| Today's top tech stories: The college football season kicks off this Saturday—another reminder for gamers that the virtual one still isn't here yet. In February, Electronic Arts announced it will bring back its much-beloved college football video game, but details about the title are still scarce. The game, expected to be called EA Sports College Football, is generally thought to be slated for release in the summer of 2023. But it will probably look different from the college football games EA published up until 2013. That's when the game ran into legal troubles after college athlete Ed O'Bannon and a slew of other students argued they should be compensated for use of their names and likeness. The legal woes led to the game's development being put on hold. A lot has changed since then. In June, the Supreme Court ruled that the NCAA, which gives student athletes scholarships, can't limit their pay, opening the door to compensation for use of their personas in video games. But EA likely needs to score a group licensing deal for all college teams before it can start making payments to players. At this point, EA appears to be moving ahead without actual player characters, though a different outcome is still possible. The company said that right now, it's working closely with its exclusive licensing partners at CLC, the collegiate trademark licensing company, to only include logos, venues, uniforms and gameday traditions from more than 100 schools. "We believe that we can build an extraordinary college football game in the absence of name, image and likeness in partnership with the schools," EA CEO Andrew Wilson said in a call with investors in August. "We're looking to do that." But Wilson also said that it is "very possible" that the company could find a way to incorporate names as the rules evolve. The company is building the game so that if it's permitted to include player personas, they can be added back "very seamlessly." Many analysts think EA needs to use athletes' names and likeness for the game to do well. Because of the uncertainty over the rules, industry watchers are projecting lower sales for the game than for Madden NFL, said Matthew Kanterman, an analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence. "Having the institutions is OK, but really it is about having the actual players, being able to upgrade those players, etc. that gets consumers excited in sports games," said David Cole, founder of researcher DFC Intelligence. "EA's model is to get consumers to upgrade every year for new players. That doesn't work when it is just logos, stadiums, etc."
Still, there are plenty of believers out there who assume that when the game is finally released, everything will have been sorted out. EA Sports' college football account on Twitter already has 163,000 followers, even though it has only tweeted twice, in February. As football season picks up, the number of hopeful players is likely to only grow. —Olga Kharif in Portland As climate change triggers more natural disasters, a startup called Kettle AI is trying to help insurance companies cope with the damage. Apple's Tim Cook is poised for a $750 million payout. The NFT industry is marred by "certain profit-seeking practices." The biggest victim of the DeFi hack got its money back. A Toyota supplier warns that the chip shortage could last through 2022. Dell's sales and profits last quarter topped expectations as demand for PCs has stayed high. | 
@♣¤〖S.T.r.e.a.m〗 2020 Songbird Full Movie Online released 2020. story: During a pandemic lockdown, Nico, a young man with rare immunity, m...
Post a Comment