Video Gamers Sue EA Over Exclusive Sports Games

from the yes...-but... dept

Sports video games are a huge business -- and for many years, it was an extremely competitive space. I remember a few years back trying to wade through half a dozen different baseball video game titles to figure out which one was worth buying. However, a few years back, video game giant EA started signing "exclusive" deals with a variety of sporting leagues, including the NFL. These "exclusive" deals supposedly meant that only EA could produce games with the names and stats of real players -- a huge selling point among most fans. And, of course, in gaining exclusivity, EA has completely cashed in. However, a bunch of angry video gamers are now suing the company for anticompetitive conduct, noting that these exclusive deals killed off all the competition, allowing EA to drastically raise its prices.

Of course, there's a separate issue that might make these gamers (and other video game companies) happy: with the recent rulings concerning fantasy baseball, it appears that the court system recognizes that player names and stats are public domain data. Thus, even with the "exclusivity," other video game companies should be able to include real player names and data. They probably still cannot use real league logos, and even player likenesses may be out (which, again, is often a big selling point) -- but hopefully it at least brings some competition back to the market.

Filed Under: competition, exclusivity, sports, video games
Companies: ea

Sprint And Affiliate Sue Each Other Over Legality Of New WiMax Effort

from the bad-blood dept

In certain markets, Sprint has always used affiliates to sell its service, rather than building out its own efforts. Some of those affiliate relationships caused problems back in 2004/2005 when Sprint merged with Nextel -- as Nextel's service existed in some of those markets, potentially "competing" with the Sprint affiliates who had agreements that Sprint would not compete directly. So, with the new WiMax joint venture with Clearwire, Sprint knew that the big affiliate iPCS would be upset. In fact, last week, Sprint sued iPCS in Delaware seeking a declaratory judgment that the new joint venture did not break their agreement with iPCS. That lawsuit appears to have been filed slightly before iPCS filed its own lawsuit in Illinois against Sprint. Chances are the two suits will be combined in some manner, but it's yet another hurdle that Sprint needs to clear before it can get this new WiMax offering off the ground. Sprint may have a decent claim here -- as the agreement with iPCS is focused only on 1.9GHz spectrum, whereas the WiMax network is on 2.5GHz spectrum. Either way, it seems like these affiliate relationships may be a lot more pain than they're worth.

Filed Under: affiliates, contracts, countersuits, exclusivity, wimax
Companies: clearwire, ipcs, sprint

Corporate Doublespeak: By Forcing Competition On The Market, We Will Need To Raise Prices

from the these-guys-are-slick dept

Earlier this week we wrote about plans by the FCC to ban deals that gave a single service provider exclusivity to an apartment building or housing development. Service providers (particularly the cable companies who locked many of them up) loved these deals as they were granted a guaranteed monopoly. Of course, most of us realize that monopolies are bad for consumers and lead to higher prices (monopoly rents and all). Yet, now that they're gone, Comcast is responding to the deal by saying that it's actually competition that will cause them to raise prices. Reader slide23 writes in to point out Comcast's corporate doublespeak:

The following statement may be attributed to Sena Fitzmaurice, Senior Director of Corporate Communications and Government Relations: "Consumers in apartment buildings and condos across the nation received a blow today from the action taken by the FCC. The result of this decision is likely to be higher prices for services and years of litigation and uncertainty for consumers. The significant concessions building owners have been able to bargain for on behalf of their residents will be lost."

Yes, Comcast is going to use the fact that they now have to compete within apartment buildings to raise prices. Or, so they say. Somehow, you get the feeling that once the local DSL providers starts offering faster/cheaper service, Comcast will have a change of heart on the matter. More seriously, perhaps what Comcast really means is that it believes these kinds of services are natural monopolies, which may actually be a defensible position. Of course, Comcast probably doesn't want to go down that path at all. Once you admit you're in a space where a natural monopoly makes sense, then you open yourself up to forced line sharing and (more importantly for Comcast...) regulations barring any kind of traffic discrimination. Given last week's Comcast kerfuffle over traffic jamming, the last thing the company should be doing is suggesting that competition hurts the space, because that just gives politicians all the ammunition needed to put network neutrality laws in place.

The company can't really have it both ways. It can't go around saying it can run its network like a private company in a competitive market that doesn't need any regulation out one side of its mouth, while at the same time claiming that it's facing a natural monopoly where competition hurts the market out of the other side.

Filed Under: cable, exclusivity, internet
Companies: comcast, fcc