NBA Rejects EA Deal

PuppiesOnAcid writes "Although the NFL buckled under EA's mighty stronghold in the video game football market (Madden), the NBA has chosen to reject EA's exclusive rights deal. Jon Robinson explains, 'One of the reasons is that the NBA Live series simply doesn't have a stranglehold on the market the way Madden has for years, so by signing an exclusive deal with EA, the NBA would actually be losing money.'"

Comments

Too wild

[Steve Embalmer]

The NBA probably just couldn't handle the violent level of EA's tough corporate culture.

EA probably allowed players to go into the stands.

[Anonymous Coward]

So they can beat up the fans.

NBA said "No, that's way too realistic."

The reasoning is still bad

[PoderOmega]

They rejected it because it would not have made them enough money. If it did, they would sell in a heartbeat. The NBA doesn't care about our selection, our opinions, especially when will buy it anyway. Really, how many people are going to say "I'm not buying Madden 20xx because EA sucks!!" Probably not enough to impact anything.

Re:No worries about this with NHL

[ShelbyCobra]

Which brings up an interesting point, will NHL 2004 exist as if there had been a real hockey season, or will it showcase all of the NHL's big stars playing for european teams to pay the bills and stay in mental and physical shape?

Re:They should make a law against this.

[Londovir]

Gee, I so love it when people think they are holier than thou! It makes it so much more delightful to point out their "inaccuracies".

According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, a monopoly is defined as:

1. Exclusive control by one group of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service
2. A company or group having exclusive control over a commercial activity
3. Something that is exclusively possessed or controlled

Hrm, let's see: EA controls for the next half-decade the exclusive rights to the NFL teams, players, logo, etc. They were trying to get the exclusive rights to the NBA teams, players, logo, etc. By WHAT stretch of any imagination does this sort of arrangement NOT meet definitions 1 and 3 above, if not 2 as well? If you define the commercial activity or commodity as "officially licensed football or basketball games with real life, actual players and teams", then you just defined a monopoly, whether you like it or not.

And although you contend that other people are free to make football games, lest we remind the world that other people have been free for over 20 years to make other operating systems, yet how many have truly succeeded and excelled against Microsoft? Not many, if any, could truly be said to succeed (in the sense of achieving more than 50% market share). There are few who would deny that Microsoft isn't a monopoly -- and this is the same situation. Sure, you can make another generic football game, but I guarantee you there is enough of a sizable population that enjoys sports games for having their favorite team/player in them that EA's deal will push out the competition slowly but surely. Those of us who appreciate a quality game don't care - but we're not enough of the buying population to make a dent, otherwise the annual Madden shovelware wouldn't succeed as well as it has against the quality offering by Sega.

Maybe part of the problem in the business world these days are enough people don't recognize a monopoly as it's forming, but only well late after the fact. This is the beginning of a true monopoly (especially considering the aggressive takeover tactics EA is using, and their labor practices, etc) - and apparently too many people aren't seeing this already.