EA being sued by gamers for NFL Exclusivity.

The troubles just keep piling up for EA.


Two gamers from Washington DC have filed a law suit claiming that EA's exclusive license with the NFL is cheating gamers by charging a premium price for their NFL game and are seeking for payment for damages for anyone who purchased a Madden game since 2005.

The lawyer for the 2 gamers said:

We believe EA forced consumers to pay an artificial premium on Madden NFL videogames… We intend to prove that EA could inflate prices on their sports titles because these exclusive licenses restrained trade and competition for interactive sports software.

While it is true that EA holds the license for the NFL that doesn't mean that they are charging a premium for their games as other publishers and developers charge practically the same. Take 2K's sport licenses for example. NFL 2K5 was $19.99 when it released compared to Madden's $49.99 for Madden. That year 2K5 outsold Madden and not wanting to be outdone EA purchased exclusive rights for the NFL and it's Players to publish and develop NFL titles.

However if you forward to a few years the 2K franchise tried to revive its football franchise by releasing All Pro Football 2K8 which at the time of release was $59.99. The same price as any Madden title. The lawsuit claims that Madden is charging a premium price for its Madden titles which is not true as all games now cost $59.99 for the PS3 and Xbox 360 so even if EA had not purchased the exclusive rights to the NFL license, all NFL titles that would have been released would still cost $60 so the lawsuit in itself makes no sense.

It's true that EA was being greedy by purchasing exclusive rights but its just business. If 2K Sports would have wanted the license they would have placed a bid for exclusive rights as well but chose not to. Same goes with any other developer not to mention it's not up to EA alone. The NFL is also in charge of who it decides to give its license to.

I don't think this lawsuit is really gonna go anywhere. I just hope the 2 Washington citizens hired a lawyer who doesn't charge unless he wins.

Source