Gamasutra analyst Matt Matthews examines how Sony reclaimed dominant platform-holder status for the Madden franchise, selling around 1 million Madden NFL 11 units across all three PlayStation systems -- after losing its lead to Xbox 360 last year.
There’s no doubting the impact that this week’s Presidential Election has had not just on the US but the whole world. While we can’t forget the result (be it good or bad, depending on your political leanings) we can at least distract ourselves with a few good old fashioned video games.
Luke looks at the most influential features of Madden on the PS3 and Xbox 360.
A jury in U.S. District Court today ruled in favor of Robin Antonick, the original designer and developer of Electronic Arts’ (NASDAQ: EA) best-selling Madden NFL Football games.
ouch, how many millions do EA owe Robin Antonick?
$200 million in revenues for games released between 1990 and 1996
Damages relating to 1997-2013 games will be tried in a subsequent phase of the trial. (I suspect $600 million more, just averaging out)
That is ALOOOT OF MONEY
EA is going to have to compensate 800 million dollar's worth!. Who wants to bet the next big EA title would be pay to win?
This is not a good thing, That is alot of money. This could lead to alot of game cancellations and like you said. Alot of DLC. Gamers should not be happy about this. This could possibly destroy the biggest third party publisher in gaming.
Well they pulled exclusive NFL deals and all kinds of anti competition pay outs, they need to change their ways and make better games, and the greedy NFL should too because they are next with the concussion lawsuits. Face it, Madden is boring and always has been, bring back 2k, Tecmo, heck even Konami
They should have paid him when they had the chance. I don't care if this cancels all of their games and they close for good, you pay a man when they earn the money.
*plays wold's tiniest violin...*
Let's look back on how EA has treated employees, gamers, and competitors over the years. The only thing that would make this better is if they got Activision too.
Want some tissue?
Titanfall, battlefield 4 and plants vs zombies 2 seems to be amazing games. I hate what they did with most of their sports franchises, but they're still doing some good stuff here and there.
losing the sports franchise exclusivity would be great. I'd like to see competitors effort in sports franchises, like sony is doing with MLB and 2K with NBA 2KXX series.
Clearly you didn't read the article very well.
"The jury will determine what to award Antonick in allegedly unpaid royalties from more than $200 million in revenues for games released between 1990 and 1996"
EA made $200m in TOTAL between '90 and '96 off of the Madden series. Antonick isn't getting paid $200m. He's going to get a smaller percentage of that money, not the whole thing.
He'll get paid that percentage. But then there is always the "damages", if sued for, which could very well be that $200 million mark. Juries LOVE to punish big companies for trying to get over on the "little" guy.
Antonick might be seeing hundreds of millions of dollars with this.
Why would you want him to win. This could seriously damage them. If this guys win hundreds of millions of dollars. This could lead to alot of game cancellations. As a gamer, You should not want that.
Who cares about EA? They are a blight on the industry. They think their size grants them power over everything and everyone. It'd be sad for the people who were the working class stiffs losing their jobs, but I don't give a damn about the greedy executive losers responsible for trying to screw everyone over.
"Why would you want him to win"
If EA is at fault than they deserve to pay up. So what if a few games get cancelled?.. you can't just screw people over the money you owe them.
first off business is business, if EA owed me money i'd sue their asses too. if EA has to cancel games, they should've thought of that before not paying people they owe in the first place.
He won't get hundreds of millions of dollars. Learn to read, and read what was written. Total revenues for the games were around $200 million, this guy won't be getting all that.
Also, I'm a gamer. But I also believe companies should pay what they agree to pay. If they didn't, then they should be sued.
I'm all for more games getting made, but that doesn't mean I'm going to say a company should do whatever they damn well please, all while screwing the guys that did the work.
Your so concerned about the developer? Well this guy was one of them. He did the work. Now he deserves to be paid.
Because he DESERVES it!!! Screw the damage and don't think that cancellations will come from this. There is a fund that most companies have just for these things.
It would be nice if someone could compete with EA. Not much new is added every year for Madden and having someone else putting out a game might force their hand a bit.
I'd love to see Sony or SEGA do a Football game. SEGA has the pedigree (or does that studio belong to someone else now?) and Sony has been doing baseball for quite a long time.
SEGA was the pub, Visual Concepts are the devs. They are owned by Take Two and are the makers of 2K sports games
If they could use the MLB: The Show team and engine for an NFL title, I'm pretty sure it would be the best on the market.
You know Sony used to do football games. Remember NFL Gameday on the PS1? That was from 989 studios which was one of their 1st party studios.
@ftwrthtx...I'd rather let the Visual Concepts (2K Sports) guys run the show. Their games were excellent and still stand up pretty well today.
@iceman As long as it's not the team behind the MLB 2K series. Those games don't even come close to The Show.
I hope and pray it does. Madden is proof of what lack of competition does to the industry.
Yes and No. EA bought the licensed NFL they didn't earn it. Unlike how NBA 2K made NBA Live stop production and start from scratch.
You are agreeing with me. Madden has no competition at all due to NFL license exclusivity and thus now we have lack luster Madden games every year because they have no one to push them to do their best.
On the other hand NBA2K at the moment has no competition, but that's only due to them ACTUALLY COMPETING in the first place with the end result being them having a superior product to sole competitor in Live. This lead Live to essentially quit for two years in an attempt to finally make a product that can out due NBA2K. That is what I call competition.
Thanks to EA NFL monopoly, 2K or any dev for that matter can't make a competing product at all even if they wanted to.
There is a difference between have no competition because nobody is allowed to compete and having no competition due to just being so damn good.
wow. I never realized that there was such a direct correlation between PS2 and PS3 sales.
so three different devices VS the 360. lol
20 million 360 compared to 12 million PS3 and the difference between the Madden sales are around 100k, impressive
Why is this suprising, 3 platforms vs 1. America is where the 360 sells the best, and we all know no one else cares about Football
What we should be talking about...is all these ppl buying a dlc fo $60 ...wow not me not this year they got me for 5 straight years but I have seen the light....