Madden Monopoly

I've been playing "Madden" for years now. I can remember when I played that game on the first playstation. But, I must admit, I was a little dismayed when I read that Madden bought out all the other football games for the playstation 2 and would be the lone NFL football game on the system.

Why? First off, this meant no competition. If there was only one team in baseball, the New York Yankees, they wouldn't have to do much in order to win, would they? Same thing here. With no other NFL games duking it out with "Madden," "Madden" will have to do little to nothing in order to sell games and beat the competition, because that competition isn't there.

Secondly, I actually started getting into the ESPN series and felt it was the more fun of the two before it was bought out by Madden. The price tag was a lot kinder as well.

It's bad for consumers to only have one product to choose from and buy. It'd be bad for the country if we only had one party to choose from in an "election." What would be the point in having an election if that was the case?

Last year's game was the first since Madden bought itself into being the loner on the market and I wasn't very impressed. I didn't notice too many changes and the ones I did notice (Ex: Passing precision), I didn't like a great deal. I'm hearing the same comments and complaints about the newly released '07 version. There aren't many changes. It's been the same since '04. This is the problem without having competition. Where's the motivation to upgrade or improve a product if one doesn't have to worry about losing to another?

There are 32 teams in the NFL. There are 32 teams that battle it out year after year for an opportunity to reach the playoffs and hoist up the Super Bowl trophy. Every off-season, management attempts to do what they feel must be done in order to improve the club and make them competitive. Tons of moves go on during the off-season: Signings, trades, releases, re-signings, retirements, the draft, etc. Why? They all want to win and the only way to do that is to be better than the other guys. One can't just sit on their behinds and let other teams make moves and improvements while they stay the same. That would only occur if there wasn't competition and that is where "Madden" currently resides. I really wish there were other NFL games on the market and believe it to be a disgrace to consumers and fans alike, because the only ones getting shafted here by this are them. We deserve the best possible product and that's probably not going to happen with only one product available.