Gamers who purchased a copy of Madden from August, 2005 onward may be eligible to join a class action suit against publisher Electronic Arts.
Pecover vs. EA (all GP coverage here) is currently proceeding in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The suit alleges that EA's exclusive licensing deal with the NFL and NFL Players Association created a monopoly situation which EA exploited by substantially raising the retail price for a copy of Madden.
In a story broken recently by GamePolitics, an expert witness hired by the plaintiffs theorized that EA's exclusive NFL/NFLPA license may have cost consumers nearly a billion dollars. Lawyers for EA have disputed that claim in court documents.
In a press release issued on Friday, Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, the law firm representing consumers in the case, provides a link where Madden buyers can learn more about the suit and potentially join as additional plaintiffs.
Lead attorney Steve Berman, quoted in the press release, pulled no punches in his assessment of EA's position regarding Madden:
There is nothing wrong with good, strong competition in a free market, but we believe EA rigged the game to take advantage of consumers.
EA knows that the demand for these games is based on how realistically the players and teams are portrayed. When EA signed into exclusive agreements it knowingly killed the only competing game of comparable quality, [Take-Two's] NFL 2K5.
Comments
Re: Lawyers in Class Action Suit Vs. EA are Seeking Madden ...
Do not knock better stats my friend, I've seen the Giants go from a low 60 rating to a high 90 during my experience and its been worth every penny!
Re: Lawyers in Class Action Suit Vs. EA are Seeking Madden ...
Simply including a feature that would constantly update the stats of the players during the season would be the best way to make a sports game. You would lose the ability to milk people out of their cash year after year if you didn't offer substantial gameplay changes though.
Re: Lawyers in Class Action Suit Vs. EA are Seeking Madden ...
That would be a neat idea, almost like a Fantasy Football only you activly play it, and probably not for money
Re: Lawyers in Class Action Suit Vs. EA are Seeking Madden ...
Sorry but there's a big difference between 1 game of a genre that has plenty of games of that type, only being released for one console, and an entire division of sport, subgenre, to only be available by one company meaning they don't have to deal with competition as far as gameplay is concerned. That's as if saying Scarface shouldn't be X360 only, while there's also GTA in that subgenre, and comparing that to all First Person Shooters being Wii-only.
Re: Lawyers in Class Action Suit Vs. EA are Seeking Madden ...
The problem with your argument, along with anyone else who makes a monopoly claim, is that the NFL has the right to market itself in any way it feels like. EA had to pay the NFL a shitton of money in order to secure that exclusive license, and the NFL can take it away for whatever reason it likes. EA has little to do with it, because all of the rights are still owned by the NFL. If the NFL didn't want to continue it, they'd be able to sell their license to anyone, so complaining about EA is doomed to fail.
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Freedom of speech means the freedom to say ANYTHING, so long as it is the truth. This does not exclude anything that might hurt someone's feelings.
Re: Lawyers in Class Action Suit Vs. EA are Seeking Madden ...
I'm sorry, but what argument of mine are you talking about? I criticized a flawed comparison, I never made any decision on this matter on which side is most likely to be in the right, nor did I have any interest in playing devil's advocate. As such, I haven't made an argument on why one of the two sides would be correct.
Re: Lawyers in Class Action Suit Vs. EA are Seeking Madden ...
jedidethfreak
Ya but you have to understand there comes a time when exclusivity become monopolistic and starts hurting consumers. EA and and the NFL are creating a innovation vacuum to make money for EA, this is a bad thing.
If it was just part of the NFL then it would not be monopolistic but tis the whole sports genre, one could say the PS3 or 360 is monopolistic by not makign thier stuff PC compilable but for a few million you can get in on PS3/360/PC development and for under a grand a year consumers can have it all as it were, so when everyone can be involved in it from either the top end or the end user its not monopolistic.
Now if you say Halo should be on the other consoles because its a monopoly that to is incorrect...if you had it so all FPSs were on the 360 that would be a monopoly and because you can't really have a football game without the NFL its a monopoly.
Tthe end result is the IP owners are still making as much money but are no longer stifling competition and innovation by allow ONE company to rake in profits and set prices and design limits.
Until lobbying is a hanging offense I choose anarchy! Stop supporting big media and furthering the criminalization of consumers!! http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/
Copyright infringement is nothing more than civil disobedience to a bad set of laws. Let's renegotiate them.
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http://zippydsm.deviantart.com/
Re: Lawyers in Class Action Suit Vs. EA are Seeking Madden ...
A monopoly is controlling an entire industry. Exclusive rights to certain IP's are not monopolies. Anti-trust laws (laws meant to prevent monopolies) were created to prevent a select few people from controlling a significant majority of an entire industry, so as to demand certain pricing requriements on products industry-wide. Just because a game developer has exclusive rights to produce games based on another franchise (such as EA with NFL) does not constitue a monopoly, because they don't effect the entire game industry, especially considering the NFL holds the rights to the NFL games, not EA. You might be able to make an argument about having exclusive rights to the NFL does affect the whole industry, but you'd be wrong, because only four or five other developers ever had an NFL license, vs. the hundreds of developers worldwide.
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Freedom of speech means the freedom to say ANYTHING, so long as it is the truth. This does not exclude anything that might hurt someone's feelings.
Re: Lawyers in Class Action Suit Vs. EA are Seeking Madden ...
I doubt they will have much luck in that respect to be honest, the fact is that, whilst people may complain a lot about some of EA's policies, namely DRM and sequels, I don't see the player base actively participating in something that didn't 'hurt' them in any detectable fashion.
Certainly, from a business analysis point of view, it may have hurt them financially, but because it's in the world of 'what if', no-one is going to feel that sting.
Still, I could be utterly wrong, I'll wait and see :)
Re: Lawyers in Class Action Suit Vs. EA are Seeking Madden ...
DRM is technically illegal under our constitution however what lawmakers did to go around that was vote on a Treaty which technically our constitution honors treaties regardless of whether it violates our constitution so if we as gamers want to be represented we need as gamers groups to represent us in Congress.
Re: Lawyers in Class Action Suit Vs. EA are Seeking Madden ...
You are so out to lunch that it's not even funny any more. There's you and then there's reality. And there's nothing connecting one to the other.
Re: Lawyers in Class Action Suit Vs. EA are Seeking Madden ...
Everything in the world is worth the price someone is willing to pay for it.
If we were talking about bread, water, or oxygen, i might care more. But we're talking about a freaking sports game here. Every single person who bought it had the right to NOT BUY IT.