Judge Certifies Class-Action Football Game Pricing Lawsuit Against EA

[randombrother]

The only way I see this lawsuit working is if 2K gets up in court (as if "2K" can get up in court, lol) and say that they had intended to stick with the $20 pricing for a while and not just one year. That's the only way I see this holding any weight. They DID do it for all games during the 2K5 run of games for that year but the next year everything went back to normal pricing or at least close to normal pricing. If they say they would have done it again for 2K6 but couldn't for the lost revenue of NFL 2K6 then that's the only legitimacy I see for this case. So basically if 2K lies (cause we know damn well they wasn't gonna go 20 bucks forever) then EA may sweat a little.

[BlackRome]

I see what they are getting at but where is the real suit because exclusive happen all the time and price what would bring in revenue to offset the cost, everybody in the business does that. This lawsuit does not help bring in competition, nor should EA pay back anybody because it is a choice to buy something you want but do not need. If you don't want to buy Madden or NCAA then don't. I bought NCAA 11 but not Madden 11 because I have Madden 08 on the PC to pass my time until certain things in Madden change for the better. This lawsuit reminds of the other lawsuit that that guy who is suing an RPG Game maker for a million dollars cause he cant function properly in life because he is to addicted to the game. I don't know about y'all but I don't see this boding well for EA if it goes to trial, because everyone always wants to rip apart big money making businesses. Perfect example of this was the old lady that spilt her coffee because she put it between her legs. I know one thing, I am definitely smart enough never to put any thing hot that close to my, well you know.

Exclusive deals stiff competition. Those exclusive deals let Nike put Starter out of business. Starter was beating the snot out of Nike and Reebok when it came to apparel. So once Nike got the exclusive deal it basically killed Starter. They did the same thing in college sports. Nike supplied all of North Carolinas apparel but I still could rock a starter jacket with North Carolina on it if I wanted to. I actually had a UCLA starter. Reebok now owns UCLA's apparel line. It sucks.

This ruling could be the end of exclusive deals. Which would be a good thing for consumers. Those contracts should be based on a license fee and then let the company who makes the best product win. That's called competition.

If companies are paying millions in exclusive fees who do you think has to pay for it. The consumer.

If there were 4 companies making hats I'm sure they wouldn't all be charging 25 dollars for a baseball cap.

They would be forced to compete and the company with the inferior product would lower the price. Once EA was forced to compete they just closed the door with the exclusive contract.

I want choice. I haven't brought any NFL apparel in years since Reebok had the contract. Their clothes suck. I still have hung in my basement the Jerseys Nike made for the Cowboys. The NFL used to allow individual teams to have their jerseys supplied by the company of their choice.

Tyrant8RDFL: What your forgetting is that the contracts didn't used to work that way. Far as satellite TV the only reason to buy directtv is for the the NFL package. I had directtv for years with the package. Got rid of it once I found a way to watch the games I wanted to on the internet. For free . Directv is inferior to cable and especially FIOS. That exclusive deal is forcing customers to buy an inferior product.

Just like forcing me to buy Reebok when I would rather buy Nike or Starter products.

I guess your OK with being forced to buy inferior products.

[Pete1210]

Since $60 is the normal price for nearly all PS3/360 new releases, this argument seems like a loser to me.

[kpkpkp]

Re: Judge Certifies Class-Action Football Game Pricing Lawsuit Against EA

Since $60 is the normal price for nearly all PS3/360 new releases, this argument seems like a loser to me.

Thats how I feel.

They're charging what other gaming companies charge... (not including DLC.)

If they, for example, started charging $100 for their game, than this would be a different story.

[youALREADYknow]

Re: Judge Certifies Class-Action Football Game Pricing Lawsuit Against EA

This is a very silly lawsuit, but anything that places the spotlight on the monopolistic practices of EA and the lack of competition in football gaming is a good thing for us all.

[adembroski]

Re: Judge Certifies Class-Action Football Game Pricing Lawsuit Against EA

The legal truth: EA owns the Madden franchise. Nobody has a right to purchase anything for any price that the owner does not want to sell. EA sells Madden at the same price as other games are sold. This case has no merit.

Lawsuits like this only serve to cost developers money, which in turn will be passed onto us. We likely wont see the price of games go up because of this lawsuit, but were this to become the norm, it would. If anybody is to blame for the cost of games remaining at $60 dollars, it's GameStop, who screws both the consumers and the publishers with their used game market.

Don't get me wrong; GameStop is absolutely in the right expanding their own market through used games, and consumers have a right to resell their games. The fact that publishers don't a cent from those sales, however, means that publishers have to keep prices where they are or lose revenue.

[patsfan188]

Anything for a cheaper game, EA doesn't care about us then I don't care about EA.

[ODogg]

Re: Judge Certifies Class-Action Football Game Pricing Lawsuit Against EA

Look I want competition with Madden just as bad as anyone here but the fact that 2K underpriced their game (and let's face it ESPN2K5 was severely underpriced for one reason, to get a foothold in the market, not because that was the normal price going forward) should not mean EA has to underprice their football games from then on out. EA charges the going rate for their games the same as anyone.

This would carry much more weight if 2K Sports sold NBA 2K11 and all of their other sports games for $19.99 since NFL2K5 was out but we all know that's not the case.

[RaychelSnr]

Look I want competition with Madden just as bad as anyone here but the fact that 2K underpriced their game (and let's face it ESPN2K5 was severely underpriced for one reason, to get a foothold in the market, not because that was the normal price going forward) should not mean EA has to underprice their football games from then on out. EA charges the going rate for their games the same as anyone.

