Maddens legal battle starts today 09/14/2009!

[adfletch71]

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

People wouldn't care if madden outsold 2K, microsoft, sony or whoever. That's not the point, its about not having the freedom to have a choice, that's why people are so mad at this license deal. No other genre have a exclusive license deal except football, and football is the most popular of sports in america. Even baseball have a choice. If a third party could make a NFL title, it wouldn't be so bad. All we have is madden and that's just wrong for a NFL fix.

[Methlab]

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

I hate when people say "anyone can still make a football game", when it is very clear that you have a significant advantage when you can use the likeness of real NFL players.

[mike24forever]

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.

In case some of you get excited about this "legal battle", read this again. Then read in a second time. One of the best posts I have ever read at OS.

[Rocky]

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

I don't know what to say to that.

It seems blatantly obvious to me that there's no monopoly, and the fact that multiple football games have been released since the license hit just makes it more so.

If the argument is "no one can compete with Madden because they can't get an NFL license", then what's the excuse for all the years before exclusivity?

Seriously, when was the last time another football game outsold or even came close to matching Madden at an equal price point?

There have been 3 generic football games released on consoles since the exclusive license took hold in 2005. APF2K8, Blitz, and Blitz II. There was only 1...APF2K8 that was 11 on 11. The fiscal year before the exclusive licensing took place, 3 NFL games alone were released....NFL Gameday 2005, Madden 2005, and NFL2K5 and 1 others were in development..NFL Fever 2005. Simply put, you are wrong.

[RaiderKtulu]

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

I'm almost positive 2k5 outsold Madden on Xbox. Granted, they started at a lower price point, but controlling prices is one of the things that a monopoly is designed to do.

Can you really say that you're competing if it takes a massive price drop to get the sales?

If we assume that the NFL does in fact have the right to sell their license to whoever they want, it makes a lot more sense to sell to the company that can sell 2 million copies for $50, rather than the company that sells 2.1 million for $20.

The worst you can get EA for is the fact that they went and got the NCAA and AFL licenses - but as I said before, no one else was using those beforehand anyway. Prior to EA getting the license, there hadn't been an AFL game on the PS2/Xbox generation of consoles at all, and in 2004 they were the only company to release an NCAA football game.

As for controlling prices... the whole damn industry is probably guilty of that to some degree, so I'm not even going to talk about that.

[rm217]

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

I hate when people say "anyone can still make a football game", when it is very clear that you have a significant advantage when you can use the likeness of real NFL players.

I agree. To put it in perspective imagine NBA 2K10 having to use generic players minus signatures moves as to not portray them as there real life counterparts. No matter how great of a game it might be, people buy NBA games to play as Kobe and Lebron. Take away the license and you have a great playing game seconding as a coaster. No one would buy it and Live would be the only basketball game on the market. We would think it was the greatest thing since sliced bread because we would have nothing to compare it to. That's exactly what EA wanted when they bought up the American Football league license (NCAA, NFL, AFL.) EA made a calculated decision and thought they could offset the cost of the license by expanding the market and getting more casual fans to buy there game. Well that backfired as proven by the majority on this thread and the backlash is unrepairable. The ironic thing is and I don't know if this is true for some of you guys but I don't buy Madden not because it's not a good game but because as an American they took away my choice!

[RaiderKtulu]

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

There have been 3 generic football games released on consoles since the exclusive license took hold in 2005. APF2K8, Blitz, and Blitz II. There was only 1...APF2K8 that was 11 on 11. The fiscal year before the exclusive licensing took place, 3 NFL games alone were released....NFL Gameday 2005, Madden 2005, and NFL2K5 and 1 others were in development..NFL Fever 2005. Simply put, you are wrong.

Gameday 2005 was released for the PS1. Not PS2. PS1. That doesn't count for anything in the "competing with Madden" topic.

[sportskid84]

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

I think it might go through

[Only1LT]

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

Can you really say that you're competing if it takes a massive price drop to get the sales?

If we assume that the NFL does in fact have the right to sell their license to whoever they want, it makes a lot more sense to sell to the company that can sell 2 million copies for $50, rather than the company that sells 2.1 million for $20.

The worst you can get EA for is the fact that they went and got the NCAA and AFL licenses - but as I said before, no one else was using those beforehand anyway. Prior to EA getting the license, there hadn't been an AFL game on the PS2/Xbox generation of consoles at all, and in 2004 they were the only company to release an NCAA football game.

As for controlling prices... the whole damn industry is probably guilty of that to some degree, so I'm not even going to talk about that.

