Will There Ever Be Another NCAA Football (Written 1/15/15) - AdamJones113's Blog

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Will There Ever Be Another NCAA Football (Written 1/15/15)

Posted on August 30, 2015 at 12:49 PM.

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With the end of the suit against the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), led by ex-NCAA athlete Ed O�Bannon (UCLA, basketball), Electronic Arts agreed to a $40 million settlement with over 100,000 ex-collegiate athletes. O�Bannon filed a suit against the NCAA for their exploitation, and in the video game industry for the improper use of their image:

�EA�s internal spreadsheets show that each avatar was matched to dozens of the real student-athlete�s identifying characteristics,� according to the settlement. �For example, for the NCAA football videogame, EA matched: (1) the name of the real student-athlete; (2) his real-life jersey number; (3) his position played; (4) his hometown; (5) his year of eligibility; (6) his athletic abilities (on at least 22 dimensions, including speed, strength, agility, etc.); (7) his physical characteristics (on at least 26 dimensions, including, weight, height, skin color, face geometry, hair style, muscle shape, etc.); and (8) how he dressed for games in real life (on at least 28 dimensions, including shoes, how they taped, braces worn, undershirts, facemask and helmet styles, etc.).� (Tom Farrey, ESPN)

NCAA Football is one of the most beloved games and one of the best-supported. Since EA was prohibited from using players� direct names in the release versions, community members undertook upon themselves to name (and in some cases rerate as well) each player�no small feat considering the FBS contains over 120 schools and seventy players on average per roster. The community support has continued for NCAA 14, with several community members naming players and updating rosters for each FBS season.

NCAA Football had the advantage of being released in July, as opposed to other Big-4 sports titles which are usually released in late August, early September, or October. With college football being a major part of American culture, and the game playing well, NCAA Football always seemed to be a sure-thing game for users and a sure-thing money-maker for EA, though it never made as much as FIFA or Madden, both the �only games in town� in their respective professional sport during NCAA Football�s last few years.

EA discontinued the game as a result of the lawsuit and settlement, but one has to wonder whether the lack of micro-transactions played a part. FIFA, Madden, and NHL all have Ultimate Team mode, where users can buy players to assemble a star team. The interest in Ultimate Team lies in collecting variations of a real player, so sanction-bound NCAA Football would quickly lose traction in the Ultimate Team field.

With the loss of NCAA Football, Madden, also by EA Sports, is the only football game for users to purchase, and the only licensed one at that. Therefore the lack of NCAA Football as competition has helped bump the sales numbers for Madden, and therefore bumped the micro-transactions for Madden Ultimate Team (MUT).

College football fans want a game. The best solution would be to make a low-budget game with licensed colleges but completely fictional players bearing no resemblance to their real-life counterparts. EA would make money from the college aspect and gamers would be free to edit the players to their hearts� content, making the roster real or whatever they wanted. However, with the lawsuit and a $40 million settlement payment on their minds (though players will have been compensated sufficiently, gamers hope), EA Sports may be inclined to cool their heels for a while.

There will be another NCAA Football, but you won�t see it until Madden cements themselves as a top-3 sports game (currently FIFA, MLB the Show, and NBA 2k). Until then, enjoy arguing over 4 teams in the playoff as opposed to 2.