Law Firm Announces Prelminary Approved Settlement With EA in Likeness Case

[RaychelSnr]

Hagens Berman, the law firm representing student-athletes in case which alleged EA illegally used student-athletes' likenesses in the company's college titles, filed a motion to approve a settlement for athletes who appeared in the games.

This is the first time in history that the NCAA's commercial partners will reimburse student-athletes for using their likenesses.

In the settlement, each member of the class-action suit could receive up to $951 per appearance in the game, or each year they were in it. That number depends upon the responses and the amount of claims filed of course.

Judge Claudia Wilken has to grant preliminary approval of the settlement before ultimately approving of the deal, but it appears unlikely anything would scuttle the settlement at this point.

As to what this does for any possible future collegiate games, it certainly sets a precedent for compensation and depending on how NCAA structural issues play out over the summer, the door could be opened for legal licensure of actual likenesses with no potential for legal issues down the road.

You may recall the NCAA Football series was ultimately cancelled in no small part due to 'litigation issues', and the NCAA is still mired in the O'Bannon suit -- so there is no guarantee the NCAA will be willing to play part in any licensing of their properties within a game anytime soon.

The NCAA itself is undergoing fundamental change, with the power-five conferences seeking more autonomy for things like compensation for student-athletes. Depending on how that process plays out, the door could easily be opened for a company like EA to make a video game of one of the most popular sports in America -- the market is certainly there and its doubtful that a company won't give it a try when the door is opened again.

[bad_philanthropy]

TBH, with the player likeness thing settled, I can see EA waiting to see how the rest of the NCAA landscape plays out, and making a new game as soon as they can. I feel like the finalizing of the settlement at least clears the deck for them to go ahead and make a college football game with generic rosters whenever the rest of the NCAA stuff gets cleared up.

Hopefully they'll be able to continue providing online lockers so makers can share authentic rosters.

The market is definitely there.

[GruffyMcGuiness]

I pray that we get a game soon for current gen with completely editable teams and players. Make it generic to keep out of trouble, we'll do the rest

[Skyflame21]

I've never understood why they didn't just release generic rosters in the first place. Their roster sets were usually quite poor except for maybe the top 5 players on a team, As someone who would do a complete roster rebuild, like many others, it's not like EA was gaining much with their stock roster set.

If they could reacquire the proper rights to leagues, trophies and conferences then I don't see why they cant release a new with a generic roster and just let us gamers create authentic rosters... like we've done for the past decade.

[xandermole25]

i'd rather them just pay the players and do super accurate players instead of generic ones

[cowboy_kmoney]

Its a waiting game for both kompany's.

[janierjack]

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[tril]

I have to disagree with those that said maybe now a company like EA can make college sports titles again.
This settlement is the final nail in the coffin.
There is no way a game company will be profitable if they have to pay every college athlete

In addition, the likeliness issue is so vague. What is defined as likeliness? is it a name, a number on a uniform, a home state and same position. can the rating of a player be classified as likeliness?

college sports on consoles is dead.