Change.Org Petition re Licenses

[The Solman]

I know we live in a age where PC modders can easily change badges, kits and faces etc. But it's one of those things where really FM should have them right out of the box but unfortunately due to EA have very strong grip on the licenses for certain divisions it prevents this.

Let's face Fifa Manager is a pile of rubbish.

It doesn't hugely affect the manager genre too much but more so the actual football game genre, those of you in your late 20s, 30, or 40s will remember the days when you'd have around 4 or 5 football titles to choose from.

Some PES players have set up a petition to try to change this and what they are looking at is for footballing license right to be shared fairly. In the U.S the NBA, NHL and NFL used to basically have open licenses. So if you wanted to produce a product that used these licenses you contact them and an agreement is met in terms of a % per unit.

EA have exclusive rights to the NFL now after 2K5 tried to undercut them in price whilst producing a superior product. So EA locked them out of the NFL to prevent further competition to the Madden series.

2K have decided to stop making NHL games for the time being due to the fact in this case that the EA games are far superior in case but should they want to they can jump straight back into making a game as the license in not exclusive.

What this also does is open up the market for Simulation games, Arcade Games and encourage other companies into the arena in turn keeping developers on their toes and pushing the genre forward.

At the end of the day it means the consumer comes out on top as we have choice and hopefully quality.

http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-exclusive-license-monopolies-equally-shared-licenses-for-football-simulation-softwares

[Transk53]

Nice idea, but EA like most huge corporates, pretty much tell the rest of the globe what to do. EA have squeezed the games industry for decades, that will not change. I remember the time before CM took over, again that is just what happens. Big fish vs little fish. Take on EA and you get bitten. I believe Blizzard Entertainment was one, but not sure..

[The Solman]

Nice idea, but EA like most huge corporates, pretty much tell the rest of the globe what to do. EA have squeezed the games industry for decades, that will not change. I remember the time before CM took over, again that is just what happens. Big fish vs little fish. Take on EA and you get bitten. I believe Blizzard Entertainment was one, but not sure..

Transk53 what the petition holders are looking to do is go to the EU or OFT to see where they stand but the more signature we get the more power it will have. EU and OFT rules IF they took it seriously and ruled in favour would outweigh anything EA has to say.

[forameuss]

But...why does it matter? The highest bidder gets the licence, the others don't. Does FM really suffer from any licences being missing?

[vlobben]

But...why does it matter? The highest bidder gets the licence, the others don't. Does FM really suffer from any licences being missing?

EA seems to believe their products are better because of the license (they payed money for it after all), so yes.. I would say FM suffers mildly for not having the licenses for things like club badges

[forameuss]

EA seems to believe their products are better because of the license (they payed money for it after all), so yes.. I would say FM suffers mildly for not having the licenses for things like club badges

I just don't see it as suffering at all. When a quick download gets you all the badges you could ever want, and the possibility to completely change most aspects of the game? Not for me. It's not like the good old days of PES when van Nistelroum and Gigg were tearing it up.

But your whole point seems to be "EA says their game is better, so FM should have licences". FM's a good enough game without throwing a considerable amount of money into any more licences than it already has

[Lawlore]

I do think the two significant league/national team licenses that are missing are a shame, mainly due to them both being big countries in the real world of football. But I'm unsure how much can be said about those, so I'll leave that point.

However, in terms of logos etc., I'm unconvinced it has a massive impact- I just can't see someone NOT buying the game because it doesn't contain official logos of, for example, Premier League clubs, out of the box. As I've said in the other thread, I'm unsure how Steam Workshop will impact modders being able to provide their own solutions to unlicensed parts- if it even does impact it at all- but it's really not a huge hassle to get them into the game right now.

[Transk53]

Transk53 what the petition holders are looking to do is go to the EU or OFT to see where they stand but the more signature we get the more power it will have. EU and OFT rules IF they took it seriously and ruled in favour would outweigh anything EA has to say.

EU really!! The EU is clueless over the games industry. The OFT do a good job in the main, but what do you think they can do?

[The Solman]

EU really!! The EU is clueless over the games industry. The OFT do a good job in the main, but what do you think they can do?

Maybe the OFT can look into it in terms of anti competition laws. For example EA are now doing exclusive deals with clubs meaning that in terms of Konami they can't even negotiate with clubs individually. In terms of football manager it's not a major issue but trust me EA will do whatever they can to lock out the competition. But I am not anti EA I liked Fifa 12 so what I am saying is let the games be judged on what they bring to the table rather than the licenses.

Take this quote as an example from the NBA

http://www.operationsports.com/forums/nba-2k/485767-nba-extends-long-lasting-agreements-take-two-interactive-ea.html

that's they way it should be.

[Nik_Dut]

Do any petition like this even count? Do the governing board really care?

[Wonky]

Do any petition like this even count? Do the governing board really care?

With that kind of attitude we won't get anywhere. I've signed the petition and I would encourage everyone else to do so, too. Even if it doesn't have an effect this time, the more people that shout about something, the more likely others are to listen.

[Crispypaul]

No-one cares about petitions. It's nothing personal but they change very little, especially over something that is - quite frankly - pointless in the grand scheme of things.

