Maddens legal battle starts today 09/14/2009!

[rm217]

Today may mark the beginning of what may turn out to be a day of celebration for us sports fans who want competition back in the football arena! http://kotaku.com/5343720/madden-sui...gang+tackle-ea

[adembroski]

Re: Maddens legal battle starts today 09/14/2009!

This is getting beyond stupid. I can't believe the idiocy of some people. Learn a thing or two about economy before you start tossing words like "monopoly" around, and stop bringing stupid lawsuits that are costing perfectly good people jobs.

And for the record, this is hardly the "start", people have tried this Lord knows how many times.

Exclusive access to a privately owned intellectual property is NOT a monopoly, as the owner of the I.P. may do with its private property whatever it damn well pleases. Beyond that, the industry in question is not "NFL Based Football Games", it's Video Games.

If some psychotic judge actually ruled in this lawsuits favor, the net effect would be that anything you come up with... a script, a song, a book, anything that can, under current law, be considered your intellectual property (or trademark) would no longer be yours. Anybody would be free to come along and jack your idea.

Allow me to spell it out a bit further; The National Football League (TM) owns trademarks and IPs for 32 NFL football teams. As such, they have the legal and ethical right to allow or disallow the usage of said properties at their discretion. To say that EA has a monopoly on NFL Football games is the same thing as saying Blizzard has a monopoly on Starcraft video games. Thus, a judge rules in their favor, you've got 17 different gaming companies putting out their own version of Starcraft... a property owned by Blizzard and thus rightfully theirs to profit from... just as the NFL license belongs to the NFL to profit from, and they chose to profit off of EA.

There is no illegality here. You don't have to like the way it works, but it is the way it works, and it's the right way.

[Segagendude]

Re: Maddens legal battle starts today 09/14/2009!

Not holding my breath. With their $$$, EA can afford attorneys who'll make OJ's "Dream Team" look like pre-Law undergrads.

[LionsFanNJ]

Re: Maddens legal battle starts today 09/14/2009!

Enjoy your false hope and failure.

[Shade71]

Re: Maddens legal battle starts today 09/14/2009!

This is getting beyond stupid. I can't believe the idiocy of some people. Learn a thing or two about economy before you start tossing words like "monopoly" around, and stop bringing stupid lawsuits that are costing perfectly good people jobs.

And for the record, this is hardly the "start", people have tried this Lord knows how many times.

Exclusive access to a privately owned intellectual property is NOT a monopoly, as the owner of the I.P. may do with its private property whatever it damn well pleases. Beyond that, the industry in question is not "NFL Based Football Games", it's Video Games.

If some psychotic judge actually ruled in this lawsuits favor, the net effect would be that anything you come up with... a script, a song, a book, anything that can, under current law, be considered your intellectual property (or trademark) would no longer be yours. Anybody would be free to come along and jack your idea.

Allow me to spell it out a bit further; The National Football League (TM) owns trademarks and IPs for 32 NFL football teams. As such, they have the legal and ethical right to allow or disallow the usage of said properties at their discretion. To say that EA has a monopoly on NFL Football games is the same thing as saying Blizzard has a monopoly on Starcraft video games. Thus, a judge rules in their favor, you've got 17 different gaming companies putting out their own version of Starcraft... a property owned by Blizzard and thus rightfully theirs to profit from... just as the NFL license belongs to the NFL to profit from, and they chose to profit off of EA.

There is no illegality here. You don't have to like the way it works, but it is the way it works, and it's the right way.

Well stated. The first video football games didnt have an nfl license and used generic teams, nobody is stopping anyone from doing that now. Even the early maddens didnt have player names until they got licensing from the nflpa. There is no monopoly here, just an exclusivity agreement. The same thing console makers get with certain games and downloadable content.

[rm217]

Re: Maddens legal battle starts today 09/14/2009!

Enjoy your false hope and failure.

Regardless with sales of Madden dropping I wouldn't be surprised if when there exclusive license is up EA doesn't renew. It just will not make economic sense. They can still sell the same amount of copies even with competition. Good economic sense could prevail on EA's part in 2012. Imagine how much better Madden would be if all that exclusive license money all 500 million or so, went into making a new Madden engine. Only time will tell if Madden and EA will come to there senses and realize they overestimated how many more copies of Madden they could sell with no competition.

[budsticky]

Re: Maddens legal battle starts today 09/14/2009!

I can't count the ways in which this just exudes fail, but I will try anyway.

