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…
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.
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…
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…
When it comes to negotiations , EA Sports doesn't mess around. They they know what matters most, and in Texas, that means football.
Two weeks ago the offers started pouring in. Duke. Vanderbilt. Wake Forest. Places well beyond what my parents could ever hope for me, much less pay for. They aren't real offers, as I'm not really a football player. That's OK, I'm not a real college student either. Mom and Dad stopped worrying about how to pay my…
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.
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.
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…
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.
Without fail, every time I bring up this job and its subject, usually with folks outside the business, the topical jokes start rolling. Whatever the latest controversy or embarrassment is in sports, people ask if that's going to be simulated in the next edition of Madden, Tiger Woods or NBA 2K.
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.
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?
The Big Ten's ridiculous division names will be getting a makeover—probably thousands of them—thanks to NCAA Football 12.
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.
Alex Howell was the only freshman in the tunnel that Saturday, his chinstrap so tight it fused his jaw shut, 89,000 people packed into to the last row at Auburn's Jordan-Hare Stadium. Earlier in the week the graduate assistant tapped Howell on the shoulder and asked if he'd like to dress for the game against…
In the two and a half months since he traded Canada's weather for Florida's, and titles like FIFA for Madden, Cam Weber has read that he delayed Madden's release for three weeks because of the NFL lockout; that he's adding some kind of social network to the game, like Need for Speed's Autolog; and that he is at the…
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…
You know, I don't think I've ever seen a sports game trailer that has a dog, a Centurion (or Spartan?), an American Indian, a bull and a buffalo all in the one video before.
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.
