EA Sports MMA News Post

EA Sports MMA in Limbo

11:57 PM - June 26, 2011 by Steve_OS

Kotaku's Owen Good checks in with the latest on the unknown status that defines EA Sports MMA these days. He spoke with EA Sports’ senior vice president of worldwide development Andrew Wilson about the franchise, as well as EA's feelings about being involved in the fighting genre.

Quote:


	UFC president Dana White has also publicly rebuked EA Sports and said his operation would never do business with it. (Indeed, THQ has the exclusive license on UFC games). With Strikeforce under UFC, an EA Sports MMA title loses not only the second-place (and a distant second) brand in MMA promotions, its ability to include real licensed fighters from that series becomes murkier. Certainly neither White nor the UFC would approve of any new deals.

Source - EA Sports Won’t Say MMA’s Dead, but Won’t Say It’s Getting a Sequel, Either (Kotaku)

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Member Comments

# 1 ausar72 @ 06/27/11 04:24 PM

EA should just buy THQ and say, "Ok, now it's your move!"

# 2 SHAKYR @ 06/27/11 10:08 PM

EA should merge the EA MMA and Fight Night team so they can finally make a deep and realistic game.

# 3 KidShowtime @ 06/28/11 01:16 PM

Sounds like Strikeforce didn't have another deal in place with EA Sports. That's too bad really... EA SPORTS MMA was such a refreshing change from the Undisputed series. You can even see in Undisputed 12 that they've taken the concepts created by the EA team and infused them into their own engine.

# 4 sportznut02 @ 06/28/11 01:49 PM

Sucks but not really that surprised. I actually preferred EA MMA to either one of the UFC Undisputed games.

# 5 aholbert32 @ 06/28/11 02:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by goh


	Dana said all the Strikeforce contracts were still valid.

It is but that only applies to the Strikeforce brand. All Strikeforce fighters are under Zuffa contracts now and EA only signed most of the fighters to one year contracts. So it can still have the Strikeforce brand but wont be able to sign most of the fighters. Also Strikeforce may not even exist in 2012.

# 6 ManiacMatt1782 @ 06/28/11 11:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aholbert32


	It is but that only applies to the Strikeforce brand. All Strikeforce fighters are under Zuffa contracts now and EA only signed most of the fighters to one year contracts. So it can still have the Strikeforce brand but wont be able to sign most of the fighters. Also Strikeforce may not even exist in 2012.

Not quite true, A lot of stikeforces contracts were actually contracts with showtime, that is the only reason Dana is playing nice and still putting on strikeforce shows.

# 7 NYG_Meth @ 06/29/11 12:24 AM

I loathe the business of videogames.

# 8 aholbert32 @ 06/29/11 11:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ManiacMatt1782


	Not quite true, A lot of stikeforces contracts were actually contracts with showtime, that is the only reason Dana is playing nice and still putting on strikeforce shows.

Thats not true. The UFC made every SF fighter sign a Zuffa contract once the Strikeforce deal was signed. The reason Dana is playing nice with Showtime is because Strikeforce has a deal with Showtime until Feb 2012. Showtime could potentially sue Zuffa for Breach of Contract if he either gutted SF's roster and added those fighters to the UFC or if Dana failed to promote or hold SF events. None of the deals (Not Diaz, Melendez, Overeem) were with Showtime. The only exception is the Fedor deal.

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