It sounds like some gamers are finally fed up with Elec­tronic Arts monop­oly on NFL licens­ing. The Escapist is report­ing that two gamers are suing Elec­tronic Arts for monop­o­liz­ing the market on foot­ball video games:

The class-​action law­suit, launched by two gamers in Wash­ing­ton, DC, and Cal­i­for­nia last week, alleges that EA is engag­ing in “blatantly anti­com­pet­i­tive conduct” by rais­ing the price of its foot­ball game offer­ings after secur­ing key licens­ing deals.

Hurray for gamers.

For those of you who are unfa­mil­iar with the issue, Elec­tronic Arts is the maker of the very pop­u­lar Madden Foot­ball game series. One of the big rea­sons for the recent suc­cess of the series is that since 2005, it is the only game that is licensed to use the real NFL teams and play­ers in the games. Many gamers have been frus­trated with this arrange­ment because they feel that this licens­ing deal pro­vides EA with very little incen­tive to actu­ally improve the game, because there are no real com­peti­tors. From the Wikipedia entry:

In 2005, the pro­duc­ers of the Madden games, EA Sports, signed an exclu­sive licens­ing deal through 2009 with the NFL and the NFLPA to give them the exclu­sive right to use the NFL’s teams, sta­di­ums and play­ers in a video game, some­thing which has been widely crit­i­cized (this deal has since been extended through 2012). This exclu­sive license has put an end to com­pe­ti­tion in NFL video games and, some have sug­gested, this gives EA less incen­tive to main­tain qual­ity and a greater oppor­tu­nity to increase prices.

I think that this law­suit is a win-​win for gamers. The Madden series is not bad, by any stretch. In fact, I just got Madden 2008 last Christ­mas and was blown away by how much fun it was. The point is that if you are a real NFL fan and want to play a game with the real teams and play­ers, this is the only game to choose from. That’s a huge advan­tage for EA, and puts a lot of poten­tial game makers out of the market. Lack of com­pe­ti­tion is always a loss for the consumer.

I don’t think there’s a gamer out there who loves foot­ball (and even loves the Madden series) who will argue that EA has stopped releas­ing any­thing more sub­stan­tial than yearly roster updates in regards to the Madden series. That’s a shame.