Did EA See the O'Bannon Decision Coming? (LONG POST)

[allhailben7]

First off, let me say that after my original Madden post was closed, I have sifted through 35 pages of posts through 2 different threads only to come up empty... No one was really discussing the outcome from this angle as it pertains to Madden in this way (which apparently belongs in the NCAA forum)...

Now, this is somewhat of a crazy theory, now that I look at it as a whole, but.... here you go:

Madden has been a game that, to me, has been forever tied to NCAA. I always bought Madden to scout and draft my Dynasty players and Madden was second to me. It relied on NCAA year in and year out to accomplish it's task of immersing me into their NFL game, it seemed.

Then, in a flash, EA took this feature out last year, seemingly burning that bridge between NCAA and Madden to "Prepare the franchise for the next generation of Madden games".

To my surprise, and maybe a lot of others out there, they actually did something with it. Instead of just taking it out and leaving us with weird names seemingly made up as punchlines and no college thread or story to cling to, they developed their own, more personal classes. Named, announcer-friendly, and each unique enough to keep us (me, at least) interested, with the stories making up for the lack of immersion.

But... Why would EA make that change so suddenly, taking out a feature a big chunk of their gamers thrived on? Was it simply because of issues with a new engine? Were draft results really that ridiculous to warrant scrapping them?

Much to the a large chunk of the community's collective relief, they added classes back in for this year... But how many of us missed having experts talk about the rise and fall of aspiring stars, with commentary throughout the draft to add depth? That year off may have left us clamoring for that new level of immersion that an NCAA Class doesn't fully accomplish. Sure, drafting Clowney or Watkins or Bridgewater is fine, but where are the articles criticizing Clowney's stamina, or praising Bridgewater while warning us it's against soft competition?

Well... What if EA knew this would happen? What if they knew for a while?

The O'Bannon case was filed in January 2011. That case had a full year to gain some steam before EA had to worry about it. It didn't have an impact on Madden 12, but what if EA started to see that the writing was on the wall back then? Or they weren't sure about it and added classes as insurance, just to keep us from leaving them if that lawsuit left us without our college immersion?

So, the question is... Was EA's move last year, which was mostly met with harsh criticism, an attempt to let us get used to Madden being independent?

[BleedGreen710]

It doesn't matter. This is the NCAA Football section of the forums we are supposed to talk about NCAA Football. Your post is asking about EA Sports and Madden. This isn't the place for conspiracy theories about EA Sports business decisions.

[kehlis]

I didn't say to repost your thread in the NCAA forum, I said you could use one of the many open threads already discussing this. We don't need as many threads open discussing the same general things as we already do.