EA sued over use of retired players in Madden NFL series

Lawsuits against Electronic Arts are becoming as much a Madden NFL rite of passage as midnight launch parties and mass sick days after the game launches.

This time IGN reports former Cincinnati Bengal running back Tony Davis has filed a class action suit on behalf of 6,000 retired players, saying their likenesses appeared in Madden NFL games without compensation.

In dispute are the Madden series “historic teams” containing players designed to look and play like NFL legends, with their numbers changed. Davis’ suit alleges EA changed the numbers to avoid paying any money to retired players.

This suit isn’t the first, as NFL Hall of Famer Jim Brown filed a similar one in 2008. Brown lost that case but is appealing.

Former college basketball star Ed O’ Bannon sued EA over NCAA game likenesses, and eventually consolidated his suit with former NCAA quarterback Sam Keller. That suit is still working its way through the court system.

EA is not the only company to play the gray area involving NFL legends. The last football effort from 2K Sports, All-Pro Football 2K8, took advantage of NFL retirees not being part of any official licensing agreement. It used legendary players and made up fake teams to circumvent EA’s exclusive rights to the NFL license. Its sales weren’t good and Take-Two Interactive hasn’t made a football game since.

As an avid sports gamer, I hope this gets worked out. The Bigs 2, one of my favorite sports games, has baseball legends including Babe Ruth and Nolan Ryan. I love today’s players but trying to get a hit off the “Ryan Express” is as much fun now as it was when RBI Baseball was the game I was doing it in.

Read [IGN] Also Read [Yahoo Games Plugged In]