EA & NFL Stay in Bed until 2010
There hasn't been a whole lot of interesting news lately, and you guys already know that I hate EA, monopolies and EA's exclusive deal with the NFL so I didn't really want to comment on it, but in an effort to write something I guess I have to bring myself to dredge through the foolishness of a big company trying to justify their anti-consumer actions.
In any case here is ex-Microsoft guy, Peter Moore, trying to defend EA and the NFL's exclusive deal:
This deal allows us to invest. The key is to make sure we're in a position to invest aggressively in making the most innovative game. Madden this year has been our best game in three years. - Peter Moore, EA
Apart from the fact that many gamers will disagree about Madden being the best in three years, I want you to notice how he uses the terms WE and US in his first two sentences. Obviously this deal is good for EA and there is no doubt that as their PR guy Peter is going to tout that fact. The problem is him trying to spin a good deal for EA as a good deal for gamers. No, they are not the same thing. EA gets to make millions of dollars off the NFL name and gamers get what? I'll tell you.
In spite of Peter talking about innovation the truth is that EA has no reason to innovate or spend any time, money or effort improving Madden since they have a lock on the NFL and you have to buy their game if you want to satisfy your NFL fix. This isn't new, and I've said it all before. With this license EA is competing with no one which means that they are under no pressure to improve their game. It's not like they were improving Madden that much anyway, but now they really can sit on their ass. So basically EA makes millions of dollars from this deal and gamers get whatever the hell EA wants to give them which will most likely be another barely improved Madden football game.