A lot of people harp about EA having a monopoly on football games. They absolutely do not. Any other company is free to make football video games and many have done so. EA has exclusive rights to the NFL license. Of course this puts EA in a powerful position as far as competitive edge in the football gaming market, but they certainly do not have a monopoly on "football" games which is how a lot of people view it and talk about it.

Look at it this way. ESPN bought the rights to Monday Night Football. Does this mean another network cannot show football on a Monday night? Of course it doesn't. It just means that another network can't show NFL football on Monday night. It's a brand issue and has nothing to do with the big umbrella of football. Same thing with video games. EA has the license to make NFL football games. They are the only company that can make an NFL game with NFL licensed teams and players. They are not the only company that can make a football game. Is it hard to make a competing game without the NFL license? Of course it is. But the option is there. When people talk about EA having a monopoly it just makes me laugh.


People really need to study up on business and what a monopoly truly is before they start clogging up our judicial system with junk like this.

[budsticky]

Re: Maddens legal battle starts today 09/14/2009!

This is getting beyond stupid. I can't believe the idiocy of some people. Learn a thing or two about economy before you start tossing words like "monopoly" around, and stop bringing stupid lawsuits that are costing perfectly good people jobs.

And for the record, this is hardly the "start", people have tried this Lord knows how many times.

Exclusive access to a privately owned intellectual property is NOT a monopoly, as the owner of the I.P. may do with its private property whatever it damn well pleases. Beyond that, the industry in question is not "NFL Based Football Games", it's Video Games.

If some psychotic judge actually ruled in this lawsuits favor, the net effect would be that anything you come up with... a script, a song, a book, anything that can, under current law, be considered your intellectual property (or trademark) would no longer be yours. Anybody would be free to come along and jack your idea.

Allow me to spell it out a bit further; The National Football League (TM) owns trademarks and IPs for 32 NFL football teams. As such, they have the legal and ethical right to allow or disallow the usage of said properties at their discretion. To say that EA has a monopoly on NFL Football games is the same thing as saying Blizzard has a monopoly on Starcraft video games. Thus, a judge rules in their favor, you've got 17 different gaming companies putting out their own version of Starcraft... a property owned by Blizzard and thus rightfully theirs to profit from... just as the NFL license belongs to the NFL to profit from, and they chose to profit off of EA.

There is no illegality here. You don't have to like the way it works, but it is the way it works, and it's the right way.

Yeah. I said basically what you said, but I didn't read yours first. I got so mad at the stupidity of this that I just started typing a response.

[PantherBeast_OS]

Re: Maddens legal battle starts today 09/14/2009!

Well if by some mircale that these people was to win the lawsuit agaist EA and the NFL. And the NFL finally opened the NFL rights to any company willing to make a NFL game. It would take those companies some years to bring out a game with the things that are in madden now. Plus there is not many companies out here today with any extra money to spare and bring out a sports game out yearly. Thats why back in the late 90s most of these companies trying to sale their version of NFL football game failed. Like 989 sports and so on. buy the time EA bought the NFL rights. The only company still making a football game was 2k sports. But they got bought out. Even if 2k company could get access to nfl rights. It would take a few years are so just to produce a football game with a good franchise mode and real good graphics and so on. Heck I would love to see more companies have a chance to push EA for their money. But it is never going to happen. EA will win this court battle like always.

[budsticky]

Re: Maddens legal battle starts today 09/14/2009!

EA will win this court battle like always.

I'm not sure what you mean by saying they will "win this court battle like always." Do you mean like every time somebody brings up a frivolous and pointless suit against them that has no basis in real world American law? Don't worry. This won't get near the point of even being a "court battle."

I also love this little snippet from this non-story:
"The exact grievance is spelled out in a 48-page transcript of a November 4, 2008 pre-trial hearing. Pecover's lawyer, Stuart Paynter, says gamers won't buy football games that don't carry the NFL brand and that EA has created an unfair market situation that drives up the cost of games. EA's lawyer, Daniel Wall, says the market is larger than Paynter paints it and that Percover's complaint isn't "even close" to a viable claim."

Can somebody please tell me exactly how EA's exclusivity deal with the NFL has driven up the cost of games? So I guess they are going to try and say that the 49.99 jump up to 59.99 when the next gen consoles came out was because of the EA/NFL deal? The more I read this the more the stupidity just jumps off the page. I can't let myself get worked up over this nonsense anymore. Time for bed. LOL.

[adembroski]

Re: Maddens legal battle starts today 09/14/2009!

I think a lot of people, understandably unhappy with the exclusive deal, fail to see the legal and ethical ramifications of what they're asking for.

