In an earnings call with its investors earlier in the week, EA salivated over the numbers from their new skateboarding franchise, SKATE.  It didn’t just outsell Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground, it did a kickflip over the title and grinded through its profit.


“SKATE, a new and highly rated IP from our Black Box studio, outperformed an entrenched competitor. Despite the fact that we launched on three fewer platforms, we realized a 55% revenue share in North America. On current generation systems, SKATE outsold Tony Hawk nearly 2 to 1.” - source

The Tony Hawk Franchise was seen as an unstoppable juggernaut, constantly posting higher and higher sales but lower and lower review scores. The new Project 8 engine moved towards a better game, but in the end SKATE destroyed it. Even die hard Hawk fans moved to EA’s side and embraced what has now become the new king of skating.

What other franchises need reboots? Could a big company come around and take down the Madden Franchise like EA has done with Tony Hawk? Is there a new fighting game in the pipeline from some unknown company that will reinvent the genre? If Tony Hawk can be taken down then nothing is safe and any game could be next.