[Flohrinho]

I would love if that happens so I don't have to order my FM every year from the UK or do a proxy to get my key from a UK online store like I did the last time. I really wish that some day I could go into a store here in Germany and buy my copy of the good FM instead of the bad FM.

[kontermann]

No chance. But good to know that there are still some romantics out there.

@Flohrinho: What is the "bad" FM?

[cerud]

This made me laugh. It's the third change-org petition I've seen today for various things. Guess we truly are a culture of entitled complainers now.

[Svenc]

No chance. But good to know that there are still some romantics out there.

@Flohrinho: What is the "bad" FM?

FIFA Manager, or Fussball Manager, I guess, as it is marketed as in Germoney. Rumors have it is might go into it last run this season anyways, there are various signs for this all over the place: The release date is said to be October as usual, but unlike in previous years there was zero communication with the community, so far but a single press release promising little else but a data update, the game was for the first time ever completely absent at consumer trade shows such as gamescom and the independent studio that has developed the game for years has left the office complex of Electronic Arts in Cologne a couple months ago. For Germany this is really horrid in terms of management games as the DFL sells Bundesliga rights exlusively (can't blame EA for that). When On The Ball was still around as a competitor to Fussball Manager the DFL wrote a letter to fan sites offering data and urged them strongly to take them down or else... Should EA consider FIFA Manager to not be worthy of their likely small investment (game's developed by an independent mid-sized studio based in Cologne, has been recycling old FIFA tech for years, maybe by force, and is mostly using licenses already aquired for the much bigger FIFA games), that means they'll cling onto those licenses and any German based developer will find it mightily difficult to crack the market (see above what happens to On The Ball). FIFA Manager has never been doing particularly well outside most of former On The Ball territory (Switzerland, Austria, Germany) anyways.

That said though, the irony is that Football Manager contains the biggest amount of original data in any sports game even without all the badges and player pictures by far far far far far, that is roughly 500,000 real-life personell and original staff vs. roughly 40,000 players in say FIFA Manager (and many staff missing due to licensing issues). This is only topped by the detail that goes into even recreating small youth tournaments or implementing all the relegation, transfer and squad registering rules for each competition individually, almost no matter how complicated, that's data and detail even a massive corporation such as Electronic Arts isn't able to top any (nor does it aim for in their FIFA Soccer games anyway). I've barely ever played with anything but SI's database, and badges and stuff are just an added bonus you'll get for free on fan sites and aren't any hassle to install at all.

I very much understand the petition though. There's barely a market in which exclusive licenses had killed competition off so quickly and where they hold this much power as the sports games market. This is hell. Realistically though, as management games are a fairly niche in the grand scheme of things (FM 2013 reportedly shipped 1.2 million copies with what little competition is left), there's no way in hell a team as large as SI's would be commercially viable when that market was divided amongst more serious competition. And in a sense, SI's massive amount of researchers providing this insane amount of data are and will always be a tough nut to crack for anybody just as well. :-D

[craigibhoy]

IMO the licenses that SI can't get don't affect anything as SI hasn't had the licenses for example EPL yet we all still buy FM so this doesn't change anything, in years to come even if SI don't get the licenses for certain things in the game we all are still going to buy the game, so there isn't really any point in making a petition about licenses for FM, especially when we can just do it all through the DB.

[The Solman]

Guys come on the petition takes 2 minutes to sign. EA Manager is dead but it still doesn't mean that FM could get the license by default and its about putting any developer that enters the gaming arena with a decent product whether its a footie game or management game a fair chance.

Fifa is good but how many people do you know that are Fifa players that won't even give PES a look in due to lack of EPL license and the option files are not that widely publicized. EA can't handle competition and you only have to look at the Nba 2K series to see this.

If EA could do it tomorrow they'd lock down exclusive rights to the NBA. 2K had Madden on the ropes in 2005 so EA decided rather than up the quality of their game they'll just buy the rights. With no competition they can get away with offering their customers games with very minimal updates in terms of gameplay and features. If you love football games outside of FM sign up.

[forameuss]

Guys come on the petition takes 2 minutes to sign. EA Manager is dead but it still doesn't mean that FM could get the license by default and its about putting any developer that enters the gaming arena with a decent product whether its a footie game or management game a fair chance.

Fifa is good but how many people do you know that are Fifa players that won't even give PES a look in due to lack of EPL license and the option files are not that widely publicized. EA can't handle competition and you only have to look at the Nba 2K series to see this.

If EA could do it tomorrow they'd lock down exclusive rights to the NBA. 2K had Madden on the ropes in 2005 so EA decided rather than up the quality of their game they'll just buy the rights. With no competition they can get away with offering their customers games with very minimal updates in terms of gameplay and features. If you love football games outside of FM sign up.

I can confidently say, absolutely none. I think the fact that PES has been a very poor game for a while is more of a feature. Everyone I know, both in real life and on forums, would probably just buy the better game, whether the licenses are there or not.

If there are people out there who would hypothetically turn down a superior product, just because it is missing some licenses, then that's a sad state of affairs really.

[milnerpoint]

I cant remember any time i have felt like missing out through lack of licenses, not when this game is so easily modded to fill in the blanks.

Still ill sign just for the hell of it.