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cdj
08-15-2011, 05:13 PM
Courtesy Shopmaster and MyMaddenPad (http://mymaddenpad.com/2011/08/15/is-this-the-end-of-madden-strategy-and-tips-sites/):



In case you haven’t heard some of the biggest and best Madden Strategy Guide websites were given a notice by EA to stop selling strategy guides. Not only were they told that they couldn’t use the NFL logos, stadiums, players, names and such to create videos for their guides but some were told that they had to shut down their website by COB today Monday August 15th, 2011. Most have taken down their guides that they were selling and are looking for answers.

I reached out this past week to a number of Madden websites that sell Madden Guides and inquired about the issue and if they received a letter from EA’s Intellectual Property Office. So far, I know about 4 websites have received this letter and some haven’t received the letter yet but fully expect to be put on notice soon. Most don’t want to be identified but was kind enough to share their thoughts on this matter.

My biggest question is “Why now?”. Some of these guys have been doing this for years; they are not doing anything new now. They’ve always sold guides with videos that broke down their tips in a better fashion than just a PDF that told you how to set it up in text. So what’s the big deal? Some of these guys are just passionate about the game and breaking down plays. I’ve had the pleasure to meet some of these guys in person and I remember this one guy started breaking down plays with french fries. His site is among those that are being shut down.

After talking to multiple people, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not EA at all that is demanding that these sites get shut down. It is my opinion that the popular strategy guide company Prima Games is putting pressure on EA to shut these sites out. Now these are strictly my opinions and one else’s but it all makes sense.

I’m a big supporter of Prima Games and the guides they sell for NCAA Football and Madden NFL Football games. Their strategy guides are good and with my good friends Sgibs and Zfarls doing the guides this year, I expect them to be even better and the NCAA Football 12 one I have is better just not as detailed as some of these NCAA Strategy guides that others have created. I didn’t think Prima would let them create that kind of guide. The Official Strategy Guides that Prima prints are just bare knuckle, basic stuff even though I did see some new things this year with Sgibs and Zfarls at the control. That being said it has never competed with the details that these website were giving out with the video breakdowns. Prima has never been able to compete with that …… until now.

I got an email from Prima Games, asking me to go check out their new website http://primamadden.com and now I see what is happening. On the Prima Madden website they are selling playbooks, one-on-one sessions, and subscription to a weekly video show. Prima Games has moved from print and gone digital. The playbooks (Electronic Strategy Guides) are selling anywhere from $10 to $46 for complete playbooks with Video Strategy via the web.

Now I’m not going to lie. When I first heard EA was trying to shut down these sites, I was a little upset, now that I feel it’s more Prima trying to wipe out the competition I feel better. You see Prima pays a lot of money to become the “Official” strategy guide for NCAA and Madden as well as other games. So I understand what’s going on and their need to prohibit guys from doing what they are doing and not paying any money.

One owner told me that he made close to $10,000.00 selling his strategy guides in a year and there are some owners that have made more than that. This was part of his job, not just part time gig and it’s the same with other sites that are in the same situation.

The problem that most of these owners have is that this has come out of no where. I guess they’ve always sort of know that they shouldn’t be using the game to get paid, but because they had been doing it for some time, didn’t think anything would happen. I’ve reached out to a couple of EA SPORTS employees to get answers and even an EA SPORTS employee told me the same thing when I reached out to the company. “If they are charging people [for tips], they are wrong ….” one person told me from EA SPORTS.

I’m just trying to get answers and so are the guys who received the letter and who are afraid they might get a letter. As one owner told me … “I’m just trying to see what my options are?” Do they have options, I would imagine so, because there are a couple of sites that went through a similar situation before for whatever reason and they had to make some changes, but they are still selling guides.

Hopefully we’ll get some answers, because there has got to be a way that these guys can still do the things they love without shutting down their sites and businesses.

For the full article, visit MMP (http://mymaddenpad.com/2011/08/15/is-this-the-end-of-madden-strategy-and-tips-sites/).

steelerfan
08-15-2011, 05:39 PM
I'm not sure there is a way around it.

You are talking about using a copyrighted game that includes trademarked logos and player likenesses to make a profit without paying royalties to the company that makes the game, the companies that own the logos or the players that are represented.

I don't blame Prima for calling foul. They are doing it the right/legal way.

It is a shame that those who bother with these guides will be limited, but that's business.

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I OU a Beatn
08-15-2011, 05:45 PM
Wow, that's a bunch of bullshit. I never bought guides anyway, but that's ridiculous they've given them such short notice and are doing just so they can make more money.

SmoothPancakes
08-15-2011, 06:04 PM
As Steelerfan said, that's business. Love it or hate it, it is what it is.

I OU a Beatn
08-15-2011, 06:10 PM
It may be, but that's really low. For years, their football guides have been utter garbage. They show team ratings, the best players on each team, and advise what style to run. It's nothing important or anything anyone would need in a guide. I've heard this year they're making quite the huge improvement, so I guess to eliminate the competition(which have been making legitimate guides for years), they plan on eliminating the possibility of them having competition. Kind of lame, but as said, nothing anyone can do about it.

steelerfan
08-15-2011, 06:23 PM
If you paid thousands of dollars to put out a guide and have it legal, you wouldn't think cutting out the leech who doesn't pay a nickel was low. It's fair.