This would carry much more weight if 2K Sports sold NBA 2K11 and all of their other sports games for $19.99 since NFL2K5 was out but we all know that's not the case.

I'll have an article on this in a few hours discussing the suit, it's claims and what it means. A preview goes something like this: anyone with a grasp on the facts and who isn't fraudulently twisting facts will see this case has absolutely zero chance. The core claim of the case is just simply a misrepresentation of the facts.

[RaychelSnr]

Look I want competition with Madden just as bad as anyone here but the fact that 2K underpriced their game (and let's face it ESPN2K5 was severely underpriced for one reason, to get a foothold in the market, not because that was the normal price going forward) should not mean EA has to underprice their football games from then on out. EA charges the going rate for their games the same as anyone.

This would carry much more weight if 2K Sports sold NBA 2K11 and all of their other sports games for $19.99 since NFL2K5 was out but we all know that's not the case.

I'll have an article on this in a few hours discussing the suit, it's claims and what it means. A preview goes something like this: anyone with a grasp on the facts and who isn't fraudulently twisting facts will see this case has absolutely zero chance. The core claim of the case is just simply a misrepresentation of the facts.

[ODogg]

Re: Judge Certifies Class-Action Football Game Pricing Lawsuit Against EA

Looking forward to reading that Chris!

[SmashMan]

Re: Judge Certifies Class-Action Football Game Pricing Lawsuit Against EA

Look I want competition with Madden just as bad as anyone here but the fact that 2K underpriced their game (and let's face it ESPN2K5 was severely underpriced for one reason, to get a foothold in the market, not because that was the normal price going forward) should not mean EA has to underprice their football games from then on out. EA charges the going rate for their games the same as anyone.

This would carry much more weight if 2K Sports sold NBA 2K11 and all of their other sports games for $19.99 since NFL2K5 was out but we all know that's not the case.

This pretty much sums up my thoughts too. I don't see why 2K temporarily setting a lower price makes that price the new standard.

I'm also looking forward to Chris' article.

[jmik58]

It's $60 because every other new game is $60.............

My thoughts as well. Won't they be able to use this argument? The makers of Tomb Raider have exclusive rights to Ms. Croft... aren't they inflating the cost with their monopoly over the rights to her character? For any character?

I could be off, but it sounds similar to me.

[ngreatshark]

I think this is frivilous, especially all these years later. The argument I see here is that, Madden did bring the cost of their game down to 29.99, demonstrating that they could sell a football game for that price. But then the following year they sold it for 60. The question being if you sold last years game for 30, why do you have to sell the following game for twice the price, with the only difference being now that you now hold exclusive rights to make NFL games for consoles.

2k didn't do themselves any favors selling their game for 19.99. Their distribution deal with Take-Two And Global Star allowed it to happen, but even though the game sold well enough, I don't think it ended up bringing in alot of revenue. And I don't think a 2K6 would have sold for that price, based off all the other 2k6 games that followed. I don't think it was a long term plan, I think Sega at the time wanted to do something to get a bigger market share of the target audience, they realized how good of a game they had, but they just couldn't get passed the brainwashed masses that were buying a game soley based off a name.

Madden has become synonymous with video game football, nobody was complaining about it's flaws then because all they cared about was "having Madden". So Sega came to the conclusion that if we could at least get people to try our game, at some point the game it will sell itself, and they basically gave the game away. I don't think the NFL was happy with them selling the game for 20 bucks, maybe they get some residual income based on how well the game sells and the profit margin it makes and on that game their had to be close to none. So that might have been what pushed the NFL to see out an excluisve deal in order to prevent something like that from happening again.

On one side it's like a company like Walmart, who drives prices so ridiculously low that the smaller stores can't compete and evenutally end up going out of buisness, though I don't think this could have been 2ks long term plan, because they would have gone under before EA did. But on the other side it's like companies like NIKE and Under Armour, and Northface, who want to dictate what things should be sold for, and for companines who try to undersell or cut prices on their merchanside they attempt to penalize them, which is what it looks like the NFL did in this case.

[LiquorLogic]

Re: Judge Certifies Class-Action Football Game Pricing Lawsuit Against EA

Ummm how is this possible? EA charges as much for a video game as every other new game on the market. $60 xbox 360 and ps3, $50 for Wii, and $40 for ps2 (I think). I for one will not be joining this lawsuit because I don't find it right to fault a video game maker for landing exclusive rights to make the game and not charge any more than any other game. The only object I feel that falls under that assumption is apple's iPhone and the AT&T exclusivity.

Other video games, from other genres, aren't relevant. The issue is that the exclusive deal harmed consumers regarding football video games. NFL 2k5 was priced at 19.95, so EA had to lower the price of their game to 29.99. Soon after this pricing war EA signed the exclusive deal with the NFL, eliminating the competition, and they subsequently raised the price of Madden back to 49.95. The issue is not the price of other video games from other genres. It's the fact that EA sports was selling Madden for 29.99 before the exclusive license, eliminated the competition, and returned the price back to 49.99.

For this argument football games, and other games are totally different products. Look at it this way, there are many different soft drinks. Let's say that Coca-Cola and Pepsi are in a pricing war. Coca-Cola signs a deal with Pepsi to stop selling diet Pepsi only, and then raises the price of diet Coke back to it's original price. You don't see any problem with that ?