EA Sports in '13 shuttered its "NCAA Football" video game amid ongoing lawsuits, but EA Chief Competition Officer Peter Moore during an interview for "IGN Unfiltered" said, "I know we’ll be back." Moore added there are “settlements still going out, so it’s tough to get involved in detail.” Moore: “It was a really, really good game and ... it captured Saturday afternoons all over America, because not only did we have a great on-the-field experience we took a lot of time to … capture the mascots and the environment around those stadiums and really brought that to life and unfortunately had to step away.” He noted the game became the “lightning rod for bigger issues regarding college athletes," such as payment for likenesses. Moore: “It was a sad day when we realized we are in the sights of a number of lawsuits which were all combined eventually into one singular suit that said, ‘That’s me (in the video game).’” Moore said, “When your lawyers’ fees are more than the revenue than you can expect to get in, you just in the end had to say, ‘We can move this (development) team to do something else that we can have a very clear future.' ... No one lost their job over it” (“IGN Unfiltered,” IGN.com, 8/30).
GOOD FOR THE GAME: ESPN.com's Darren Rovell wrote any structure for payment for college players' likeness in an EA football game is "unclear because the settlement is one for past use, not a guide for the future." Athletic department sources said that the "lack of an NCAA football game in particular has been detrimental to the sport, as young players have had to gravitate to other games." One AD "wondered aloud whether schools would be willing to forgo their royalties and put the money into getting a game back on the shelves." But that idea, "at least initially, has been shot down because there is still concern about the prospect of being sued." Beyond "securing the licenses, it will be hard to make a quality game and set up distribution similarly to what EA had accomplished." That is "unless Sony or Microsoft want to get involved," as the companies "may pay for console makers to use the game to sell the consoles" (ESPN.com, 8/30).
