lawsuits against the NCAA and how players are represented in video games.

Earlier today Electronic Arts released their third quarter fiscal 2010 report which also included a list of titles planned for release in the coming fiscal year. All the usual suspects were listed with the exception of one. In addition to to that the rumored release date frame for a couple new franchises can be confirmed as well as the addition of a new fighting title in the works.

As I’ve been discussing the likelihood of for months it now appears a foregone conclusion that the NCAA Basketball series has been canned. It was not included on the fiscal 2011 list which had every other yearly title on it. The signs have been there for a while and included poor sales, complete lack of any post-release support, development team movement, and continued talk of trimming unprofitable titles. There is also the continued issue with collegiate player representation which has resulted in lawsuits and would end up making future college basketball offerings even less appealing than they already were. EA Sports has not made the cancellation official but that will likely happen in the near future.

There were also a few other games to take note of based on their listing in the report. Both NBA Jam and EA Sports MMA are headed towards release in the October-December quarter. I still think there are way too many sports games slated to release within a period of just a few months that it hurts their potential to an extent. Though with NCAA out of the way November is pretty wide open in advance of the holiday buying rush.

Interestingly there is an as of yet unnamed/unannounced “Fighting Title” slated for release in the January-March 2011 quarter. Let the speculation begin on that…

The ranking of games in the best of 2009 list is based primarily on the personal amount of enjoyment had with a particular title. Some other factors include whether advertised features were fully delivered on, post-release support, community interaction and communication, overall gameplay experience, feature set, and online play performance. Again this is a personal take on the games. The analysis is weighted largely towards those which I had the most fun with while considering them as a whole and compared relatively to the others.

Last year the NCAA Football franchise took the top spot in the rankings as my favorite game of the year. The introduction of Online Dynasty completely changed the way I wanted to play games and brought the most enjoyment, longevity, and value of any game this generation. That makes its fall to #8 this year more striking. It simply didn’t do enough to differentiate itself from 09 while other games made significant advancements.

Really NCAA Football 10 was about Teambuilder. In this regard it hit a home run. The feature was amazingly well done and accessible enough that anyone could use it and do well with it. For anything new that is introduced into games these days that is a rare achievement. My full walk-through and thoughts on Teambuilder can be found here.

The problem for me lies in that this feature really isn’t about NCAA Football. Teambuilder could have been used in any game. So I hesitate to give too much credit to NCAA 10 based on a customization feature. In the end it turned out that building teams and sharing those creations was more of an activity than it was a game addition. I probably spent more time on Teambuilder than actually playing with those teams in the game.

That fresh experience of Online Dynasty in 09 wore off because it didn’t evolve. The first video that was released by EA to advertise Online Dynasty was telling as it basically only highlighted the minor improvements made to regular dynasty. There was nothing unique added (such as a spectator mode) and it even still lacked full website functionality.

What did work this year to an extent anyway was the refresh that was given to the career mode. Now known as Road to Glory the mode turned out to be immersive due to the presentation and storylines given to your player. The problem was that the gameplay on the field was largely unchanged. Problems that plagued Campus Legend, such as it being tailored to only a few positions, a flawed practice system, time still doesn’t elapse between plays, and poor CPU QB decision making remained.

One of the biggest mistakes was to commit so much in the way of resources into Season Showdown. This “feature” turned out to be completely worthless…at best there was indifference towards it. The time that went into that could have been better spent elsewhere.

As I have stated before this is arguably the most fully featured sports game on the market. However after building out those modes and features the gameplay has to advance too at some point. That is what didn’t happen this year. For those who would just pick up the game and play very few differences between 09 and 10 would be recognized.

What was missing most though is the sense of emotion and the atmosphere. I just never felt connected to anything that was happening on the field because of that. Other than gameplay enhancements this would be the area I’d look at NCAA 11 to have big improvement in if it wants to capture the excitement that should be experienced playing these games.

NCAA Football 10 had big time issues with rosters which brought up the question of whether the lawsuits regarding player likenesses were the reason behind that. Some teams had no freshman and/or players who had graduated or left school after last year. EA later released the “fixed” rosters which were better but still no where near accurate.

To EA’s credit they released three patches for NCAA 10 which is unprecedented. They had to pay out of pocket for a third that most people wouldn’t even realize existed. That could be an indication that the company recognized the disappointment this year and is working towards turning things around.

The future of the NCAA Football is up in the air. I did a full assessment of the state of the NCAA franchise here. Sales dropped this year and various lawsuits threaten the legitimacy of the game. NCAA Football 11 will be a crucial year to not only establishing itself as one of the better sports games but also positioning for a future that could end up more generic than it already is.

#8: NCAA Football 10
#9: NBA 2K10
#10: Fight Night Round 4
The Worst of 2009

NCAA Basketball 10 released to little fanfare and with what has appeared to be minimal support from EA Sports. That brought about the question of whether the game would even receive a patch. EA has provided patches for all their yearly titles however the feeling surrounding NCAA was that it may not receive the same post-release support.

I have been informed that there is currently no plan to provide a patch for NCAA Basketball 10. After having written about the possibility that EA will cancel the NCAA Basketball series based on various observations this is the strongest sign yet that it could be inevitable. NCAA 10 appears to have been sent out to die and there is a very good chance now that there will be no college basketball game on the market next year.

The first “Dynamic Update” for NCAA Basketball 10 came out early Tuesday morning. With it came an updated Top 25 and RPI, authentic schedules, and two new plays. Initially there were some issues with the Top 25 being incorrect but that has since been fixed so anyone that has incorrect rankings just needs to download the update again.

Based on reactions in various communities it appears the update has delivered on what it promised. The Top 25 is updated and accurate and the authentic schedules look right for teams that have been examined (outside of where there are missing teams). The two new plays that were added are called “X Action” and “Terp Flex”. Player ratings though have not changed which makes it difficult to understand how the updates will replicate how teams are performing in real life.

For those of you who downloaded the first update what do you think of it? Is it adding value to the game and making the experience better? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

A handful of members of the community in the Operation Sports forum have completed naming the rosters for NCAA Basketball 10 (360 version). The names were entered with no other changes being made to the default roster. The “Dynamic Updates” feature will overwrite ratings but will not alter the named rosters otherwise.

The rosters can be found in the EA Locker section of the Xbox Live menu. You do not need to be on anyone’s friends list to download them. Search for the roster set “OS COACHES NAMES FULL VER 2″.

One issue that was being seen with the launch of NCAA Basketball 10 was with the dynamic update not coming through. That meant a lack of authentic schedules and the inability to play online if experiencing a download error. EA has since fixed this by providing a working update to bypass the error however it does not include the authentic schedules.

After contacting EA for information on this I have been informed that the first real dynamic update will be released next Tuesday morning. This means that the authentic schedules for the game will not arrive until that time. Not only is it disappointing that the schedules weren’t in to begin with but now unfortunately consumers are forced to wait a week before they are implemented.