Everyone Who Ever Bought a Madden Game is Suing EA

[Gindil]

Not what I'd want to be suing them for, but I'll take what I can get.
Glad I kept my copy of Sports Madden 2002.

Odd... This is an attack on the NFL/EA deal that was signed in 2004. So why isn't the NFL cited?

 

[tkioz]

While I don't actually own a copy of any of the games list, I have purchased one, it was a gift for my brother who is huge into sports games, in 2009... I find it odd that a US court has any jurisdiction over me at all... I've never been to that country, I'm on the other side of the bloody planet and yet some how they can tell me what to do?

 

[Mirrorknight]

...and your share, after splitting it, court fees, lawyer fees, and taxes, is...you owe $5.

 

[Jawz 014]

I hate EA so im glad to see this.

 

[killamanhunter]

EDIT: No, theres still EA Los Angeles. Which is infamous for torurting Command and Conquer to death.

But they also made European Assault, for every good thing there's a bad thing I guess

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

Wait, we get the spoils of the case if EA loses?

How does that work?

 

[Gralian]

Now how about suing EA for upping the cost of their PC games for no apparent reason. I know i'm not alone here, folks.

 

[j0frenzy]

Couple of things. 1) I like anti-trust suits. Quite frankly, I remember when the exclusivity deal was signed that I thought EA was going to get in trouble for forcing out all of their competition. But, is it not usually the government that sues in the case of a monopoly? I'm pretty certain this case will fail because this is not actually a civil matter but a criminal one. 2) I am pretty certain that legally speaking, you have to voluntarily give your right to legal representation to a lawyer, not opt out of giving it. I do not know the specifics of the law in this instance, but I am pretty certain that a court cannot mandate that a lawyer has your right to representation unless you chose not to.

While I'm against 'here's some new players models, boot skins and names, that'll be another $60 this year please, and btw, it's August 2007, so we're calling it MAdden 2008.', I'm even more against the utter waste of time so many legal cases are.

They got away with it, because a vast number of people would rather buy a Harry Potter game, than, for example, Okami, because they recognise the brand, I battled this all the time when I was working in a game store, people would come in, ask my opinion on a suitable game, then ignore every suggestion I gave them, and buy 'generic licensed game 2010' instead, anyway.

Seriously tho, I wish there was some way to stop frivolous lawsuits, and I think I have cracked it.

Simple, no more monetary payouts except under genuine circumstances where a payout would be required under say, the need for constant healthcare because your product crippled people.

Instead, if you are responsible for fucking up, jail time. Maybe only a week or two, but don't worry, 99% of cases won't even happen any more, because people don't care if you were wrong, they care that you have cash they can sue for.

This is why bums don't get sued for getting drunk in the park. Taking them to court for 7 cents and some pants fluff doesn't really work.

EDIT: Yes, I know it's a simplistic solution and wouldn't work, I'm just sick of the legal system being used just to sue people for an easy payout, instead of being about, you know, crime and justice and all that stuff that comes under 'legal'.

I would argue against 99% of cases being frivolous. I would say 99% of cases you hear about are frivolous or are slanted to be portrayed as frivolous. You don't hear about when the system works because that is boring news. Also, I would argue that trying to break up a monopoly on an entire genre of games is not frivolous, though as I stated earlier, I do think that they are going about it in the wrong way.

 

[spookydom]

Not in my name.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

Although I mostly hate EA (except for some great games... which they later on killed over and over and over and ov- wait i'm going to much off topic) I think this is the biggest pile of crap I've ever seen in my 22 years long life.

Ans just 1 question.
EA has a monopole over sports games because they posses the exclusive rights to make games. But, didn't EA have to buy those rights? Aren't those who sold those rights as guilt as the one who buys them? I mean, you know you're selling exclusive rights, so no one else can do anything. In other words, you support EA having a monopole over sports games. IMO, those who sold exclusive rights to EA are 10 times more guilty then EA.
And those are words from an EA hater (mostly).

 

[emeraldrafael]

Duh?

Dude, Madden has been doing this for years, its called a monopoly. Thats why they had stuff like the Blitz.

 

[babinro]

Doesn't a game company have a right to charge what they want? I fail to see how there can be a case here. It's not like video games are an essential resource.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

Couple of things. 1) I like anti-trust suits. Quite frankly, I remember when the exclusivity deal was signed that I thought EA was going to get in trouble for forcing out all of their competition. But, is it not usually the government that sues in the case of a monopoly? I'm pretty certain this case will fail because this is not actually a civil matter but a criminal one. 2) I am pretty certain that legally speaking, you have to voluntarily give your right to legal representation to a lawyer, not opt out of giving it. I do not know the specifics of the law in this instance, but I am pretty certain that a court cannot mandate that a lawyer has your right to representation unless you chose not to.

While I'm against
EDIT: Yes, I know it's a simplistic solution and wouldn't work, I'm just sick of the legal system being used just to sue people for an easy payout, instead of being about, you know, crime and justice and all that stuff that comes under 'legal'.

