They grew too big, way too fast. Madden 97, was their first mega hit. Nascar Thunder 04, was the next. When it came to sprts games, nobody did it better. Papy had Nascar, and a real simulation. 2K came along with their brand on the NFL, and college hoops. EA began to get greedy, and locked up the NFL, and Nascar franchise liscensing. So long Papy, and NFL 2K. Now it's a fact of buisiness, if you got a monopoly, you've got no competion, so why bother with quality. So this is the sorry road EA took with their Nascar, and NFL Madden games. Since the 2004 game year, EA has sucked. They've opened offices all around the world, especially in area's where the top pay for programmers is minimum wage. How many deveolpers in China, know what football is all about? Since when does Canada know what oval racing is all about? I haven't purchased an EA Sports game since 2005. I buy any 2K sports game that comes out, their usually way above the poor quality that EA has seemed to embrace. I don't expect EA to change their way of buisiness, any time soon, as they are usually in court, fighting a law suit for not paying their developers overtime, or named in a hostile takeover. They've recently fired 1500 programmers, so don't expect much from them in the near, or far future.