The EA Embargo

[coogrfan]

Quote: Originally Posted by Mos1ted

I was an accounting major before I left school, and during the course I had to take a few Econ classes. I can almost bet there's something illegal by the exclusive deals. Collusion or something. I don't know for sure. I'm not trying to start any conspiracy theories but I'm almost certain an anti trust law or monolopy law was crossed along the way. The guilty party? Who knows for sure. I'm also pretty confident that if someone seriously pursued this case in some court, a judge would be willing to listen. Look at the Clarett case. It was approved in one court but later overturned in another. It's all a matter of the judge's opinion.

Judging from this post, I'm guessing you didn't do too well in those Econ. classes.

[spankdatazz22]

Quote: Originally Posted by fossen

Well .... yeah. Just like they always have. This isn't something that's come abou6t with exclusivity. This is how EA does business, and pretty much always has.

I thought I could distinctly remember IGN releasing reviews the Friday before it would release - but this may have been a while ago. Usually they'd be first out of the gate with some glowing review; also thought one of those XBox sites would get a review out before the game released. Either way I could be easily mistaken

[jonesha2000]

I just played Madden on the current gen and I am SHOCKED! I've been reading that it is the exact game but I really thought people were just speaking out of disgust. I won't let EA or anyone else tell me that the exclusive deal with the NFL does not have anything to do with this. Seems like they updated the rosters and added the Cardinals stadium. Other than that, nothing new. If there is something I missed, please point it out to me. I am disgusted...this is a total lack of effort on EA's part. And just to think, we still have three more years after this year to put up with this. I'm sure we'll be playing the exact same game the next two years. Who's getting a new stadium built? I'm sure they'll have that as the feature on the back cover of next years game...."featuring the new stadium for the Miami Dolphins!!!".....TOTAL CRAP!

[GTheorenHobbes]

I don't know about website reviews, but I do know that reviews of Madden, etc. almost always show up early in the print magazines like EGM.

I was stuck in the airport last week and picked up a copy of EGM, and at the end of the magazine it said, "We expected to have a full review of Madden in this issue but EA was late in getting us the final game" or something like that. At the time, I didn't think that much about it. But in hindsight, I think he's right.

There's a lot of good posts in this thread, IMO.

[Rules]

EA had to pay the NFL a billion dollars for the license. So my question is where do you think they made the cuts to afford this, personel? If VC/Sega had nearly half the people working on their football games than EA, it does make you wonder why they removed key features. Features such as editing players, franchise mode, ect. On the bright side, they added the bomb sound to deep passes for all those who forget what it was like when they screwed up Triple Play baseball years ago. Here's to hoping for some fire coming off the players shoes and a WWF announcer to call the plays next year. Though this year's version is better than last year's, why do you think EA would have not wanted reviews of their game prior to release? Do you think they knew their efforts sucked this year and just didn't want anyone to be turned off before playing it? Personally, I think EA does not listen to any of their customers as if they did, they wouldn't be taking out features or failing to add franchise mode back into their games 2 years later. Corners need to be cut after the producers return from their 7 month vacation with less than 2 months to go to market.

[nxt]

What I'm afraid of is with all of the people who were up in arms over the "HOF" and "Fatigue" fiascos prior to the release, do you think EA will now put some type of NDA so that these websites, etc. will no longer be able to make any comments whatsoever (not just reviews) prior to the release.

We were lucky that these glitches were discovered early on, so people (who actually cared) were able to make an better decision as to whether or not they still wanted to purchase the game knowing beforehand of these problems. It also allowed EA to recognize the issue (as if they didn't know about already) and respond (by hopefully fixing/patching it as soon as possible).

After this year, I wouldn't put it past EA to come up with some type of unwritten (you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours) agreement. I wonder how quickly EA would have responded, if the game had already been in the hands of thousands of customers before these issues were discovered.

[spankdatazz22]

Quote: Originally Posted by nxt

We were lucky that these glitches were discovered early on, so people (who actually cared) were able to make an better decision as to whether or not they still wanted to purchase the game knowing beforehand of these problems. It also allowed EA to recognize the issue (as if they didn't know about already) and respond (by hopefully fixing/patching it as soon as possible).

Excellent point. Given that EA has no competition now, you'd think they'd be more forthcoming with information so there would be a chance issues could be resolved prior to release. When I look at the basketball forums, I like that 2K has been more forthcoming with information. I can't help but think that the devs have seen one or two issues that someone brought up that likely would've gotten past them. People love to assume that the QC are infallible, when they're likely just looking for major issues - or are going off a bug testing sheet that are only looking to detect specific issues.

Sure, many people can be notoriously picky - but if they have a tough skin, the benefits outweigh the negatives imo. If EA was more forthcoming with information, and willing to interact more with the gaming community, it'd make for a much better game - as well as make consumers feel less taken advantage of and more appreciated

[Mos1ted]

Quote: Originally Posted by coogrfan

Judging from this post, I'm guessing you didn't do too well in those Econ. classes.

LOL to be honest with you I didn't. I gotta retake both classes lol.