Madden Developer Sues EA for Millions in Back Royalties

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It’s been a weird year for football fans. The NFL lockout means Sunday’s regular pigskin battles may disappear entirely, or worse, that they’ll be waged by substitute players. It’s even getting strange on the video game front, where sports-play bigwig EA’s adding cautionary concussion mechanics to this year’s edition of their perennial Madden NFL series. And just like the NFL season changes, EA’s facing an unexpected legal blitz with potentially expensive ramifications.

The man who helped build the very first Madden game has filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles, alleging that he’s owed millions in royalties for every Madden title that’s ever been released. That man would be Robin Antonick, who served as the initial programmer John Madden Football, released in 1988.

While other football games preceded Madden, it was the first that gave players a semi-realistic 11-on-11 scenario, viewed camera-wise from an angle similar to the one employed in official NFL TV broadcasts. The playcalling, too, drew on then-coach John Madden’s strategies, which lent the nascent franchise a feeling of verisimilitude–finally, you could play something close to real football.  That penchant for realism accounted for much of Madden’s success, and in the lawsuit, Antonick claims his coding played a key part in making it happen.

Here’s the key point: The developer posits that his contract circa 1986 entitles him to a share of earnings from subsequent versions of the game. Madden‘s been the cornerstone of EA’s financial foundation for more than a decade, selling as much as 5 to 7 million units every year. That adds up to a lifetime total of about $4 billion. In addition to his share of that, Antonick also wants penalties levied against EA for divesting him of his royalties, which he was receiving until 1992.

The lawsuit underscores how much the video games industry has changed in just two decades. Now, hundreds of people work to make a game and their individual contributions are difficult to pinpoint. But two decades ago, it was the exact opposite, which may give weight to Antonick’s argument. For its part, EA says that the lawsuit is without merit, and that it owes Antonick nothing.