You're asking government to strip the NFL of the right to their own trademarks. This becomes precedent. If the NFL doesn't have the right to license their trademarks as they see fit, then that's going to cross over into other areas.

Any company in the world can start marketing NFL jerseys, caps, leagues can start up using the same team names and colors, even logos. All of the sudden you totally cut off all of the NFL's secondary revenue streams because other companies can step in and do the same thing cheaper. That might sound good on the surface, but it extends to every facet of business. Tom Clancy writes a book, and 15 publishers start printing it, none of them with any obligation to pay Tom Clancy a dime for the work. Kanye West (God Forbid) puts out another album, and every record company in existence is selling that album. Blizzard finally releases Starcraft 2, then EA releases Starcraft 3, and Blizzard says screw it and releases Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas 2.

Does this sound like a fair market to you?

[MJenness]

Re: Maddens legal battle starts today 09/14/2009!

I think a lot of people, understandably unhappy with the exclusive deal, fail to see the legal and ethical ramifications of what they're asking for.

You're asking government to strip the NFL of the right to their own trademarks. This becomes precedent. If the NFL doesn't have the right to license their trademarks as they see fit, then that's going to cross over into other areas.

Any company in the world can start marketing NFL jerseys, caps, leagues can start up using the same team names and colors, even logos. All of the sudden you totally cut off all of the NFL's secondary revenue streams because other companies can step in and do the same thing cheaper. That might sound good on the surface, but it extends to every facet of business. Tom Clancy writes a book, and 15 publishers start printing it, none of them with any obligation to pay Tom Clancy a dime for the work. Kanye West (God Forbid) puts out another album, and every record company in existence is selling that album. Blizzard finally releases Starcraft 2, then EA releases Starcraft 3, and Blizzard says screw it and releases Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas 2.

Does this sound like a fair market to you?

Well said, Adem. I despise the licensing deal between EA and the NFL as much, if not more, than anyone. It is, however, legal in every sense of the word.

I think where SO much anger comes from on this subject is that when FINALLY a company put out something that made people turn their heads (NFL 2k5) and was about to force Madden to up their game, the license was bought by EA. Coincidence? Naaaa...THAT is what sucks about the deal.

We can hate it, we can bitch about it, but the bottom line is unless the NFL decides to open the license for everyone again, it is what it is (though they'd be morons to do so as EA obviously was willing to pay ANYTHING to get it in the first place).

[kodawg9]

Re: Maddens legal battle starts today 09/14/2009!

sure, competition brings out the best, but the guys at EA understand that with this economy, they're going to have to create a product A LOT better than the previous years version because people are cutting down on the video games. if there isn't drastic improvement from the previous year's version of madden, then people are more likely to not buy the new version because things have to be cut down from people's spendings these days.

maybe before, they could get away with it, but the EA boss wasn't happy with the sales of madden 10 (even with the lowered expectations of sales number). you've got to impress big time in the creation of a new season of madden for those sales to go up to their expectations.

you saw it with the ncaa 10 this yr. not much change from 09. people who'd buy every yr of ncaa football (even with just limited changs to gameplay, etc.) didn't get it this yr.

i dont know if the lack of competition for Madden creates less motivation to bring a great product out because im sure those guys at EA are smart. with annual series games, you've got to do so much better than the previous years version, especially in these economic times, for people to buy the games.

[roadman]

Re: Maddens legal battle starts today 09/14/2009!

Regardless with sales of Madden dropping I wouldn't be surprised if when there exclusive license is up EA doesn't renew. It just will not make economic sense. They can still sell the same amount of copies even with competition. Good economic sense could prevail on EA's part in 2012. Imagine how much better Madden would be if all that exclusive license money all 500 million or so, went into making a new Madden engine. Only time will tell if Madden and EA will come to there senses and realize they overestimated how many more copies of Madden they could sell with no competition.

Do you really think the recent hiring of John Madden as a consultant to Rodger Goodell the exclusive license will be offered to any game maker after 2012.

The likelihood of that happened greatly diminished with the hiring of Madden.

[Cryolemon]

Re: Maddens legal battle starts today 09/14/2009!

Do you really think the recent hiring of John Madden as a consultant to Rodger Goodell the exclusive license will be offered to any game maker after 2012.

The likelihood of that happened greatly diminished with the hiring of Madden.

That is actually an interesting conflict of interest.

As Adem has said, this is a non-starter. There may be a slight argument that the exclusive license is anti-competitive behaviour, but even that is pushing it.