EA Gets Five Year Exclusive Deal For NFL Games. There's No Stopping The Monster.

I now officially hate EA

It's one thing if a monopolistic company decides to put out below average products because they have no competition. It's another thing if their products are actually halfway decent. I guess since now it's official, there's nothing to do except hope that such games EA puts out in the comming years with be at least semi-good.

 

Has EA ever even made a good game?

Yes. Medal of Honor was awesome before Rising Sun. Lord of the Rings was great before Third Age. 007 was really improving with every game and then they gave us Goldeneye: Rogue Agent. All their good franchises are declining.

We should seriously boycott EA. This is out of control. I don't mind them buying up sports games. But they are buying up everything and selling ****y products. It's only a matter of time before the only good products they give us are sports games.

 

The Sims and Ultima Online

 

Yes. Medal of Honor was awesome before Rising Sun. Lord of the Rings was great before Third Age. 007 was really improving with every game and then they gave us Goldeneye: Rogue Agent. All their good franchises are declining.

Has EA ever made a good game...those examples aside?

 

There's a number of games that I know EA was the publisher for, such as Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield Vietnam, but they themselves didn't develop them. Both Battlefield games were developed by Digital Illusions and The Sims, for example, was developed by Maxis. Pretty much, many of the games that EA only publishes and not developes tend to do pretty well. I guess EA serves as both the developer and the publisher for all of it's sports titles, but I rarely play those so I wouldn't know which ones are good or not.

 

but does this mean we'll get a Madden 2006 thats very good, but could have been better? Yes.



Err...No. Since they've already been working on '06 I don't think you'll see a slack in the Madden series till at least '07 if at all.

 

Ugh. Like IGN said in that article.. they;ll probably try to buy Europe next

Seriously. This is really making me upset. And I already wanted to scream when I read they are trying to make a hostile takeover of my beloved Ubisoft ><

I mean, jesus. The French government is even trying to intervene to make sure EA doesn't get its grips on Ubisoft.

Bah. I always prefered Sega Sports (VC and ESPN series) over EA.

Only thing I ever liked of EA was Sim City series

 

Oh Boy

 

/\/\/\
IIIIIII

This is why one should read through a thread before posting. Or at the very least look at whats been said on the previous page.

If EA secures the license for the National Curling League I might have to go postal.

-----signature-----
"Rabid Balding Ewok, you make me sick.
If there was an enemies list, you'd be on mine."


:::*::(^^) :(^^) :::::::
::::::/::::^^:::::\ ::*::
:::::/###-^^-##I :::::
: *:.l##/(*)# (*)\\:::::
:::/##(###.00#)#I ::::
::(___/#*#(XXX)/__) ::
::/000{{{{www}}}}\:: Ewoks Will Eat You!

 

These deals are very, very bad. EA is going to become the Microsoft of video games... OH, WAIT A MINUTE...

Anyway, I really think Sega should file some sort of lawsuit for EA getting the NFL license. I normally wouldn't suggest such, but I think they would have a strong case for EA nabbing the NFL license.

No competition is bad. Does anyone watch or used to wrestling? Care to explain what happened there?

 

Monopolies suck, period. I tend to like most EA games, and I've been gaming on them since the Commodore 64 - but they have shown a tendency to muck up sequel games. The Maddens have been strong forever and have such a solid fanbase that they practically had a monopoly anyway - but someone at least kept them motivated. Shame.

 

The French government is even trying to intervene to make sure EA doesn't get its grips on Ubisoft.

My opinion of the French went up a notch. Not that that is saying much.

At least Ubisoft is putting out some quality games.

 

Sorry, but I'm not gonna drink the EA Kool-Aid.

I won't buy, rent, or play Madden ever again unless EA Sports gets off their asses and produces a REAL updated version. I have no interest in playing a game with five-year-old animations and the same exact graphics year after year. Plus, the gameplay is now overrated as all hell. Sega/Visual Concepts/ESPN have caught up with (and, arguably, surpassed) them.

It's about time someone publically shines the light on these frat boys. In my opinion, they are threatening to ruin sports games. Or, at the very least, continuing to hold them back. It's just too bad the acolytes will never admit it.

 

The problem from a legal view is that anybody can still put out a football game..you just can't use NFL teams or players. It's a copyright licence issue, and I doubt you would get very far.
It's like suing Lucasarts for having a monopoly of Star Wars games.
I think it sucks, and I do not like EA, but I doubt you would get anyplace in a lawsuit. Like it or not, the NFL teams are copyrighted, and as such they can sell exclusive rights for merchandise.
BTW you also have to blame the NFL for selling an exclusive licence in the first place.

 

Hmmm... NFL teams are copyrighted.... that is true...

But what about the players themselves?

Use the existing players, but rename the teams a bit:

The Philadelphia Beagles!

The Miami Morphines!

 

Couldn't a free agent still sell their personas to another gaming compony?

 

Well, at least there's a small glimmer of hope. IGN is reporting that the company Take Two/Visual Concepts and the MLB are in final negotiations to give the company exclusive MLB rights.

Another interesting note is that the NBA is looking to to give game developers genre-specific exclusive, meaning that one company would get the exclusive to the simulation titles, one would get the exclusive to sreet vertions, and one would get the exclusive to portable NBA games. The good thing about this is that the NBA has rejected an "all-encompassing exclusive," meaning that companies like EA won't be able to gobble up everything to the NBA that exists.

 

It happens occasionally, true, but not as much as it used to (vis: the 8-bit days).

A couple of points concerning trademark law:

Things are complicated by the fact that formal licensing is a technical impossibility for small matters, including vowel-shifting a few letters in a team's name (nice try, though, tear). If people went by what a copyright holder formally allowed, copyright holders would have to formally allow *much* more, or many a video game would be much worse off.

Copyright holders would not want to *formally* allow much more. It could turn against them. One could speculate that a copyright holder would prefer the freedom of sitting back, rising to challenge only when something truly offends. There are admittedly...certain benefits...to a lack of stricter rules. Many people make this same mistake, and think that "fair use" has to do with whether or not any money exchanges hands, or whether it's public or private, but that's not really the case at all.

Extent, nature, and intent -- all notably influence whether a copyright holder will ever perceive something as harmful, and take action against it. What is permissible is sometimes not determined by theoretic interpretability of a single law -- but also its practical application, realistic applicability, and occasional conflicts with other laws.

 

The latest issue of Gameinformer makes cracks about EA by using Star Wars quotes, saying how EA is the power that binds the galaxy together, etc, etc...and the power to destroy a planet is insignificant next to EA...

The column's a good source of a good laugh.

 

Well it's official, Sega is out of the sports game.

Now it's up to Take Two. They managed to secure some weird 3rd party MLB exclusive publishing deal.

-----signature-----
"Rabid Balding Ewok, you make me sick.
If there was an enemies list, you'd be on mine."


:::*::(^^) :(^^) :::::::
::::::/::::^^:::::\ ::*::
:::::/###-^^-##I :::::
: *:.l##/(*)# (*)\\:::::
:::/##(###.00#)#I ::::
::(___/#*#(XXX)/__) ::
::/000{{{{www}}}}\:: Ewoks Will Eat You!

 

Yea it is big deal. Competition breeds a better quality game. Besides all EA has done every year is just update the graphics and the features. There's not much in the way of new features from year to year.

 

three letters CFL

 

EALA lays off more employees.

Link