I would argue against 99% of cases being frivolous. I would say 99% of cases you hear about are frivolous or are slanted to be portrayed as frivolous. You don't hear about when the system works because that is boring news. Also, I would argue that trying to break up a monopoly on an entire genre of games is not frivolous, though as I stated earlier, I do think that they are going about it in the wrong way.

I don't think I'm going for frivolous, more going against people suing because there's some money in it, rather than because a crime has been commited.

Also, in a world where consumers are getting more educated, I'll hope people starting looking for quality games over the next minor generic update from last year, tho I realise that's optimistic, with Madden, FIFA, COD, etc all outselling far higher rated games. There's always indie tho, that may help offer alternatives to some of the big names!

 

[KalosCast]

Yeah, they're not going to win this case. Technically, EA doesn't hold a monopoly on making Football games (you just can't use AFL, NFL, or NCAA teams/rosters) they just have exclusive licensing rights with those organizations. Also, they've been charging the standard retail price for console games since (at least) 2005 on all of those franchises.

I hate EA as much as the next guy, but they don't even have a case.

 

[j0frenzy]

Couple of things. 1) I like anti-trust suits. Quite frankly, I remember when the exclusivity deal was signed that I thought EA was going to get in trouble for forcing out all of their competition. But, is it not usually the government that sues in the case of a monopoly? I'm pretty certain this case will fail because this is not actually a civil matter but a criminal one. 2) I am pretty certain that legally speaking, you have to voluntarily give your right to legal representation to a lawyer, not opt out of giving it. I do not know the specifics of the law in this instance, but I am pretty certain that a court cannot mandate that a lawyer has your right to representation unless you chose not to.

While I'm against
EDIT: Yes, I know it's a simplistic solution and wouldn't work, I'm just sick of the legal system being used just to sue people for an easy payout, instead of being about, you know, crime and justice and all that stuff that comes under 'legal'.

I would argue against 99% of cases being frivolous. I would say 99% of cases you hear about are frivolous or are slanted to be portrayed as frivolous. You don't hear about when the system works because that is boring news. Also, I would argue that trying to break up a monopoly on an entire genre of games is not frivolous, though as I stated earlier, I do think that they are going about it in the wrong way.

I don't think I'm going for frivolous, more going against people suing because there's some money in it, rather than because a crime has been commited.

Here's the thing, if a crime is committed, the government sues and we get our usual prosecutor and jail time. If people were injured in some degree but there is not actual law broken, then we have civil suit and usually have money. And there are justified civil suits, we just usually find them boring and they aren't reported and a lot of them are settled because there is not a contention of guilt. Me suing someone for hitting me with their car does not make the news around here because it is uninteresting. The largest problem we have is quantifying an injury, and that is not always so clear cut. For example, if someone publicly attacks my character and calls me a child molester, how do I quantify the damage done to my name. I have lost my reputation in the community and have lost potential clients for some job, but I cannot state exactly how much harm has been done to me. There is more types of harm that people can do to each other besides physical harm.

 

[KalosCast]

EDIT: Yes, I know it's a simplistic solution and wouldn't work, I'm just sick of the legal system being used just to sue people for an easy payout, instead of being about, you know, crime and justice and all that stuff that comes under 'legal'.

You probably shouldn't comment about the legal system in the US if you don't know anything about it. There are two (basically) seperate court systems. Criminal courts "the people vs whoever" that are "crime and justice and all that stuff..." and civil cases, which are to settle disputed between two parties. Criminal courts exist for the jail time, to punish offenders. Civil courts exist to repair damages.

For example, if someone's negligence (or outright malice) causes me $1,000,000 in medical bills (or to rebuild my house, or replace stolen/destroyed merchandise at my store) then I could sue them to cover the healthcare costs (as well as legal fees). Putting them in jail wouldn't solve my problem, because I'd still be stuck with a bunch of medical bills I can't pay due to somebody else's actions.

Most of the "frivolous lawsuits" that everybody complains about are either grossly exaggerated to make the plaintiff look bad (like the McDonalds coffee thing) or never actually happened at all (like the burglar who fell down the stairs and sued the homeowner). The majority of civil suits filed are either settled out of court because it's not worth the time to fight, or thrown out for actually being frivolous or provably false. Very very very few make it to trial.

(do note that this is still a rather simplified and basic overview of how the US legal system works)

 

[Roxor]

When do we get to sue Microsoft for overpricing Windows?

 

[KalosCast]

When do we get to sue Microsoft for overpricing Windows?

When Mac and Linux (and so on...) stop existing.

 

[samsonguy920]

Damn it, missed another of these boats! Curses!

But for a bit of reality check, the only people who really make money off these suits are the lawyers. Everyone named in the class action suit get to divvy up the cash which usually comes to about $100 at the most per person.
But this one I don't mind so much. This may become yet another headache for the owners which are busy trying to screw over their own players.