Would EA Taking Over Take Two Make it a Monopoly?

Ok guys, I know I hinted at it earlier this week about the possibility of EA having a trust over sports games should it acquire Take Two, as they are the only other company that really makes any sports games to try and match EA in that niche of the market. This doesn't mean that they meet with any particular success because EA still has all the pro league rights. It has to be forseen that should the take over of Take Two be successful then they would have utter control of the sports market. The question I am thinking about is whether or not this can be considered as a monopoly?

It's an interesting idea to try and apply to the video game industry especially since it is revolving around just one genre. Now this where many people would say that EA isn't a monopoly because it would have to have total industry competition. This is true in the terms of Economics as well which defines a monopoly as"a firm(business) who sets the price for the market. This is naturally impossible because then EA would have have to have control over every console and developer in the known world before it would be able to set the price for the consoles and the games themselves. This is almost impossible in a modern economy and especially in the video game industry because of the autonomy of the market. It is a market that produces a good thats only complete through the cooperation of several firms just to get one product out into the market. Aside from the fact that the aforementioned scenario is every gamers worst nightmare one has to think that with a governments responsibility to regulate the economy that this wouldn't happen. Especially since EA would have to absorb so many different company's that the government would surely take notice before it was too late.

That definition and scenario of a trust aside, since the video game industry is so diverse wouldn't you think that there should be a new definition of monopoly for this industry itself? Given that each genre of games basically has it's own little market. Sure just because EA would control the entire Sports genre doesn't mean they can set the price for the games when they start, they can decide when to cut prices on games. This could mean that the regular drop in cost of sports games after the first few months would be no more. The few sports games I have were games that I bought when I was low on money and it's great that you can get the newest Madden at like 40 bucks instead of sixty as soon as a couple months after it comes out. That is something that EA would obviously love to see end since it would increase profits for them.

Enough economic talk though, I hated it in class and I don't really want to get into it now. The real question is whether or not a software company should be able to completely control an aspect of the industry. I have always believed that great games come from trying to innovate the ideas of other games. Their is no competition in a world where sports are dominated by EA, I mean sports games are already criticized for their repetition and lack of innovation. Imagine what would happen if EA owned the sports games? Madden 14 would be the same as every other Madden, it would destroy the games and lead to a huge loss of faith in that genre if you ask me, at least from real gamers it would.

Personally I don't think that games should be controlled from one company on the grounds that there wouldn't be any innovation. It would be like if every first person shooter were to play exactly like the new Area 51 game. It would suck frankly.

It has yet to be seen if the FTC will intervene but you have my bet that they won't. This has to be stopped if you ask me though. Take Two please resist EA, video games need to competition between developers to create great games!

-Ichi