Retired NFL Players Plan to Sue EA, Madden

[Onyxmeth]

ssj12 said:

This is complete BS. These retired players are greedy pigs. WTF are they suing for? a game that featured their likeness back in 95? Are they scared of a NORMAL JOB?

And where does Madden get even involved except for doiing commentary and lending his name to the game?

Also doesnt every new NFL player have to go into EA's studios to get their bodies digitized into the game to update rosters? You dont see the new guys complaining they arent getting compensation for this. They are just plain happy they get their face in a video game and can play as themselves.

All I have to say is the retired players, and the NFLPA, is the exact reason there is no completitiveness in the game and jackasses for no understanding they are old news. Unlike Baseball where you have real legends like Baby Ruth, their names are worthless after a few years.

 

/rant

Did you intend to look that misinformed about the topic when you started that hissy fit rant? Here's a bit from the last case the retired players won and what EA and the NFLPA have been up to:

Although Electronic Arts isn't a defendant in Parrish, Adderley et al vs NFL Players, Inc., the megabucks generated by its Madden NFL series are at the center of the legal dispute.

The case, which will go to trial next month in San Francisco, alleges that the National Football League Players Association and its marketing wing, Players, Inc., prevented retired players from earning their fair share of licensing revenue. Money generated by EA's enormously popular Madden NFL series is the primary bone of contention.

According to former Buffalo Bills safety Jeff Nixon, newly-uncovered documents in the suit reveal that EA Sports obscured identifying information of retired players to skirt licensing payments. Nixon writes:

The documents... make it is crystal clear that the NFLPA conspired with EA to “scramble” the images of retired players in their Madden NFL Video Games...

The Class Action lawyers have more than a smoking gun to prove this; they have the person shooting the gun in the form of a letter fired off by former Players Inc. Vice President of Multimedia LaShun Lawson, to Madden NFL Game producer Jeremy Strauser that was cc’d to Doug Allen, then President of Players Inc. In the letter LaShun says:

“For all retired players that are not listed... their identity must be altered so that it cannot be recognized. Regarding paragraph 2 of the License Agreement between Electronic Arts and Players Inc, a player’s identity is defined as his name, likeness (including without limitation, number), picture, photograph, voice, facsimile signature and/or biographical information. Hence, any and all players not listed... cannot be represented in Madden 2002 with the number that player actually wore, and must be scrambled."

In the 2007 version of Madden NFL alone, more than 600 retired players... had their images scrambled. They are not identified in the game by their names and numbers, but the game lists their exact weight, height, years in the league, and position they played...

When a substantial competitor to EA [Take-Two] began to emerge for use of retired players, EA and Defendants rushed to enter into a contract locking up the most valuable retired players’ rights in exchange for payments that were admittedly below market. PI’s Senior Vice-President, Clay Walker, admitted as much in the following email:

“Take Two [the EA competitor] went after retired players to create an “NFL” style video game after we gave the exclusive to EA. I was able to forge this deal with [the Pro Football Hall of Fame] that provides them with $400K per year (which is significantly below market rate) in exchange for the HOF player rights. EA owes me a huge favor because that threat was enough to persuade Take Two to back off its plans, leaving EA as the only professional football videogame manufacturer out there.”

http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/09/30/ea-hid-identities-retired-players-madden-lawsuit-document-says Oh gosh! Poor EA! They are such the victims here!