Entering the Los Angeles Convention Center, it was clear to see who the biggest player in the gaming industry was purely based on location and visibility, and that was undoubtedly Electronic Arts.
EA’s spacious exhibit, which was located just a few feet from the main entrance, made it nearly impossible to miss them. Second to EA was probably Microsoft, coming off huge Monday announcements regarding the new re-designed XBOX and their highly anticipated accessory, the Xbox Kinect. Other companies with a presence in E3 were G4 TV, Nintendo, and PlayStation.
As I stepped into the venue, I was greeted by EA’s product marketing manager Randy Chase followed by several members of the EA Sports MMA development team, who have been working hard to polish the game and meet their October 19th release date. First thing I noticed was that the EA Sports MMA exhibit had a good amount of traffic, filled with mostly enthusiastic fans and gamers who were experiencing playing a MMA game for the very first time. The EA Sports MMA trailer above the game stations did a great job at captivating curious gamers. Those who were reluctant were encouraged to try the game by the EA team, and most appeared to have an enjoyable experience.
Game developers like Victor Lugo were more than happy to teach anyone playing the game how to perform different maneuvers and the small nuances of the game. The developers were very observant during this introduction phase, analyzing the player’s reactions and frustrations during their gaming experience. We also had Strikeforce fighters show up throughout the day. Frank Shamrock, Gilbert Melendez, and Mayhem Miller all stopped by and played against developers and willing gamers. Everyone had a pretty good time, and fighters did a great job at signing autographs or taking pictures with fans. It was an enjoyable experience all around.
What I learned from playing the EA Sports MMA Demo: Lenne Hardt announces the winner of the match when you play with the Japanese rule set, which will be a huge plus for the hardcore Japanese MMA fans. When playing with Unified Rules, Jimmy Lennon Jr. announces the winner as a Strikeforce event would. The graphics and the fluidity of the fighter movements, specifically when the fight is taken to the ground, are very nicely done. Compared to the UFC Undisputed control scheme, it is completely different and a bit more like EA’s Fight Night. If you have it in your DNA to mash buttons furiously, you will quickly gas out and most likely be stopped either by strikes or a submission, so there is a bit of a learning curve when transitioning from Undisputed to EA Sports MMA.
You can’t fault EA here though, they did a wonderful job selling the game to anyone willing to try it. As a result of having a successful E3 event, EA Sports MMA was nominated for “Best of E3” by IGN, 1UP, and Kokatu, who are 3 of the most respected video game content providers in the industry. In total, EA Sports MMA was nominated for 8 “Best of E3” awards when E3 wrapped up on Thursday.
Most interesting to me was the fact that just under the monitor screens of the game stations, EA placed Strikeforce Live promo material encouraging curious gamers to witness MMA live after the E3 event, persuading them with a percentage discount credit towards a ticket purchase for the event. To also promote the event, EA bought groups of tickets and gave them to fighters like Jason “Mayhem” Miller and “King” Mo Lawal to give away to fans. There was definitely some strong synergy between Strikeforce and EA during the E3 event, and later on during the Strikeforce Live event.
Something else that caught my attention was the new sponsor Strikeforce picked up for this event, which was GoDaddy.com. If you can recall, the last time GoDaddy was involved in MMA was when they were a huge sponsor for the now infamous Affliction third show that never took place. I was curious when they were going to jump back into MMA, and I got my answer as soon as I spotted their logo on the Strikeforce promo.
As it was time to close up E3 for the day, “Mayhem” and “El Nino” brawled one last time before they flipped the power switch.
Here is the cover of EA Sports MMA video game (courtesy of MiddleEasy), which was announced on EA’s Monday Presser:
Off to Nokia Theater for Strikeforce Live (Part 2)… to be continued.
Payout Perspective:
What was noticeable at E3 to me was how close EA and Strikeforce worked together to pull off this combination event. Having fighters stop by and meet the fans plus properly placing promotional material were great ways to get E3 attendees to experience live MMA via Strikeforce, and apparently, it worked. Where I was sitting, I overheard ticket purchasers mention that this was the first time they attended an MMA event and really didn’t know any of the fighters on the card. From observing the people around me, I can definitely say that there were a lot of new eyeballs there at the Nokia Theater that night to witness MMA in person. According to MMAJunkie, the event drew 5,259 attendees with a gate of 418K, which will have to be considered a success for a Wednesday Strikeforce show in Los Angeles sandwiched between NBA Final games. For comparison, the Strikeforce Miami show only drew 7K attendees for a 301K gate, though it did great rating numbers on Showtime.
