Yea, and you have to figure that the EA is paying the NFL to have the rights to the game. This then brings up the next big issue, which is that EA is a public traded company on the NYSE. If you or I were the CEO there is no way we could tell our investors that we are taking a year off selling the company's cash cow. It's not greed, it would be career suicide. The majority of the shareholders don't play video games, so they don't care about the quality of the product. The only thing that matters is the greenback. And investors (shareholders) want to see increasing revenues year over year. They are not satisfied that they made $80 per share this year and $80 per share last year. If they made $80 per share this year they better make $82+ per share next year. The more the better. Why do you think EA is looking for additional ways to make cash such as DLC in these slumping times of video game sales?
Now think about this: you have a public traded company that already have an annual expense of paying the NFL for a license. Whether the money paid to the NFL is in a lump sum or is paid annually is irrelevant. They can only get a return on that investment in annual installments of the game, so for accounting purposes you might as well think the payment as being annual. So if they pay the NFL $2,000,000 in 2009 (just pulling figure out my ***), they better make that $2,000,000 back in 2009 otherwise their balance sheet will show a deficit of $2,000,000. A deficit means shareholders lose money. When this happens, shareholders sell their shares and look for a better investment. A max exodous of shareholders could very mean the end of EA as we know it. Not a definite but a great possibility. No CEO in his right mind would want to bring down a company and, therefore, commit career suicide.
I hope this is clear to everyone who keep saying EA should take a year off and those who keep saying EA is greedy. I'm not an EA apologist but I think I'm a reasonable person with realistic wishes. I would love for them to take a year off but it is just not realistic or would take a lot of balls for EA's CEO. I don't see that happening in the near future, unless of course sales plummet to the point they can justify to the shareholders that taking a year off to improve quality would be in their best interest. I don't see that happening any time soon. This game sells regardless of what's inside the box.
By the way, I still think this is an improvement over previous Maddens. I just think there are still glaring flaws that need to be corrected. Improvement doesn't mean I should still settle for less. And I understand Ian's intention wasn't to make the perfect game in one year. That would be unreasonable. Still, there are things in this game that do not work as advertised. I would like to see them addressed before I invest again in Madden.