Judge Certifies Class-Action Football Game Pricing Lawsuit Against EA

[Critical Kills]

Quote: Originally Posted by SmashMan

Yeah, there's no way of knowing whether 2005 was a one-off situation or the start of a new trend. All I can do is look at the preceding and following years and all I see is a game that was $50 both before and after 2005. I mean, this is all hypothetical stuff, and I have no legal knowledge whatsoever. It just makes for some mildly interesting discussion.

Seriously? No way to know if it was the start of a trend? Does anyone, even the most anti-EA fan, really think that football games were going to be $20 from here on out if not for the exclusive deal????

[tabulaRasa]

Karma is a bitch huh? monopoly sucks

[SmashMan]

Quote: Originally Posted by ODogg

Seriously? No way to know if it was the start of a trend? Does anyone, even the most anti-EA fan, really think that football games were going to be $20 from here on out if not for the exclusive deal????

I don't think so, AT ALL, but I left it open-ended because we'll never know. As I also said though, there seems to be very little argument here against EA if even 2K was going to (and it seems they were) raise their prices the following year.

[spankdatazz22]

Quote: Originally Posted by ODogg

This would carry much more weight if 2K Sports sold NBA 2K11 and all of their other sports games for $19.99 since NFL2K5 was out but we all know that's not the case.

Not sure if anyone responded to your post, but ALL of 2K's sports titles were priced at $19.99 that year - I remember buying the college basketball game for a couple people as "thanks" for a favor they did. And EA lowered the price only on the sports titles that had a 2K Sports counterpart. FIFA, the golf game, etc. all remained at their release price

[King_B_Mack]

Quote: Originally Posted by SmashMan

I don't think so, AT ALL, but I left it open-ended because we'll never know. As I also said though, there seems to be very little argument here against EA if even 2K was going to (and it seems they were) raise their prices the following year.

I could be very wrong, but I'm pretty sure NFL was 2Ks best selling game. Offering the games for the price they were offering them had to be a significant financial hit for them. Gaining ground on Madden and making a splash in market share of NFL football was worth the hit. Having lost the NFL game, exactly why would they continue taking the financial hit of those price points without they're best selling game in there to make the costs worth it?

[SmashMan]

Quote: Originally Posted by King_B_Mack

I could be very wrong, but I'm pretty sure NFL was 2Ks best selling game. Offering the games for the price they were offering them had to be a significant financial hit for them. Gaining ground on Madden and making a splash in market share of NFL football was worth the hit. Having lost the NFL game, exactly why would they continue taking the financial hit of those price points without they're best selling game in there to make the costs worth it?

A fair point, but we can't forget that while it was a big seller for 2K, it still didn't come close to toppling Madden. As I said in an earlier post, I doubt they would've went to the standard $50 price tag; but I don't know that they could've sustained the budget price for very long.

I obviously don't know anything about their finances; it just doesn't seem like the smartest business move. The smart move would be what they did: Price your product cheaper than competitor to get people's attention and grab some impulse buys.

Of course the debate of whether or not it (the budget price) is a sustainable business model is an entirely different debate.

[Kaanyr Vhok]

Quote: Originally Posted by SmashMan

A fair point, but we can't forget that while it was a big seller for 2K, it still didn't come close to toppling Madden. As I said in an earlier post, I doubt they would've went to the standard $50 price tag; but I don't know that they could've sustained the budget price for very long. Of course the debate of whether or not it (the budget price) is a sustainable business model is an entirely different debate.

Quote: Originally Posted by ODogg

Seriously? No way to know if it was the start of a trend? Does anyone, even the most anti-EA fan, really think that football games were going to be $20 from here on out if not for the exclusive deal????

For the life of me I cant find the sales data on NFL 2k4 but I suspect it was down from 2k3 which sold about 1.5 million. 2k5 sold 3.5 million. Maybe it wouldn't have been 20 bucks. I doubt 2k6 would have been 20 bucks and I also doubt it would have been 50. Its more than reasonable to assume that NFL 2k and Madden would have been in a price war that would have kept the cost of both games under standard.

Quote: Originally Posted by TracerBullet

But the key point here is that the NFL turned them down. They then offered the license to everyone during the bidding process.

Quote: Originally Posted by DivotMaker

No they didn't. An "EA Rep" is not Peter Moore. I spoke with him about this when I met him at Tiburon earlier this year and he told me that the NFL approached both 2K and EA at the same time.

http://sports.ign.com/articles/572/572886p1.html

When the NFL made their move they knew who was going to pay. A simple analogy would be if I went to you and asked to buy your prize motorcycle and you turned me down twice. By putting it up to bid I would know how much you are going to pay and that I can probably get you to pay more. Exact same thing happened with EA and the NFL.

They knew EA was going to pay a ridiculous sum far more than Sega could afford and believe me if Sony or Microsoft would have made a move they would have made a one year big payout deal because Madden was too popular. It would have been a PR hit to Sony, MS and the NFL. This was an NFL EA deal from the start to finish. Offering it to bid was more of formality than anything. It was half a billion dollars. EA then went to secure college football and even arena football. If you think anyone else had a chance you are beyond naive. I got a sky scrapper sized statue of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man for 20 grand on craigslist.

[Critical Kills]

The wealthiest company typically does win a bidding war, yes that's unfair, not illegal..oh yeah and that's business.. With that being said if anyone really thinks if the exclusive agreement hadn't happened that 2K would have kept charging $19.99 each year for their football game then they are the naive ones. That was just a way to get the game out there to get people to try it, it was not a new pricing standard for football games.