$27 Million Settlement Announced in EA Madden Price-Fixing Lawsuit

[MJHSpanda57]

Quote: Originally Posted by Illustrator76

I love me some 2K Football, but my only issue with this is that 2K's College Football game sucked. Here's to hoping they could get it right this time around if 2K decides to go in that direction.

They should just let the guys that made 2k5 do the College series.

[scoonie05]

Quote: Originally Posted by kjcheezhead

Yeah. When EA and the NFL renegotiated the license before the 2011 season the NFL cut them a $30 million break. So now they just lost that $30 million and a couple of licenses they were letting expire anyways.

Yeah, I agree with this. Now that they wont have an exclusive NCAA license, I think they'll go all out to keep the NFL license since they wont have to pony up for the other licenses.

[jWILL253]

Quote: Originally Posted by roadman

When the plaintiffs first started this case in 08, they were going after the NFL exclusive license. They settled for much less than that. As the article says, after 2014, EA can sign a non-exclusive license with NCAA and call it a day. EA hasn't made a AFL game since 2007. Wow.

Yeah, looking back on it... I called it a win, but we (the gamers) got very little at the end of the day. To EA, the NCAA license is expendable, and I bet they were laughing their asses off at the AFL license being disputed.

Sure, they might hesitate to go after another exclusive license with the NFL, but they might not. Madden is a Top 10 seller every year in America, and they would've killed to see the license stand.

This should've went to trial, plain and simple...

[DaReapa]

Quote: Originally Posted by Steve_OS

It also stipulates that EA will not sign an exclusive license arrangement with the AFL for five years and will not renew its current agreement with the NCAA, which expires in 2014, for at least five years.

Oddly enough, I thought the NCAA exclusivity was slated for just 6 years after the initial signing back in 2005.

Depending on the state of things over at 2K Sports, they may want to consider beginning development on a "prototype" football game à la All Pro Football or Backbreaker to get things kicked off for a possible re-entry back into college football gaming. In music terms, it would be akin to putting out a mixtape before the studio release.

[Retropyro]

Quote: Originally Posted by Aggies67

I don't see how anyone could say that a 2k college football would be crap based on the fact that NCAA 2k3 was bad. That was 10 years ago.

Well considering how everyone constantly says how an new NFL 2K would be great because 2K5 was good, I'd say's it's fair to say 2k college football would be crap based on the fact that NCAA 2k3 being bad.

I seriously doubt 2K would even make a new football game. They have been hinting more and more about dropping out of sports completely.

The thing is, while people may cheer now they may find themselves with no NCAA football games in the near future.

Pretty sure the NFL license was not included because it was the NFL that wanted an exclusive license so they had more control over their image. It was an open bid between the company's making NFL titles and EA obviously won.

[richiesbx137]

I think it will open up competition similar to the NBA and people like 2K and Sony should step up and jump in. EA will still get Madden and NCAA, but it will be open competition. Also bring back College Hoops as well. That is my point taken. I will love to see NFL 2K go against Madden I remember it was $20 and a month early before Madden and it sold really well. I think it is better for competition than exclusive licenses kills the whole deal.

[Cre8]

Quote: Originally Posted by richiesbx137

I think it will open up competition similar to the NBA and people like 2K and Sony should step up and jump in. EA will still get Madden and NCAA, but it will be open competition. Also bring back College Hoops as well. That is my point taken. I will love to see NFL 2K go against Madden I remember it was $20 and a month early before Madden and it sold really well. I think it is better for competition than exclusive licenses kills the whole deal.

With you 100%!!!!

2K5 was good, but I can honestly say that I preferred Madden 2005.
It was the idea of competition driving improvement in all games. I really hope this ends up happening on all fronts, MLB, NBA, College Hoops and Football and the NFL especially.

[khaliib]

Forget the license, Backbreaker showed what gamers would/could do with a fully Customizable editor.

Gamers produced teams from the NFL, College, Arena, World League, Arena, CFL, Jr College, Highschool, Semi-Pro and on.

At this point, I would pre-pay a new developer now for a Non-Gimmicky Simulation Football to be sold after the 2014 License.

Just worry about making the game as true to life as possible and give full Customization ability and we will create whatever league we want.

I really believe the reason little progression has been done with the NCAA License/Football/Basketball is the cost of the License and are now just trying to minimize the cost as much as possible by spending as little as possible on the developement on their Remaining College Football Game.

Look at how they seperated the College from Madden and the ending product that was just sold after the 2012 issues that were there.
Communication has all but stopped with the Dev Team with another Sub-par game compared to the genre as a whole and have gone to quick, non-interaction Tweets.

Wait until end of August to try and meet some of the gamers complaints of the same yearly issues that '13 has
Not a Tuner attempt or nothing.

It's plain as day for anyone with some business savvy, to see that they are cutting ties with the College Series.

I wouldn't be surprise if they do with College Football the last year of the license in the same manner they did with Basketball.

Just drop it and don't produce instead of spending on developement.

I will pre-pay right now for another developer to start to build a football game to be sold.

It's now clear why we got, what we got on July 10th.