What difference does it make if they offered it at a lower price point? Madden was an institution. It had been around for going on 20yrs. It had a legion of fans that would never give another game a second look whether it was a better product or not. That kind of single mindedness is hard to overcome when you are competing on an even field in terms of price.

They adopted a strategy to try and overtake the king of the hill, and it was to offer a product that was comparable in quality, but much lower in price. Guess what? It worked. Did they overtake Madden in one year of sales? No, but the publicity and acclaim that was garnered, from not only the quality of the product, but also the move to lower the price so drastically, definitely made people take notice. It was reflected in the sales. EA even lowered the price of their own game, so if it had no effect as you are trying to make it seem, why did they feel the need to lower the price? I don't have a crystal ball obviously, but is it so much of a stretch to say that if they had continued to produce their game at that quality (whether you think Madden is better or 2K is better you have to at least admit that it is on par with Madden for the most part) and at that price point, that they would have made more inroads into Madden's sales with each successive year?

Windows is the king of the hill. It is extremely difficult to effect their market share, but if someone was to release a product that was as good or better, and was free, and made it extremely pain free to switch, it will happen. Google is trying to do just that. Don't know enough about Chrome OS yet to know if it is a viable candidate for that role, but Windows is definitely keeping an eye on them. If by some miracle Google is able to pull it off and become the defacto OS, are you going to say it doesn't count because it's free lol?

[Only1LT]

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

Gameday 2005 was released for the PS1. Not PS2. PS1. That doesn't count for anything in the "competing with Madden" topic.

Why not? There were people that didn't upgrade from that Gen, just like there are those that didn't upgrade this gen. They still made Madden for PS1 also.

[bkfount]

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

Why not? There were people that didn't upgrade from that Gen, just like there are those that didn't upgrade this gen. They still made Madden for PS1 also.

it was released in 2004. 989 only did it because the franchise sucked and got blasted by Madden in sales every year on the ps2.

[bkfount]

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

I don't have a crystal ball obviously, but is it so much of a stretch to say that if they had continued to produce their game at that quality (whether you think Madden is better or 2K is better you have to at least admit that it is on par with Madden for the most part) and at that price point, that they would have made more inroads into Madden's sales with each successive year?

2k's price was a great temporary marketing gimmick to get some well deserved attention. What people tend to forget in all the "Evil EA jacked prices back up" talk is how NHL 2k5 and NBA 2k5 also had the same $19.99 price, but they returned to the industry standard $49.99 price the following year. 2k even referred to raising the price of NFL2k back up.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6101436.html

GS: What happens when the next-gen consoles appear? Does pricing remain the same or do you bump it back?

PE: Once the average sports fan, or even the casual sports fan, has the great gaming experience--and has played this game for many hours, and talks about it, and realizes the whole gaming experience--I think we will have the ability to move the pricing up.

GS: Back on par with the competition?

PE: We think there’s that opportunity, yes.

[Dmacho]

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

I disagree, I'm sure 2k know there would be a market for an unlicensed game if you had 100% customization.

If customization was the answer, than why hasn't Take Two come out with a fully customizable game ? It's not illegal ; there's nothing EA couldn't do to stop Take Two from putting out a fully customizable game.

Take Two or any other developers haven't put out a fully customizable game because the market simply isn't there.

Think about it, why the hell would EA pay a half a billion dollars for the exclusive license if other companies could compete with customization, but no license. Why would developers pay for licenses period, exclusive or not , if there was a market for unlicensed fully customizable games ?

[Random Hero]

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

This would be amazing if the consumer won, but you have to think realistically. It's not like EA is going to hire brain dead, incompetent lawyers. Nevermind the fact that this isn't even a monopoly to begin with.

[RaiderKtulu]

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

If customization was the answer, than why hasn't Take Two come out with a fully customizable game ? It's not illegal ; there's nothing EA couldn't do to stop Take Two from putting out a fully customizable game.

Take Two or any other developers haven't put out a fully customizable game because the market simply isn't there.

Think about it, why the hell would EA pay a half a billion dollars for the exclusive license if other companies could compete with customization, but no license. Why would developers pay for licenses period, exclusive or not , if there was a market for unlicensed fully customizable games ?

They *think* the market isn't there. That doesn't make it reality.

Be honest, what they did for 2k8 was horrible. It was a great game on-the-field, but the whole retired NFL player fantasy league angle was just flat out stupid. People wanted franchise modes and customization. Instead, they gave us a bunch of old players in a fantasy league with absolutely no long term playability. The teams didn't even randomize if you started a new season.

There is a market for customizable football gaming. It's not as big as the NFL market, sure, but it's there and NO ONE has even attempted to take advantage of it. "Wahhhhh!! we won't sell as many copies as Madden" is a really stupid reason to not make a game.