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Pro basketball resumes on Christmas Day; college football will begin staging its major postseason contests eight days later. This has, perhaps unintentionally, engendered competing five-game simulations from 2K Sports and EA Sports, makers of NBA 2K12 and NCAA Football 12. Want to know who wins the big matchups? We've got the results predicted by these two video games, with highlights! More »
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Electronic Arts on Friday won the dismissal of one lawsuit against it regarding its use of identifying characteristics of real college football players in its NCAA Football series. A federal judge said EA's right to free expression under the First Amendment supersedes a former quarterback's right to control the use of his likeness. More »
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EA Sports, in collaboration with NCAA Football, will this winter begin offering paid fellowships to former college football players seeking experience in a games development or sports entertainment career. The players will work in the EA Tiburon studio, where the NCAA Football and Madden series are developed. More »
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A cocktail-napkin calculation about what's at stake in former NCAA players' lawsuit against EA Sports arrived at a potential cash-and-prizes value of $1 billion. But as apocalyptic as that total sounds, Electronic Arts doesn't sound too worried. More »
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What is EA Sports' Season Ticket? It's a $25 VIP pass, good for a year, getting you past the velvet rope to your favorite sports game on a weekend when everyone else is still playing last year's edition. It offers a 20 percent discount on paid downloadable content. More »
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EA Sports will offer an annual subscription for hardcore sports gamers, which includes a three-day, pre-release full-play preview of five of the label's most popular titles, and a 20 percent discount on their paid downloadable content catalog. EA Sports' "Season Ticket" begins Aug. 27 with Madden NFL 12, and it will cost $25. More »
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I play sports video games for a living and publishers send them to me for free. The reality of a $60 purchase—what it actually buys, what else it could buy—is something I respect but it's not a decision I really face. I'm probably the last guy who can advise anyone on whether a sports video game is worth buying on the day it's released, but I will anyway: Don't. More »
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A century's worth of traditions spread over 100 teams makes college football one of the top subjects when sports fans start gumming How It Really Oughta Be: Who gets into what bowl, what rivalry should be rescheduled, what schools should be in which conference if everyone wasn't so fixated on starting their own TV network. More »
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There's always a race to publish the first complete, accurately named roster for NCAA Football 12, and this year it was available on the day of release. However, that doesn't usually address depth chart placement, equipment details, or for some players, position changes and attribute re-ratings. More »
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At more than 6,000 names, all of which must be manually entered, custom rosters for NCAA Football is annually one of the biggest community projects in sports gaming. Accurately named files were available yesterday—the day of release—for both the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions. More »
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In NCAA Football 12 players have an extraordinary amount of control over the college football landscape. Last year, many diehards and purists pursed their lips and grumbled over a wave of conference realignments that forsake traditions and regional sensibilities for television contracts. NCAA 12 is their chance to put things right in the world. Their world. More »
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NCAA Football 12 isn't out for another 10 days, but there's something you can do in the meantime—with the new version of the game, even—that will add to your experience, and others' too, when it arrives. More »
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College football is all about tradition. The tradition of the NCAA Football 12 development team is the godawful annoying "Alpha song," played every night while the game is in its alpha build. This year's song was Wham!'s "Careless Whisper," the signature tune of the Sexy Sax Man. More »
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Ben Haumiller's got a job for me. Several jobs, actually, but they're all in NCAA Football 12's new career mode, the "Coaching Carousel." Haumiller, the game's producer, explains it all using an offensive coordinator named Owen O'Cain as an example. Who the hell is Owen O'Cain? More »
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There may not be any optimal time to tell gamers about all the microtransactions and DLC for which they can expect to pay extra in an upcoming release. But the official reveal of a game's main features - the stuff folks expect to come with the $59.99 retail price - would probably be the least optimal. More »
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A federal judge on Monday threw out former college athletes' claims against EA Sports, regarding the use of their likeness in past versions of NCAA Football and the now canceled NCAA Basketball. While the ruling clears Electronic Arts in a legal sense, the claims still will proceed against the NCAA and the Collegiate Licensing Company, and the outcome still could have ramifications for the popular sports video game. More »
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Alabama's Mark Ingram, the 2009 Heisman Trophy winner, was voted the cover athlete of NCAA Football 12, whose debut trailer you saw yesterday. Ingram, expected to be a high draft pick in next week's NFL draft, beat out candidates Nick Fairley of Auburn, Jake Locker of Washington, and DeMarco Murray of Oklahoma in a fan-voted contest stretching six weeks. Though Ingram is the cover athlete across all retail versions of the product, EA Sports has said it will make available downloadable covers featuring the other three candidates. More »
