Judge Certifies Class-Action Football Game Pricing Lawsuit Against EA

[Steve_OS]

Gamasutra has some new info on the lawsuit.

"A U.S. district judge has certified a class-action anti-trust lawsuit against Electronic Arts that alleges the company illegally inflated prices for its football titles after attaining exclusive rights to league licenses.

In a 67-page complaint [PDF], the legal team specifically cites the 2004 pricing battle between Sega and Take-Two's NFL2K5, which retailed for just $19.95, and EA's Madden NFL 2005, which was lowered from a $49.95 asking price to $29.95 in November of that year.

A month after this price decrease, EA signed its exclusive licensing deal with the NFL, following with similar deals for the NCAA and Arena Football leagues in later months. The next year's Madden NFL 2006 faced no competition in the football game market at its usual $49.95 price point."

Gamespot chimes in as well.

"We believe EA forced consumers to pay an artificial premium on Madden NFL video games" Berman continued. "We intend to prove that EA could inflate prices on their sports titles because these exclusive licenses restrained trade and competition for interactive sports software."

What do you think happens, out of all this?

[JaymeeAwesome]

Ummm how is this possible? EA charges as much for a video game as every other new game on the market. $60 xbox 360 and ps3, $50 for Wii, and $40 for ps2 (I think). I for one will not be joining this lawsuit because I don't find it right to fault a video game maker for landing exclusive rights to make the game and not charge any more than any other game. The only object I feel that falls under that assumption is apple's iPhone and the AT&T exclusivity.

[solidsnake916]

Re: Judge Certifies Class-Action Football Game Pricing Lawsuit Against EA

uhhh Where can we join the litigation..? lol Well very interesting. One day hope to see another 2k football on the next gen.

[DirtyJerz32]

Nothing whatsoever. It'll be the same price next year. When we get 2 NFL games again I'll care.

[solidsnake916]

Re: Judge Certifies Class-Action Football Game Pricing Lawsuit Against EA

Nothing whatsoever. It'll be the same price next year. When we get 2 NFL games again I'll care.

More then likely...

[TracerBullet]

Wasn't 2k4 $50?

[Rocky]

Re: Judge Certifies Class-Action Football Game Pricing Lawsuit Against EA

Nothing whatsoever. It'll be the same price next year. When we get 2 NFL games again I'll care.

I agree, but I have to wonder if EA will risk a messy legal fight to renew the license in 2013.

[NAdkins01]

Honestly this has more merit than other frivolous lawsuits that have been brought against EA based on the fact that they quickly lowered the price to match it and increased it back up shortly after obtaining the exclusive license. It it will be interesting to see what happens.

[wsu_gb23]

good for 'em. EA isn't exactly riding the karma train these days.

[iAM-IncReDiBLe-]

Re: Judge Certifies Class-Action Football Game Pricing Lawsuit Against EA

It's $60 because every other new game is $60.............

[mike24forever]

EA can charge what they like! APF 2K8 was not 19.99. 2K5 was sold at the price when they were competing with EA. EA dropped the price to close the price gap! That's it, no more! 2K fanboys and EA haters will never except anything other than EA being evil! I wish 2K made a football game. I still play 2K5 on my 360, however I do not hate a gaming company and live for these stupid lawsuits!

[onlybygrace]

This is just flat stupid.

Wonder if they'll use money for litigation out of their Madden The Movie budget?

[kehlis]

Re: Judge Certifies Class-Action Football Game Pricing Lawsuit Against EA

Ummm how is this possible? EA charges as much for a video game as every other new game on the market. $60 xbox 360 and ps3, $50 for Wii, and $40 for ps2 (I think). I for one will not be joining this lawsuit because I don't find it right to fault a video game maker for landing exclusive rights to make the game and not charge any more than any other game. The only object I feel that falls under that assumption is apple's iPhone and the AT&T exclusivity.

It's $60 because every other new game is $60.............

You guys are both right but are both missing the point of this lawsuit.

To preface this, I have played Madden since the Sega days and have never owned any of the 2knfl games.

I think we all agree that if they were both still making games, they would both be priced new at $60 dollars today for a new title.


The point of the suit, as I interpret it, is that the proper opportunity for competition wasn't provided as some believe it should have been. The argument is that without any competetition, EA can charge a fair market value without worrying about the quality of product because they have no competition.

The main argument being used, and it is a good one, is that when 2k first released their game, it was priced well below market value which forced EA to reduce their price. We can speculate on how that would affect prices today, but that is the argument made in this suit.

Again, I have no problem personally with the exclusive license, but I think some are misunderstanding the argument being made with this lawsuit.

[khaliib]

What EA does not want is for this case to go before a "Jury" of mostly older individuals who believe the current price tag for video games is way too expensive and most likely will focus on that aspect along with buying exclusive rights to be the sole maker for these games.

It's different if the case would be determined by a judge who would go by the letter of the law. But instead, older individuals who mostly believe video games are an issue one way or another. This case will not be about an EA Sports Title by itself, but about their emotional feelings towards video games in general.

Or they will get that individual that has been burned by purchasing an EA product before and wants such an opportunity to get back at them.

It doesn't look good when during a year your competitor (a much smaller company than EA) sells their game at a lower price than EA's, then the following year an exclusive deal is done removing any/all pricing alternatives for consumers while increasing your price.

Also, it might be hard for EA to justify an increase from $29.99 to $59.99 for their football title when this titles market was/has been driven by EA itself. There was/is no football market to say this is what drove the standard for pricing, because EA is the "ONLY" producer with the exclusive deal.

Another area that doesn't look good for EA is that they forenew about the new Next Gen consoles hitting the market and the exclusive deal made them the Only football developers when the units were in "HIGH" demand which coinsides with the increase in price of their football titles.

This really adds to the justification of the lawsuit that EA "Price Gauge" as the sole maker.

On top of this, EA has lawsuits from players from both the NFL and NCAA which lends to the assumption that EA has/is doing something that is illegal.

Again, not good to have this lawsuit decided by Jurors instead of a Judge.

And to add more pressure, it's being submitted as a "Class Action" suit.
Can EA, after closing one of their sites, afford to lose such a case?
Can you imaging the cost of damages for this "Class Action"?

On a good note to us that want a 2k Pro/College Football game, because the company is mentioned in the lawsuit, it has to mean that they are involved in pushing it in some way or another.

I wouldn't be suprised if other game makers (989, Acclaim etc..) decided to participate on the grounds that they to were locked out of the football market.


I would also say that this is not only about any future licenses, but damages due to the money lost because of the lock-out.
**Remember the Exclusive football deals and price increase came right as the Next Gen consoles where in High demand.
In 2006, everyone purchased Madden to play on these "New" consoles.
This is very important within the lawsuit.

If this is what it takes for another game developers to have the opportunity to provide the football community with alternatives, then I'm all for it.

[Tyrant8RDFL]

If others games sold for 49.99 and Madden sold for 59.99 than I can see the issue, but the day the 360 and PS3 came to life. It was very well documented that the GAMES for these systems would retail for 59.99, so how is EA wrong in this dept?

Now I want just as bad as the next guy to see a line up of football games made by other companions, but this claim here makes ZERO sense.

I want news on the exclusive deal going down , not this nonsense.