Some may have criticized Strikeforce for only having a 6 fight card with only 2 prelims, but lets not forget that this event was unofficially held in conjunction to E3 (walking distance from LA Convention Center), which is why it was specifically planned with EA in this manner. If Strikeforce added any more prelims, the start time would have been bumped to 5 PM PST, which would have then overlapped with the Expo, since E3 was scheduled to be open from 10AM to 6 PM PST on that night. Strikeforce and EA then gave E3 attendees an hour to make their way to the Nokia Theater area and purchase tickets for the event, which started at 7 PM PST. They couldn’t fit any more prelims due to the Showtime broadcast start time of 8 PM PST/11 PM EST, which some East Coasters were already complaining was a tad bit too late for their taste. The safe bet here was to only schedule 2 prelim fights, which ended up giving the attendees 20 minutes to kill before the Showtime broadcast started, though I am glad to report that the prelims were good and exciting fights.
The bet with EA Sports MMA from Strikeforce’s point of view is that it will give a big boost to their brand and hopefully allow their fighters to become stars and household names in the near future, much like UFC Undisputed 2009 was able to do for the UFC. EA has already heard the praises for the game, and all that is left now is to see how well the game will sell, hoping that adding UFC’s Randy Couture and MMA great Fedor on the front cover will attract some extra mainstream eyeballs. Though Undisputed 2009 had a record-breaking debut, its follow-up release, UFC Undisputed 2010, is having slower than anticipated sales at the moment, which may be an indicator that MMA fans may not be looking to buy a new MMA game after Undisputed 2009 satisfied their urge for a quality MMA title. EA does offer a great deal of features and game-play that Undisputed does not, but will EA’s name be able to sell enough copies to satisfy the game’s expectations, grow the Strikeforce brand, and allow their fighters to become more of a household name? The good news is that from what I witnessed on Wednesday, the game release will generate a good amount of buzz. EA has a great marketing and advertising campaign going, not to mention a nice budget for games it gets firmly behind. From everything that I saw on Wednesday, they are clearly behind MMA, EA Sports MMA, and Strikeforce.
I wasnt aware of the SF event being used in conjunction with E3. So 6 fight card is justifies. My only question is why did they charge more for the event than ussual (like the number suggest)? If you know you want to bring people to the event and know you only booked 6 fights. I would think tickets should be more reasonable. Not a big problem. Just curious as to the reasoning.
Brain:
The tickets available for the event were $40, $60, and around $120 dollars. 1 hour before the event, there were only $40 and $60 tickets left, not to mention that if you attended E3, you got 20% off as well. The pricing was very reasonable. You also have to consider you are in downtown LA in the Nokia Theater, a GREAT venue. Plus, we are talking about LA here, where the flat rate all day parking fee around the venues cost around 20-30$.
I don’t think money or the amount of fights was an issue with the type of crowd that showed up. I will get you more details on my second part of this story.
Awesome write up Jose. There has been a lot of crap being projected on Strikeforce as of late, most recently Dave Meltzer’s comments. I disagree with his views and welcome reading this article to prove that the Strikeforce ship is steady and growing in a modest way. I have a feeling this game is going to sell very well. I don’t think it will out sell Undisputed 2009, but it will easily out sell the latest THQ offering. Things are starting to look interesting again in the MMA landscape. Coker may not be as brash and vocal as Dana, but he seems to have a good sense of the business of MMA and knows who or who not to align his company with. CBS, Showtime and EA are helping make Strikeforce a recognizable brand in the casual MMA circles.
mmaguru:
Thanks. Stay tuned as I have a lot more juicy stuff from the event (part 2) and I will attempt to illustrate how Strikeforce runs things from within… =)
Great article. I thought there was some very clever marketing going on after seeing the Strikeforce event being tied into E3. After reading this article I find their efforts to be orchestrated even better than I had perceived from the TV broadcast.
