EA Sports and Planned Obsolescence - Wordplay and the Discourse of Video Games - page 102

made to the various governing bodies of soccer. Madden NFL also licenses
rights to individual player names and likenesses, which requires payment
to the NFL Players Association. Although Madden NFL is a particularly
dependable title for EA Sports, “it's not a game that comes cheap, though.
Beyond the usual $ 9 per copy royalty payments to the console manufactur-
ers Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo, EA has to give a portion of each sale to
the NFL (as part of its exclusivity deal) and the NFL Players Association.
And that's after retailers get their 20 percent portion of the sale.” 16 FIFA
Soccer is relatively cheaper for EA, as the total license costs are lower, 17 but
the fees for these games are substantial enough that the money generated
by Madden NFL is the largest source of license revenue for the NFL out-
side of apparel. 18 The perceived need for a license changes how these games
are made. As part of their contract with EA Sports, the NFL gets approval
of in-game content to ensure that it represents the NFL appropriately . 19
This extra step guarantees that a certain amount of control lies outside the
game's programmers, which means the ambulance that used to cart injured
players of the fi eld will not be coming back any time soon. Intrusive over-
sight like this makes the context for constructing the game quite dif erent
than one based on original intellectual property. Adding both a direct cost
and potential restrictions, licenses with sporting organizations have their
limitations, but a further wrinkle in the discourse is the opportunity for a
game company to negotiate an exclusive license.
The ability to negotiate exclusivity has a dramatic impact on how
sports games are produced. The perceived importance of a license means
that game companies need to negotiate with sports leagues, but those
sporting authorities can opt to work with multiple game companies, as
is the case for FIFA and the National Basketball Association, or with a
single corporation, as is the case for the NFL and Major League Baseball.
In so doing, game companies that lock in exclusivity have an opportunity
to stifl e competition before it starts. One of the reasons why FIFA Soc-
cer is cheaper for EA Sports is because their license is not exclusive, but
their use of exclusive licenses to protect games like Madden NFL and
NCAA Football imply that the additional cost can be considered money
well spent. In the fi rst version of Madden NFL to be released under the
exclusivity agreement, one review noted that Madden NFL 06 was a great
game, but “in the fi rst year where Madden is all we get when it comes to
licensed pro football, I was expecting more. But then again, maybe EA's
exclusivity with the NFL will hamper their annual improvements, being
that their only opponent this year is what, Blitz ?” 20 When a juggernaut
like Madden NFL only faces a short-lived, action-style presentation of
football in the competition for consumer dollars, E A Spor ts is able to push
out other companies and entrench their product as something that makes
football not just 'in the game,' but when gamers seek to play NFL football,
EA Sports provides the only game. Madden NFL still needs to add new
things each year to warrant purchase, but it is only competing with older