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EA Settles Suit, loses NCAA rights for 5 years?

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Bucknut24

Bucknut24

Trolololol
Surprised this hasn't been posted...

http://www.egmnow.com/articles/news...loses-ncaa-exclusivity-rights-for-five-years/

During the last four years, EA has been fighting a prolonged class action lawsuit over the legality of their exclusive licenses with the NFL, NCAA, and AFL. But all the courtroom posturing has finally come to a close?EA has settled out of court for a high price.

According to a press release from Seattle-based law firm Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, EA has agreed to ?benefit? buyers of several EA football titles with a $27,000,000 settlement fund. As a result, many people who filed with the class-action lawsuit will be owed various degrees of compensation.

If you?ve purchased any Madden NFL, NCAA Football, or AFL title for GameCube, PlayStation 2, or Xbox, the settlement could award you $6.79 per game.

Anyone who bought one of those games more recently for Wii, PlayStation 3, or Xbox 360 will receive far less, about $1.95 per title.

Interestingly enough, the lawsuit doesn?t seem to cover any handheld or mobile games, so those of you who play Madden on your iPads are out of luck. More details will be coming up when the settlement gets its final approval on September 27th.

Per the settlement?s terms, EA is also barred from renewing their exclusive contract with the NCAA or AFL for five years, although their NFL partnership remains safe. Considering the sales of the Madden franchise, that?s likely a huge relief for the publisher.
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So they won't bid on the rights to NCAA Football for five years... Doesn't that just mean that we'll just get a different crappy version of the game with no competing alternatives? Is this really a solution? For now I'm filing this under "be careful what you wish for".
 
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Sounds great, but even before their exclusive agreement with the NCAA companies were not lining up to create a NCAA game. They saved their crown jewel in Madden, and I doubt any company is going to create a game from the ground up for NCAA football. I know everyone here loves it, but it is a limited market where the cost of rights to school names are pretty high. EA gets away with creating one by piggy backing on Madden. A new developer would not have the ability to run a skeleton crew like EA Tiburon does with NCAA football. The costs would be high and in a market with an established brand. I don't see many publishers taking a risk on that. There is also the constant threat of being sued by former players.

I could be wrong, but video game publishers are becoming insanely conservative these days. The only publisher I could see with the desire to back a developer in this area is Activision. They would love to attack EA in an area they have held a monopoly on. Yet Activision is having their own issues with cash (long, long story) and the belief is they will only be cranking out sequels, episodes, and downloadable content for their cash cows for quite a while.
 
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jlb1705;2182776; said:
So they won't bid on the rights to NCAA Football for five years... Doesn't that just mean that we'll just get a different crappy version of the game with no competing alternatives? Is this really a solution? For now I'm filing this under "be careful what you wish for".
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They won't be able to renew the exclusive rights contract, but they still can bid on the rights.

I also don't think another company is about to bid on exclusive rights knowing they are just going to be sued over it. Of course, like I stated above, I don't think there will be many if any publishers bidding on the rights outside of EA.
 
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scott91575;2182810; said:
They won't be able to renew the exclusive rights contract, but they still can bid on the rights.

I also don't think another company is about to bid on exclusive rights knowing they are just going to be sued over it. Of course, like I stated above, I don't think there will be many if any publishers bidding on the rights outside of EA.
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Per the settlement?s terms, EA is also barred from renewing their exclusive contract
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I must have misread this statement. Emphasis on "exclusive" rather than "contract" I guess.
 
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scott91575;2182804; said:
Sounds great, but even before their exclusive agreement with the NCAA companies were not lining up to create a NCAA game. They saved their crown jewel in Madden, and I doubt any company is going to create a game from the ground up for NCAA football. I know everyone here loves it, but it is a limited market where the cost of rights to school names are pretty high. EA gets away with creating one by piggy backing on Madden. A new developer would not have the ability to run a skeleton crew like EA Tiburon does with NCAA football. The costs would be high and in a market with an established brand. I don't see many publishers taking a risk on that. There is also the constant threat of being sued by former players.

I could be wrong, but video game publishers are becoming insanely conservative these days. The only publisher I could see with the desire to back a developer in this area is Activision. They would love to attack EA in an area they have held a monopoly on. Yet Activision is having their own issues with cash (long, long story) and the belief is they will only be cranking out sequels, episodes, and downloadable content for their cash cows for quite a while.
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This....any other NCAA Football product that has attempted to hit the market has failed

989 sports NCAA Gamebreaker series had a decent year or two on PS1....but couldnt come close to cutting it and flopped when the PS2 hit the market

2k sports NCAA Football attempt was short lived and awful
 
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It doesn't matter if no other company initially dropped a NCAA game. It would still cause EA to put out a better product and actually care about the customers. This would happen because EA would have to worry about the possibility of another company dropping a game.

Notice how the product went WAY downhill once the monopoly started.
 
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buckeyemania11;2182874; said:
This....any other NCAA Football product that has attempted to hit the market has failed

989 sports NCAA Gamebreaker series had a decent year or two on PS1....but couldnt come close to cutting it and flopped when the PS2 hit the market

2k sports NCAA Football attempt was short lived and awful
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While this is true, when does EA's agreement with the NFL end?

If a company is bold enough, they make the best NCAA game they could with really tight gameplay, then when the EA agreement with the NFL ends, they can make a huge play for the NFL license and be able to sell gamers on better gameplay?
 
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Piney;2183218; said:
While this is true, when does EA's agreement with the NFL end?

If a company is bold enough, they make the best NCAA game they could with really tight gameplay, then when the EA agreement with the NFL ends, they can make a huge play for the NFL license and be able to sell gamers on better gameplay?
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Won't happen. We all know that gamers only care about U$C Song Girls, dreadlocks, and sock lenths.
 
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Piney;2183218; said:
While this is true, when does EA's agreement with the NFL end?

If a company is bold enough, they make the best NCAA game they could with really tight gameplay, then when the EA agreement with the NFL ends, they can make a huge play for the NFL license and be able to sell gamers on better gameplay?
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If 2K sports could throw up an NCAA game that was like NFL2K5....that would be awesome
 
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buckeyemania11;2183731; said:
If 2K sports could throw up an NCAA game that was like NFL2K5....that would be awesome
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It would be the best modern gen football game. Actually all pro football 2K8 takes that title right now. Strictly gameplay wise, it is far more realistic then NCAA or madden.

2K5 is still the most realistic football game of all time. And to think it only cost $20.
 
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