If you owned the copyrighted material that was being stolen for profit, you wouldn't think this was unjust.

It's easy to look at the guy who has been stealing and reproducing copyrighted/trademarked material, and profiting from it, as a victim. In reality he's the assailant, not a victim.

On a good note, these guys can always make videos of their french fries and sell that as a guide. :D

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I OU a Beatn
08-15-2011, 06:26 PM
Yeah, it doesn't affect me either way. I could never justify paying any amount of money for what usually equates to a bunch of money plays. I just think it's lame that now they're serious about making a real guide, they feel the need to ban everyone else from doing so. Prima's Madden and NCAA guides have been terrible since I can remember.

steelerfan
08-15-2011, 06:32 PM
Yeah, I'd never buy any guide, no matter how good. What's the point?

It's probably tied to an amount they had to pay to be able to produce the guide. Maybe it's gone up, maybe now it's exclusive. Who knows?

I know if I paid a fee to do something, I'd be shutting all the bootleggers down.

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SmoothPancakes
08-15-2011, 06:40 PM
Yeah, I'd never buy any guide, no matter how good. What's the point?

It's probably tied to an amount they had to pay to be able to produce the guide. Maybe it's gone up, maybe now it's exclusive. Who knows?

I know if I paid a fee to do something, I'd be shutting all the bootleggers down.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using Tapatalk

My thoughts exactly. Even as far as guides are concerned for regular games, like action games or shooters or something. There are a billion different sites with fan made guides for every game created. Some even have pictures along with all the text. A complete waste of money buying the guides, for any game, when you can find it all for free online, either the actual guide itself loaded up as a PDF, or a fan made guide as all text on a random website.

Plus some of the fan-made guides strategies are TONS better than the crap they give you for strategies for bosses or challenges or some other random thing in various games. Some strategy guides, the hints and strategies they give you for beating this or conquering that suck more than a chinese hooker.

I OU a Beatn
08-15-2011, 06:47 PM
Yeah, most regular guides are really bad. The only ones I've ever purchased are the hard cover version of the Gears 1 and 2 guides, and that was only for my Gears collection.

I can see guides for Madden/NCAA being useful for people who want to find good plays and don't want to put in the time to find them. For me, though, I look myself. I couldn't justify spending a penny on a guide for NCAA/Madden, let alone some of the outrageous prices I've seen some of these people charge. I remember one being like $60. I mean, shit...you can buy a brand new game for that price.

jaymo76
08-15-2011, 07:55 PM
My thoughts exactly. Even as far as guides are concerned for regular games, like action games or shooters or something. There are a billion different sites with fan made guides for every game created. Some even have pictures along with all the text. A complete waste of money buying the guides, for any game, when you can find it all for free online, either the actual guide itself loaded up as a PDF, or a fan made guide as all text on a random website.

Plus some of the fan-made guides strategies are TONS better than the crap they give you for strategies for bosses or challenges or some other random thing in various games. Some strategy guides, the hints and strategies they give you for beating this or conquering that suck more than a chinese hooker.

I have always struggled with WHY people buy strat guides for sports games to begin with...

morsdraconis
08-15-2011, 08:22 PM
Well, before the internet was as big as it is now and the information was so readily available, I could definitely see doing it to further your abilities. Hell, I bought one back during Madden '05 before I found any website worth a damn that just had people talking about strategies freely and all of that. Sadly, I thought it was a complete waste of money, but, unlike buying a strategy guide from Prima or anything like that, I couldn't ask for my money back or anything like that. So, it was $15 or $20 down the drain for a "strategy" guide that was completely useless (and it's from one of the bigger website/team of guys that did that kind of stuff).

Guides for any games are a scam, because everything they could possibly make available to you is already readily available online. Thus, Prima is trying anything they can to make money off of morons, thus them going after their only real competition (besides trying to shutdown Gamefaqs.com, but, since that website is a user submitted guide website, I doubt that's gonna happen any time soon).

SmoothPancakes
08-15-2011, 08:28 PM
I have always struggled with WHY people buy strat guides for sports games to begin with...

Same here. It's a sports game. It's not that difficult. If you're having problems, you adjust the sliders and difficulty. Need some money plays, go search google. You'll find thousands of results for money plays. All that, for $0. As opposed to however much these shams of a "strategy guide" cost. Hell, there are people on some of these free sites that have self-created strategy guides up and posts for games by noon of release day.

skipwondah33
08-15-2011, 08:34 PM
Damn that sucks

I never bought the guides online but i did always like the content Kobra put out on his site. Just the free stuff like team's playbooks and in what team's book you can find certain formations. He would list quite a bit of things in his free content section that was very useful. Even watching his video breakdowns of certain things was pretty cool.

I buy the Madden strategy guide for bathroom material. I read the writeup for each team like I don't already know their strengths and weaknesses but they are interesting. Can't really use any strategy they give you because usually they are not sim. I remember one said to use the Vikings come out in 5 wide then audible down to an I-Form set Toss so you can pitch it to Harvin lol