[SECElit3]

Quote: Originally Posted by Bob Sacamano

Timeout. This is insane. The Madden Franchise has used a monopoly to slow-play innovation for years. I've never seen a company leverage monopoly-power so ruthlessly (and I'm an antitrust lawyer). Madden removes features, dresses them up differently, reintroduces them a couple years later, and relies on marketing, an absolute lack of alternatives, and our sheer love of football to reel us in. Correct me if I'm wrong, but CCM is nothing more than a shameless, feature-stripping cash cow. We used to be able to build up draft classes in NCAA and have at least four years of realism in our franchises. After those four years we could at least draft fictional players we recruited and developed in college. In CCM our franchises are instantly flooded with imaginary Madden-generated draftees. Perhaps by removing the bridge between the games EA will see less NCAA/Madden trade-ins, and sacrifice consumer welfare to take another jab at the aftermarket and GameStop (as they've already done with "EA accounts"). Madden does not care about consumers. They could market obligatory waterboarding and most of you would call it a "step in the right direction." We just love football, and EA knows it. In the past a single disc provided coop franchises at no extra cost. CCM and EA accounts are designed to strip features consumers already enjoyed, to force more individual purchases and usher users to their lousy servers and glitch-exploiting online game play. EA exhausts so many resources into marketing and developing ways to fatten its own wallet at the expense of consumers and existing features, that it doesn't even have time to implement simple mainstays like player editing. CCM is not remotely revolutionary. It is an abuse of power, plain and simple. Superstar mode is a lousy, easily-implementable feature (just an extra camera angle) and blending that with their shoddy online offering and a diluted franchise mode should not be applauded. Save the applause for titles like NBA2K and MLB The Show. Products derived by companies that haven't spent the past decade simply loading its game with gimmicks and relying on our love of the sport, outrageous marketing and exclusive licensing to abuse us.

Bob,

This is my exact thinking... well said sir... well said!

Very well written post.