Hef, Mini-Me at Madden VIP Launch Party

August 9, 2008 -

The Sporting News has coverage of a Madden VIP premiere party from Thursday night, complete with a cast of third-tier celebs like Verne (Mini-Me) Troyer, Tom Arnold and, oddly, Hugh Hefner (with bored-looking female companions in tow).

Madden 09 launches on Tuesday, of course. After the GTA IV launch, about which GamePolitics probably ran 25 stories, the Madden debut will be the second biggest game release of the year. Madden, fairly free of controversy, gets just this one.

GP: Personally, I'm way more interested in getting my mitts on Spore and Fallout 3, but the annual Madden launch is always an event, especially given that this year is the 20th anniversary of the series.

Via: Deadspin

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49 comments

Gamer Class-action Suit Filed Against EA Over Madden Monopoly

June 11, 2008 -

A pair of gamers have filed a class-action lawsuit against Electronic Arts over its exclusive licensing deal with the NFL.

Madden owners Geoffrey Pecover of Washington, D.C. and Jeffrey Lawrence of California are the named plaintiffs in the class-action, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Northern California.

The suit, which essentially follows a line of reasoning laid out by GP, describes how EA, faced with competition from Take-Two's excellent NFL 2K5, reduced the price of Madden from $49.99 to $29.99 in order to stay competitive with NFL 2K5, which was aggressively priced at $19.99. From the lawsuit:

By signing the exclusive agreement with the NFL, Electronic Arts immediately killed off Take Two's NFL 2K5 software, the only competing interactive football product of comparable quality to its Madden franchise...

Once again without a competitor Electronic Arts raised its prices dramatically... nearly seventy percent to $49.95

The suit also notes EA's ongoing campaign to acquire Take-Two:

A successful takeover of Take-Two Interactive by Electronic Arts would remove one of the few companies with the ability and expertise to compete in the market for interactive football software in the event that the Electronic Arts exclusive agreements were terminated or voided by a court.

Two law firms appear to be involved on the plaintiffs' side at this point: Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro and The Paynter Law Firm. Both are experienced in class action suits.

Read the complaint here...

Via: Gamespot

Posted in

64 comments

Shout box

james_fudge: he'd die if he couldn't talk about Wii U :)10/20/2014 - 9:16am

Michael Chandra: By the way, I am not saying Andrew should stop talking about Wii-U. I find it quite nice. :)10/20/2014 - 8:53am

Michael Chandra: 'How dare he ignore my wishes and my advice! I am his boss! I could have ordered him but I should be able to say it's advice rather than ordering him directly!'10/20/2014 - 8:52am

Michael Chandra: If GP goes "EZK, do not talk about X publicly for a week, we're preparing a big article on it" and he still tweets about X, they'd have a legitimate reason to be pissed.10/20/2014 - 8:52am

Michael Chandra: If GP tells Andrew "we'd kinda prefer it if you stopped talking about Wii-U for 1 week" and he'd tweet about it anyway, firing him for it would be idiotic.10/20/2014 - 8:51am

Michael Chandra: Legal right, sure. But that doesn't make it any less pathetic of an excuse.10/20/2014 - 8:50am

ZippyDSMlee: You mean right to fire states.10/20/2014 - 8:50am

james_fudge: some states have "at will" employee laws10/20/2014 - 7:50am

quiknkold: It says in the article that being in florida, you can get fired regardless if its a fireable offence10/20/2014 - 7:19am

Michael Chandra: If your employee respectfully disagrees with your advice, that's not a fireable offense. If they ignore your order, THEN you have the right to be pissed.10/20/2014 - 6:49am

Michael Chandra: I... Don't get one thing. If you do not want your employee to do X, why do you tell them it's advice or a wish? Give them a damn order.10/20/2014 - 6:48am

james_fudge: A leak that had me worried about being swatted by Lizard Squad.10/20/2014 - 6:03am

james_fudge: It should be noted that the author leaked the GJP group names online10/20/2014 - 6:03am

MechaTama31: I mean, of the groups being bullied here, which of the two would you refer to collectively as "nerds"?10/19/2014 - 11:30pm

MechaTama31: But that's the thing, it doesn't sound to me like he is advocating bullying, it sounds like he is accusing the SJWs of bullying the "nerds", who I can only assume refers to the GGers.10/19/2014 - 11:21pm

Andrew Eisen: Interesting read. Unfortunately, too vague to form an opinion on but at least now I know what faefrost was talking about in James' editorial.10/19/2014 - 10:39pm

Neo_DrKefka: Breaking GameJournoPros organized a blacklist of former Destructoid writer Allistar Pinsof for investigating fraud in IndieGoGo campaign http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/10/gamergate-destructoid-corruption-and-ruined-careers/10/19/2014 - 8:57pm

Neo_DrKefka: Only good thing I seen come out of the Biddle incident was the fact a professional fighter offered to give 10k to an anti bullying charity for a round in the ring with Biddle.10/19/2014 - 7:49pm

Neo_DrKefka: Even after all the interviews she is still on twitter making fun of people with disabilities (Autism) yet she is a part of the crowd that is on the so called right side of history...10/19/2014 - 7:48pm

Neo_DrKefka: Which #GameGate supports are constantly being harassed and bullied. Brianna Wu who I told everyone she was trolling GamerGate weeks ago with her passive aggressive threats was looking for that crazy person in the crowd.10/19/2014 - 7:47pm

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