EA maintains exclusive Madden NFL license in multiyear renewal
NFL, NFLPA extend long-term deals for simulation football video games
www.polygon.com
So if you are a sports gaming fan, you'll know that EA has basically been phoning it in with the Madden and FIFA games for the past few years. Each year we get less features and increasingly unblanced gameplay all the while being dealt more and more loot boxes and ultimate team style garbage.
Late last year we knew that the NFL exclusivity liscence with EA was coming to a close, and at around the same time we learned that 2K was making an NFL game. Now if you aren't aware NFL2k games were fucking awesome, so this news was really really exciting for people who have been hoping that series would come back once EA lost exclusivity.
Welp it turns out that EA was able to renew the deal for another 5-6 years. This deal is only for simulation style games, so arcadey games, mobile games, etc can still be made by anyone. But basically this puts a nail in the coffin of seeing the NFL2k series comeback.
Now EA is free to continue to make mediocre barely functional trash Madden games, all the while milking every dime from people who don't know any better in ultimate team packs and other gambling systems.