Why EA Sports stopped developing Cricket Games?

WHY EA SPORTS STOPPED DEVELOPING CRICKET GAMES?

This question lies within the minds of almost each and every cricket gamer, that why they took the call to stop creating cricket games? Right from the start none of the EA's cricket series game added value or say gained global attention as Cricket was not EA's priority. All expectations and rumors regarding EA Sports planning to resuscitate the cricket series were put to rest when their vice-president categorically mentioned that cricket was no longer their focus.

Initially  EA Sports Cricket series was widespread and popular solely in 3 cricket playing Nations (England, Australia, and New Zealand) however its main market was clearly in Asian countries and that to in South Asia.

Cricket 96 was the first game in the series having been developed by Melbourne House and published by the EA Sports. The version was however merely an update on the game Super International Cricket released by Super Nintendo in 1994. Cricket 96 was released as Ian Botham's International Cricket 96 in Europe.

Cricket 97 was a marked improvement with better graphics, three-dimensional stadiums and commentary by Richie Benaud and Ian Botham. But there was no great change in the representation of the players and like in the previous versions, the two-dimensional sprites continued to be used. Visit here to download Cricket 97.

Cricket Ashes Tour was released with the updated statistics and players just after the 1998-99 Ashes tour and it was by then one of the most realistic cricket games on the market. By 2004, the EA Sports cricket series had been hugely worked upon to improve the gameplay and the graphics.

Designed by HB Studios and published by EA Sports Cricket 2002 and EA Sports Cricket 2004 included all the international teams and the domestic teams from Australia and England. The game was released simultaneously for Windows and PlayStation 2. However, IGN adjudged that the game had the worst PlayStation 2 graphics. Visit here to download Cricket 2002.

Notwithstanding the debate over the quality of the graphics, Cricket 2004 proved to be popular inspiring EA Sports to come out with an improved version the very next year. Visit here to download Cricket 2004. Cricket 2005 had three different region-based covers and was released for the Windows, PlayStation 2 and Xbox platforms.Visit here to download Cricket 2005.

Cricket 2007 which is loved my millions of gamers especially Indians, was the last game released in the EA Sports cricket series. Though some notable additions like new venues, weather conditions and five-day Test matches were introduced, the improvement in the gameplay and the graphics was far from satisfactory. EA Sports also lost the licensing rights for quite a few teams and went with generic player names. visit here to download Cricket 2007.

Rampant piracy from these regions however seriously marred their profit margins and the series never produced the estimated revenues.

As EA Sports ran into a legal deadlock with the BCCI and lost the licensing rights to the Indian players, their problems only got compounded. With a shrinking market and very few people interested in the sport, the cricket series was condemned to die out soon.

It eventually began to cut the interest and revenues of EA Sports. Gamers were no longer interested in a game with poor gameplay, unimpressive graphics and silly generic names for the players. EA Sports eventually did not feel it was necessary to develop a series which was already running at a loss. Also they had so many issues related to licencing and really struggled to gain revenue from the previously released cricket games. 

The sole reason behind the end of cricket series was the lack of worldwide demand for cricket games. Not only the EA company, but another cricket game - Brain Lara Cricket Series by Codemasters also suffered the same fate and eventually the results are same.

After a long suffering they shifted their focus to provide demanding games around the globe which is football. Due to this eventually, FIFA games took place of Cricket games in the market. As there are only 10 to 12 major playing nations to play cricket and in these majority of them are asian gamers.



By the end of 2007 the game started getting faded away in terms of popularity as the game is not up to the demand of the asian gamers. Thanks to PlanetCricket whom took over the charge. Many players collaborated and start developing mods and patches for Cricket 2007. This entirely changed the whole perspective of the game. The patches started getting developed at a large scale, Many modding studios started developing Cricket 2007 patches. From 2008 to untill now in the 2019, the patches are still being developed for every series/tournaments, this shows the true nature of the game as it is still loved by millions of gamers.