Madden NFL 'creator' sues EA for potentially billions

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Madden NFL 'creator' sues EA for potentially billions

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The following comments relate to this news article:

Madden NFL 'creator' sues EA for potentially billions

article published on 2 April, 2011

Man claims that Electronic Arts failed to compensate him for sales of one of the most popular video games franchises in history. Robin Antonick is suing the company for "tens of millions" in royalties as well as potentially billions from profits made by EA from over 85 million copies of Madden NFL Football titles sold. Antonick says he created the mega-popular game. The first version ... [ read the full article ]

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ROMaster2

Member

2. April 2011 @ 02:32

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And taxpayer dollars goes into the filing and court costs of this crap.

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Pop_Smith

Senior Member

2 product reviews

2. April 2011 @ 03:31

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Why the heck does he wait until 19 years after he hasn't received a royalty to sue EA? Wouldn't it be smarter to go after EA a year or two after they stopped paying royalties, if you're truly entitled to them?

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"The only people who should buy Monster cable are people who light cigars with Benjamins." - Gizmodo

Clam_Up

Junior Member

2. April 2011 @ 04:09

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If the article is accurately reporting the facts, the game creator assumed, as many others likely did, that somewhere along all of the version jumping product releases that EA scrapped the original code and rewrote the game from scratch.

According to the article and his lawsuit, EA has been using his code all along, likely only modifying just enough to allow them to re-release the game each year under a new version number without actually changing the core of the game. Apparently, he only recently discovered this and will now attempt to get EA to honor their commitments.

So basically what's being said is, Madden is the same game now as it was 20 years ago with updated graphics and a few additional tweaks.

That is, if I read and interpreted the article correctly.

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This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 2. April 2011 @ 04:11

DirkMaste

Newbie

2. April 2011 @ 08:57

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So sad how the really good have fallen:
From Wiki:

A novel approach to giving credit to its developers was one of EA's trademarks in its early days. This characterization was even further reinforced with EA's packaging of most of their games in the "album cover" pioneered by EA because Hawkins thought that a record album style would both save costs and convey an artistic feeling.[7] EA routinely referred to their developers as "artists" and gave them photo credits in their games and numerous full-page magazine ads. EA also shared lavish profits with their developers, which added to their industry appeal. Because of this novel treatment, EA was able to easily attract the best developers.[citation needed] The square "album cover" boxes (such as the covers for 1983's M.U.L.E. and Pinball Construction Set) were a popular packaging concept by Electronic Arts, which wanted to represent their developers as "rock stars".[7]

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dcmorrow

Junior Member

1 product review

4. April 2011 @ 13:46

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Originally posted by Clam_Up:
If the article is accurately reporting the facts, the game creator assumed, as many others likely did, that somewhere along all of the version jumping product releases that EA scrapped the original code and rewrote the game from scratch.

According to the article and his lawsuit, EA has been using his code all along, likely only modifying just enough to allow them to re-release the game each year under a new version number without actually changing the core of the game. Apparently, he only recently discovered this and will now attempt to get EA to honor their commitments.

So basically what's being said is, Madden is the same game now as it was 20 years ago with updated graphics and a few additional tweaks.

That is, if I read and interpreted the article correctly.

This is where stupid comes in. At some point in development, it is easier to rewrite code in a new language than to bring it along. I just don't see the game being the same. I think there is a miss quote somewhere in the chain that lead the original author to come to the wrong conclusion. In 1992, technology had changed far enough to abandon the original code and start fresh and that is why he stopped receiving royalty checks. I think it's all an honest mistake.

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