IMAGE: From the EA websiteFrom the EA Sports website: I see the exclusive NCAA license, but I don’t see a Gamecube version

In an April post, I wrote about how Electronic Arts secured exclusive licenses to use NFL teams and rosters and NCAA teams, giving them a monopoly on the league-licensed football game market. It appears one of their first acts as a monopolist has been to scrap the Gamecube version of NCAA Football 2006, depriving players who own that console the opportunity to play any NCAA-licensed football game. There was no explanation in the NCAA 2006 press release, and EA’s publicist refused to email me back. You’ll notice the game isn’t on EA’s release schedule. I’ll stress again why this means something to you, the non-gamer, by quoting from my last post on the subject.

The video game industry is a bigger business than movies now, doing $9.9 billion in 2004. Microsoft sold $125 million in Halo 2 copies the first day it was out. Spiderman 2 — which, to date, had the highest-grossing opening weekend of all time — only did $114 million its first weekend.

So, it matters to you because it’s not going to be long before powerhouse publishers like Electronic Arts dip their hands into other forms of entertainment, and push smaller publishers out with their massive bankroll, which will be drastically fattened by what will become their near-monopoly on the football video game market.

EA has demonstrated itself, in a matter of only a few months, to be a poor steward of the NCAA license. More importantly, the company has shown it is willing to abuse its monopolistic position in the marketplace. And that could one day have far-reaching implications on media you view and listen to. Already, EA’s decision will push sports gamers further from the Gamecube platform, and Nintendo is powerless to call upon any company (including itself) to fill the void because of EA’s sole ownership of the license. That’s not right.