The high-profile court case against EA Sport's "monopoly" in the NFL market took an interesting turn this week, with an economist brought in to show how much the demise of 2K's competing NFL franchise has cost sports gamers.
Despite admitting his report is based on incomplete data, University of Michigan economics professor Dr. Jeffrey Mackie-Mason has told the the U.S. District Court in San Francisco that EA's domination of the NFL video games market has cost gamers between $701 million and $926 million since 2K's NFL2K series was blocked from competing with EA.
How? He argues that while the 2K games were around (which were much cheaper than Madden), EA (and retailers) were forced to lower the price for a copy of Madden in order to compete. Now that EA Sports have the market all to themselves, prices have gone back up, so Mackie-Mason did some rough mathematics based on sales and the subsequent price hike.
It's not science, granted, but it seems a fairly constructive way to point out just one of the reasons why EA's monopoly of the NFL market is bad news for gamers.
Economist: EA's Madden Monopoly Cost Gamers Up To $926 Million [GamePolitics]