NFL extends CBA; EA still holds exclusive rights
by Ross Miller 
{ Mar 9th 2006 at 4:30PM }
Remember that brief moment where it seemed
EA might lose its exclusive license to NFL games? We reported on it last week, related to the
ongoing struggle between the NFL and the players' association. Many Joystiq readers (ourselves, included) were unsure
about the legalese of the deal and whether or not this tiff could put EA's monopoly in jeopardy. And we are not going
to find out either: NFL owners approved a six-year extension of the collective bargain agreement (CBA).No strike, no player lock-out, no decertification, no need to cite antitrust laws. The NFL is on schedule, and now so are the annual Madden titles. Sorry, EA-haters.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
dvdguy @ Mar 9th 2006 4:58PM
I wouldn't say "sorry EA-haters" as much as I'd say "sorry competition lovers".
Isaiah @ Mar 9th 2006 5:08PM
Im not an EA hater, but i think its rediculus what theyve done since they got the rights to the NFL. 1st off, odviously, i loved the ESPN games including 2k5. To me, they were the best football games ever made, and to this day i still believe it, even with Madden 06 on 360. Hopefully 2k will come out with a non-license football game that blows it out of the water, but well see. Ever since they aquired it, they have just been slacking off . Madden 06 was a joke, graphics.... Decent, but far from what they did show it would be back when the 1st video was shown. Then, they cut out everything people like such as CREATE-A-TEAM and PLAYER. Come on, this generation is all about the creat a feature, what are they thinking. Then they kept that horible idea called Quater back vision or sumthin like that.... i dont get it, can anyone help me out with what EA is shooting for here. Do they think they can do whatever they want now that they are the only game in town, becuase ill tell you what, people arnt buying it.
Isaiah
Mooinakan @ Mar 9th 2006 5:25PM
What #1 said
Sense @ Mar 9th 2006 5:29PM
No, no, EA haters is appropriate I think. It's safe to say I'm not a big fan of EA. I don't really care about football games, but I know that the quality of Madden will suffer from lack of competition.
Meh @ Mar 9th 2006 5:30PM
Some day there will be a decent sports game.
Probably in 6 or so years.
Snap @ Mar 9th 2006 5:36PM
Just give me all the current gen features in this coming years Xbox 360 version plus some really good exclusive benefits and I'll be happy. I won't hold my breath.
DJ @ Mar 9th 2006 5:42PM
Madden is a fine football game but the problem is that the series has become stagnant. Their one chance to finally rebuild the game and make it better (on the 360) they just go back to the same old formula gameplay-wise. Sure, they upgraded the graphics, but everything else got neglected. This is bad news for the rest of the Madden games as it shows that EA is not willing to do what it takes to mix things up. Without competition we will be seeing the same small upgrades year after year while in essence it remains a roster update. I hope they prove me wrong but that is unlikely.
Ronald Quesada @ Mar 9th 2006 5:45PM
Lets boycott their ass.
Franky J @ Mar 9th 2006 5:58PM
Although I love Madden games. I really think they should do this because then they might push over their limits to do better in Artificial Intellegence (AI) and graphics with in the games so that the games would look better than they are. Also play should look more familiar and teams should have actual updates to the current teams. If they had all of these things maybe they will keep the license to them otherwise say goodbye.
Anon - I - mousse @ Mar 9th 2006 6:07PM
I totally agree with you DJ, we constantly see (of course there are exceptions) that a monopoly brings with it little to no efforts from (in this case EA through monopoly of the aforementioned license) to improve the products offered simply because there is no incentive to do so, clearly stated, no competition whatsoever.
And although the past year blitz : the league appeared (mid - october though) it meant no real competition to the well established and long running EA's madden series which reportedly sold 2.9 millions for the ps2 and 1.2 millions for the XboX on the USA.
Will this situation remain until the license deal is over, let us hope not because while EA continues to make profit the ones who truly suffer are gamers.
So i for one would like to say, you stink EA!
Shamma @ Mar 9th 2006 6:15PM
I will not buy another madden game. Ever! I would encourage you all to do the same. I bought madden for the 360 and it was terrible. I sold it on ebay to someone I hope they hated it as much as I did.
Jago @ Mar 9th 2006 6:16PM
Damn...my day is ruined now. Oh well...hopefully something else will happen to EA to make up for this.
:-(
Sean @ Mar 9th 2006 6:41PM
I see an easy solution for the other football game publishers (ie SEGA). Just make rosters, logos and team names user-customizable/programmable. I'm sure the community would create full rosters (they have been doing so for years) so we can end this monopoly business. You could then download logos and rosters online and avoid this non-sense.
Just my 2 cents.
Jago @ Mar 9th 2006 7:32PM
It's not "official" though. The main audience for these football games are the people who think "Madden is the greatest game ever made."
tickytong @ Mar 9th 2006 7:32PM
Sega should just make a blitz game but with the same engine as before. I would love to juice up my players. The problem with blitz is the game play is awful.
kevinski @ Mar 9th 2006 9:50PM
Think back to the Saturn/PSX days of Madden. Remember when the NFL 2K series came along? Wowhow about EA's sudden attempts to improve upon Madden. See where it got you Madden lovers? That's what competition does.
Unfortunately, EA doesn't see things that way. They didn't like having to cut prices in order to compete with a bargain-priced ($19.99) football series that actually made people stop and think. And yes, I'm one of those EA haters, but not simply because of this. I find it hard to respect a company whose PC ports of games are terribly unoptimized for any sort of hardware.
Todd H. @ Mar 10th 2006 11:13AM
I'd like to see a new group at EA take over the production of Madden. Could you imagine the team that built "Black" developing Madden? I think that would probably do the title some good...
Jim N @ Mar 10th 2006 1:10PM
I really like #12 idea. This would allow the company to invest allot of money into the actual game development and less into franchising fees. My only question how would you set up different athlete abilities and skill levels.
#16: I agree that Black is a visually stunning game, I just can not imagine always having to play against the computer. Black has no multi player options. I still can not beleive that. That game could easily have been a 9 out of 10 game had it multi player capabilities.
#15: I kind of thought that to be interesting also that the year after the 2K series came out at $19.99, EA spent a ton of money and got an exculsive deal to be the only NFL game to be made.
I am trying to think of the last EA game that I bought that I really liked. I bought Madden 2006, but since this was my first go at Madden I found the learning curve very hard. I rented Burnout Revenge for the PSP was was amazed at the graphics. I bought Metal of Honor:European Assault but I bought it used from Gamefly when it was $15.99, figuring that I could get $16.00 of money out of it. Any market that does not have competition is going to suffer plain and simple.
Jago @ Mar 10th 2006 2:14PM
"Sega should just make a blitz game but with the same engine as before. I would love to juice up my players. The problem with blitz is the game play is awful."
Huh? You do know that the Blitz series is from Midway right?
As for Black...yea it might look pretty but it has no substance plus my god what kind of body armor is the enemy AI wearing? I can go through a half clip or more in my AK-47 from 5 feet away and the guys still stand.