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EA sued re Madden 2006

By Chris Bennett, Tudor Carsten, Michael R. Coburn, Sarah Dale-Harris, Pablo Guzman, Danielle (Dani) Lemon, Chris Metcalfe and David Spratley

In an earlier posting, we reported that the video game industry has seen some huge exclusive agreements, such as EA's exclusive video game rights to the NFL, NCAA football, and ESPN. We noted that there are concerns that exclusive licences like this might diminish the quality of games by reducing the number of competing games (for example, buyers are more likely to buy a football game using real NFL players and teams than one that does not), and that there might be anti-competition concerns with such licences.

We now understand that EA was recently hit with a class-action lawsuit in California and Washington DC for allegedly anticompetitive conduct in respect of Madden 2006. The plaintiffs claim that EA significantly raised the price of the game after signing an exclusive deal with the NFL which prevented other game companies from getting NFL licences for their games.

Coverage here: http://tinyurl.com/65vzyn (East Bay Business Times)

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Full post as published by Video Game Law Blog on June 19, 2008 (boomark / email).