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Several weeks back we mentioned NCAA Football 12's developers were looking for some crowdsourced research on where the bands sit at all 120 college football stadiums. Now they need to know if your alma mater fires a cannon at the games and, if so, what type. More »
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The Madden NFL-inspired Pecover Vs. EA federal class-action antitrust lawsuit picks up steam, as law firm Hagens Berman notifies class members they have until June 25 to be excluded from a potential payday. More »
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EA Sports' NCAA Basketball bit the dust after its 2009 release; 2K Sports' College Hoops 2K series cashed out two years before. With Selection Sunday three days away and March Madness upon us, how's a gamer to satisfy his basketball jones? More »
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The long-running attempts by former college football players to earn a share of EA's revenues from the NCAA series won't just affect video games and "amateur" athletics. It could hit music, TV, movies and comic books, too. More »
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I have no idea what this signifies, but the fact they're asking is curious. EA Sports wants to know where the band sits in all 120 stadiums in major college football. Band geeks are marching to the rescue. More »
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Reggie Bush today forfeited his 2005 Heisman Trophy. He also starred on NCAA 07's cover. EA Sports, of course, won't erase that. But if Bush hadn't played in 2005, it's likely Heisman runner-up Vince Young would have made the cover. More »
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We seem to have gotten things out of order. The first gameplay tuning file for NCAA Football 11 went live this morning, so it was not dependent on a mid-August patch. The adjustments will be incorporated into existing dynasties. More »
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The veteran roster editor Fairdale Kings has published the first fully named roster for the Xbox 360 version of NCAA Football 11. You can now play with real-life player names on all 120 teams on both platforms. More »
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An Alabama GameStop allegedly made a cover of a crying Tim Tebow - who (in)famously wept as Alabama beat Florida for last year's SEC championship - and inserted it into the cases of NCAA Football 11 games on display. More »
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We know there's a certain level of stagecraft and gimmickry to these sports video games picking winners. That said, EA Sports has correctly predicted the Super Bowl, Stanley Cup, and World Cup champion this year. More »
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PS3 gamers with NCAA Football 11 only had to wait one day after release for the first custom, fully-named roster to become available. Xbox 360 rosters are still being written, and we're told they'll be available shortly. More »
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You probably won't believe this, but I once made an official recruiting visit to a major college football program. Yes, in real life. More »
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College football is pageantry, tradition, the gleam of a sousaphone, the wink and tight sweater of a Song Girl. It's also the promises and browbeatings of a recruiting call, and desperate gambles made beneath a sky the color of lead. More »
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It is hardly a surprise that the cover of NCAA Football 11, out July 13, does not feature Tim Tebow with the Scriptures written on his eyeblack tape. That's not to say EA Sports has never allowed similar things before. More »
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With six additional teams and a slew of custom visuals, NCAA Football 11 released an uncommonly ambitious demo last week. Football is still a results-driven enterprise, and its video games are rightly held to the same expectation of on-field execution. More »
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The AP's annual accounting of which college football teams start the season born on third base isn't due for another couple months, maybe, but EA Sports has already ranked them for NCAA Football 11 which releases in three weeks. More »
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Those sweet Nike Pro Combat threads in the eight-team NCAA Football 11 demo aren't just for looks there. They're also in the full version, for looks. Downloading the demo gives you access to the alternate uniforms in the main game. More »
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Alabama fans are not amused. NCAA Football 11 promised four times the number of teams it normally puts in its demo, and the reigning national champion is not one of them. But Big XII defectors Texas and Oklahoma are. More »
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Tigers vs. Tigers. EA Sports told us the third matchup for the multi-team demo of NCAA 11 wasn't going to be traditional and they're right. Clemson and Missouri have played just four times. More »
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Another thing the NCAA Football 11 demo is good for is revealing the new fall fashions. I wasn't aware Jimbo Fisher took FSU to garnet and black, evidently to make Florida think they're playing South Carolina. Boy, that'll scare 'em. More »
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Normally the demo for NCAA Football pairs participants from the national championship game, and the latest one, releasing next week, still does. It just features the combatants from the 2003 BCS championship game. Update: Plus six more teams. More »
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Seven new screens from EA Sports show pregame animations, similar to those last seen in last-gen versions of NCAA Football, returning to this year's game. More »
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The director of the NCAA's hockey marketing operation told a Canadian radio station that his organization has been in talks with EA Sports about bringing collegiate teams to EA's NHL title. More »
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