Exclusivity on Trial

The suit states, "This vigorous competition (between NFL2K and Madden) benefited consumers. 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." At least the pair isn't asking for much--only restitution for damages for people who purchased EA football games since 2005. Oh, and they'd also like those pesky exclusive licensing agreements to be voided. Those two things should only cost EA a billion dollars or so. No biggie.

While I agree that anyone who was unfortunate enough to waste money on NFL deserves at least an apology from EA, these lawsuits are just plain crazy. I don't see these guys suing 2K because the buggy, disappointing MLB 2K8 was the only baseball game for the Xbox 360. In today's market exclusives are a way of life, and not just for sports games. Sega has the Hulk and Iron Man licenses, Activision has Spider-Man and James Bond, EA has Harry Potter and Superman, and THQ has the WWE. Video games are just one of the many, many products that garner exclusive deals. Martha Stewart's home products line is available only at Macy's, McDonald's sells only Coke products, and the only (official) service provider for the iPhone is AT&T. You're not going to see The Masters anywhere other than CBS, you won't find American Idol on ABC, and the only place to see the Olympics this year is on NBC.

Anyone who takes the position that gamers would be better off with more choices when it comes to yearly franchises certainly has a valid point. I'll admit that it was nice to have both the NFL 2K and Madden series battling for my affections. While I think the short development cycle that results from releasing a sports game every year is mostly to blame for the lack of innovation in many franchises, it's certainly possible that developers would push themselves harder if they knew they had a direct competitor.

Look, I'm not a big fan of exclusive deals when it comes to sports games, but I do know that silly lawsuits like these aren't going to make things any better. Vote with your wallet, write a blog entry, or speak your mind on the message boards. If enough people feel the same way, things will change.

What do you think about the lawsuits? Is EA the devil? Are you losing sleep because there aren't more Arena League options available? If the 2K football series was so great, why was there a bug in 2K5's season mode that had CPU teams using their starting QBs as punt returners? How long do you think it will be until EA snags the Pop Warner license? Leave a comment on these important questions below!