Wednesday, June 11, 2008

EA sued by two NFL gamers over monopoly

Everyone knows EA Sports owns the exclusive rights to NFL material, right? Well two gamers are looking to sue for that to end.

Click THIS LINK to read the Gamespot story on two guys, one from California and one from D.C., who want EA's exclusivity erased in order to give us better, cheaper games. That's right, two guys. Not a company. Not an activist group. Not even a room full of guys who got drunk one night while playing "NFL 2K5" and decided they needed to do something to get a "2K9" made.

Check out this quote lifted from the story:

The class-action complaint focuses on Electronic Arts' actions since 2004, when Take-Two Interactive's NFL 2K5 was released at a $19.99 price point and sold more than 2.9 million copies in the US, according to NPD figures. Take-Two's previous football game, ESPN NFL Football, sold fewer than 450,000 copies in the US. Meanwhile, EA dropped the price of its Madden 2005 from $49.95 to $29.95 in response.

"This vigorous competition benefited consumers," according to the suit. "Electronic Arts could have continued to compete by offering a lower price and/or a higher quality product. Instead, Electronic Arts quickly entered into a series of exclusive agreements with the only viable sports football associations in the United States: the National Football League, the Arena Football League, and NCAA Football."

Now, Monopoly issues aside ... that's all just false. I remember that year. I remember the $19.99 price point for "2K5." I also remember EA sticking to their $49.99 price for "Madden" for months and the game still out-selling "2K5." The price on "Madden" didn't drop until the normal $20 price cut EA makes on most of its games months into the game's life. For these two knuckleheads to focus on the price of the games is the entirely wrong route.

And, really... do these two guys really have so little to do other than sit around looking at their video game collection saying "You know, I really should be saving $20 bucks on my yearly football game... I think I'll sue." Come on, people!

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