Disgruntled Gamers Sue Electronic Arts Over "Blatantly Anticompetitive Conduct"
Gamespot (Australia) is reporting that two disgruntled gamers have decided enough is enough. How disgruntled? So very, very disgruntled, in fact, that they've decided to file a class-action lawsuit against the third party megalith:
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The class-action complaint focuses on Electronic Arts' actions since 2004, when Take-Two Interactive's NFL 2K5 was released at a $19.99 price point and sold more than 2.9 million copies in the US, according to NPD figures. Take-Two's previous football game, ESPN NFL Football, sold fewer than 450,000 copies in the US. Meanwhile, EA dropped the price of its Madden 2005 from $49.95 to $29.95 in response.
"This vigorous competition benefited consumers," according to the suit. "Electronic Arts could have continued to compete by offering a lower price and/or a higher quality product. Instead, Electronic Arts quickly entered into a series of exclusive agreements with the only viable sports football associations in the United States: the National Football League, the Arena Football League, and NCAA Football."
Sticking in to "the man", or a waste of everyone's time and money?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's not legal for doctors to kill their patients through medical/pharmeceutical errors. That's called medical malpractice, and it results in phat lootz.
What's with the tone of this thread? I'm pulling for these guys. EA (or 2k in the case of MLB) losing the monopoly on sports games can only help the consumers.
I think the case is right on and I hope they win. They used the monopoly in a way that destroyed the free market and hurt consumers (more choices at competitive pricing -vs- one choice at full price).
They might just have a case, EA has gone out of it's way to buy up any and all competitors to their products, or failing that find another way to squeeze them out of the business, allowing them to keep the prices on their annual sports cash cows high, since they are the only game available. Back in the day there were anti-trust and price fixing cases just like this with power and telephone companies.
Sue those fuckers, remeber Origin and Bullfrog and all the other companies they killed, revenge shall be ours!
Not the first time this has happened. I remember Atari and Nintendo both getting sued over monopoly's. Guess EA gets a turn at being the big boy in court this time.
They might just have a case, EA has gone out of it's way to buy up any and all competitors to their products, or failing that find another way to squeeze them out of the business, allowing them to keep the prices on their annual sports cash cows high, since they are the only game available. Back in the day there were anti-trust and price fixing cases just like this with power and telephone companies.
Sue those fuckers, remeber Origin and Bullfrog and all the other companies they killed, revenge shall be ours!
You....this is a joke, right?
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Originally Posted by Oxonian
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's not legal for doctors to kill their patients through medical/pharmeceutical errors. That's called medical malpractice, and it results in phat lootz.
What's with the tone of this thread? I'm pulling for these guys. EA (or 2k in the case of MLB) losing the monopoly on sports games can only help the consumers.
Shouldn't they be suing, you know, the NFL for putting the license up for bid in the first place? Don't think that Take Two didn't bid on the license. EA just had more $.
