Tired of the relative monopoly that EA Sports has enjoyed on the football video game market with the venerable Madden franchise? A development this week could be a very welcome change on the football gaming front.
The NFLPA has agreed to license its players to be used by another entity. 2K Sports, which made the fondly recalled eponymous series of games in the 2000s, can once again use actual NFL player names and likenesses in producing games of their own.
EA has held the license exclusively since producing the 2006 edition of Madden.
2K Sports just announced an agreement with @NFLPA to feature more than 2,000 NFL players in multiple football video games beginning in 2021.
— Cody Benjamin (@CodyJBenjamin) July 30, 2020
The key words here are “multiple football video games”. That opens up the possibility for variant games like the old “Blitz” arcade game, as well as a roster-building type of game similar to the vintage EA Sports version of “NFL Head Coach”. Based on its agreement with the NFLPA, EA Sports and Madden will remain the only actual NFL simulation action game.