I have to agree with another comment here, Strikeforce is taking a lot of flack– mostly from UFC fanboys. Strikeforce is a serious up and comer though, they’re production is always improving, their commentating team is getting better together (although 2 different commentating teams for sho/cbs might be hampering their progression from an experience standpoint) and they’re putting on quality fights that I would not want to miss.
If Strikeforce can keep ahead of the curve and remain relevant in relation to the UFC they will start to keep the UFC brass up at night. Sure Dana White is a great businessman, but is his often brash elitism when it comes to dealing with other companies going pay off in the long run? EA seems to be making a great adversary for Strikeforce, and it helps they’ve got a few million to play around with and major brand recognition in comparison to the UFC pulling THQ out of the toilet with their Undisputed game.
On another note what did everyone think of Mauro semi-MC’ing the whole thing from the mini cage with the other commentators? Interesting choice and it begs the question, why are the fans in the UFC left out of the commentating other than the post fight interview? (Haven’t been to a UFC show yet but I have read they offer the FM broadcast to fans in attendance.)
My biggest problem with SF right now is their match making. It seems they just throw fight together with no future plan most out of desperation. Noone can deny they way they went about marketing Shields. Dana was right in what they did. Treated their champ like he didnt exist going into a title fight. They had no plan for the possibility of Jake winning. Now they march a 185 fighter who is really a 170 fighter much of his career and now carries a few extra pounds at 185 in a fight with a big 205 guy who needed a catch weight. This was a horrible match up because it was a pathetic attempt to get Babalu over as a legit contender and it doesnt work for anyone who follows the sport. Babalu isnt even close to the fighter he was. That was made even more clear how he struggled with a guy really 2 weight class smaller who rely on power and isnt very well rounded. So you didnt help Babalu much and you throw Lawler who is a good contender down the drain. A catch weight fight makes sense with 2 guys who are in between class’. This makes no sense. If Babalu plans to fight at 185 then he should have made 185. Allowing Babalu 10 lbs on someone who is already a soft 185 is pointless. Kind of shows their intentions in setting up the fight to begin with. At least be a little less obvious.
Brain:
You are aware that the main event was supposed to be Mayhem vs Lawler, a rematch of a great fight from ICON and also a fight that would setup the #1 contender, possibly against Jacare. Only reason Mayhem didn’t fight was b/c of the brawl and suspension from TSAC.
Babalu was slotted in there after DREAM delayed their LHW GP and had been training for a fight. He also fights based out of Orange County (close to Los Angeles), so most likely SF wanted someone who had star power and had a local fanbase for the show, which Babalu definitely did. Throughout the match, the fans were chanting “Ba-Ba-Lu….Ba-Ba-Lu” and had a big following.
Their matchmaking has definitely been an area of criticism for them, but in this case, they did what they could with the situation.
I will cut them a little slack. But selling a few more tickets like this situation doesn’t warrant such a size mismatch. If they are thin on 185 fighters to use as fill ins then that is a problem that needs fixed. Not praised because they used a 205 fighter. They wasn’t doing Lawler any favors that’s for sure.
Just as Casinos buys tickets and comp them out. Im sure the very same thing was going on a E3 summit. You dont think EA was getting every body it could to a live event to build interest in the sporta nd in their game. Even fighters was giving tickets away. Yet where are the number of comps? Not released for a reason. More than likely. If they were it wouldnt accurate. Many tickets were paid for by the companies to give away and blowing up numbers. Its a 2 way street.
Either way its misleading to compare a SF event which has EA and E3 brawing fans and try to compare their numbers to Non Vegas UFC events and claim they are on the same level.
Brain:
Official CSAC numbers have not been released yet, though they should be. Those would have comps, gate, etc.
Lets hope so. I never rely on CSAC to much ever since their K-1 fiasco.
K1 fiasco… love it! The day “BROCK” entered MMA and solidified himself as the greatest HW of all time no matter what the rest of the world thinks.
How about actually knowing what went on around the event itself before you assume you know what im talking about.
Hi Brian,
The whole event was a fiasco, probably the worst event I have ever seen and I’ve seen a lot of MMA. I’m not trying to make an assumption on what you are talking about, but if you have something to share, than share.