Maddenopoly

Bob McFlurry with Sports

I read an article today about the EA Sports Madden franchise that got me thinking.  A University of Michigan economics professor alleges that Electronic Arts collectively overcharged Madden buyers between $701 million and $926 million during the years 2006 through 2009.

The gist of the argument is that when EA and the NFL agreed to an exclusive license for gaming rights and I’m guessing it’s players, that it effectively monopolized the NFL digital gaming sector.  I can remember way back in 2004-2005 when Take Two’s NFL 2K game was sold I believe for $19.99.  I remember playing it with my brother, while it wasn’t as good as Madden in terms of play or functionality, the price worked.  After the exclusive license between the NFL and EA, Take Two had to stop making NFL games, blowing the Madden franchises only competition out of the water and creating a monopoly.

Further allegations suggest that EA increased prices of the Madden game after the exclusive license and gamers had to either eat the increase or not play fictional football games on Playstation, Xbox and the like.

Now there’s a couple points I want to make about this issue, one is that the NFL licensed the rights to EA exclusively.  It could have chose to license to any amount of video game makers but it chose to have only one, EA/Madden.  It’s not EA’s fault they are the only licensed developer for NFL games, however, the NFL only licensing to one company does create a monopoly even if it is considered a “Legal” Monopoly by the U.S. government.

Secondly, many people will argue it’s not a monopoly, that NFL has the right to license themselves to whoever they want. That  NFL video games are not on the level of previous monopolies like Railroads and Phone Companies even though millions of people buy Madden every year.

From Wiktionary.com

Monopoly: A situation, by legal privilege or other agreement, in which solely one party (company, cartel etc.) exclusively provides a particular product or service, dominating that market and generally exerting powerful control over it.

Seems to me to be exactly what is going on here.  One party (by agreement) exclusively providing a product and dominating the market.

Now, I’m not really complaining, I love Madden.  Each year it was far better than any of their competitors ever were and even though it’s essentially the same game every year with updated rosters and one or two play improvements, I still play the hell out of it.

Probably the point I want to stress the most is that life is all about options and while I didn’t neccesarily like the non-Madden NFL games, it’s nice to know they were there for me if I wanted them.  Now we are kind of married to Madden and if that relationship ever gets a little rocky there’s no more fish in the sea should we have to get divorced.  One of the biggest reasons for divore is money and that is what the guy in the suit against EA is claiming, they jacked up prices.

This may seem like a really insignificant thing especially to non-gamers but under the definition of a monopoly, Madden fits and if there’s anything we know about America, people will sue for the craziest of reasons even if it’s just to get their names in the paper.