In a modern era, it is not uncommon to find children and adults alike engrossed in technology, and one of the biggest pieces of technology is the video game system.
From the primitive beginnings of the Atari, to the complexity of the Xbox One and PS4, video games have been developed to make the games more realistic in an attempt to attract players. Unfortunately, in this attempt, Electronic Arts (EA), a game developer, has taken such great attempts to emulate real life that they have literally made college football come alive in NCAA 14, losing the NCAA series altogether.
Now, based on the opening paragraph, you may wonder what is wrong with a game that emulates real life?. The fact is when EA created NCAA 14, it was one of 16 games that copied player likeness. QB #16 for the University of California, would be none other than the number one draft pick this year, Jared Goff. And everyone realized that, yet he remained a nameless doppleganger of Goff. Now at this point, another question might pop up: Why does it matter that Jared Goff and QB #16 are the same thing? The reason is that the players are not, and cannot be compensated for their images being used in the game, as it is in direct violation of the NCAA rules. Hence, players like Goff are essentially being used by EA to make money, without getting paid themselves.
At this point, you may be fully in support of the players, as you should be. They deserve compensation for the work they do. But unfortunately, the NCAA prohibits student athletes from “receiving compensation for items sold or used from a sporting event”. This rule is inclusive to the player's likeness. The student athletes, obviously angry at this rule, because a mega-corporation was making millions of dollars in revenues of their work, filed a lawsuit against EA in 2015 and settled in 2016 for $60 million dollars, under the condition that EA did not make any more of the NCAA series games. But this led to a problem: thousands of fans, including myself were deprived of the opportunity to enjoy the pageantry, the fans and most importantly the game.
So what’s the solution: from EA’s view it would make more sense to make the games for free: after all, what to do the players need the money for? On the other hand look at it from the player's standpoint: all the work that they do may one day end up in a starting spot on an NFL roster, the chances though are unlikely, so they might as well make money while they can get it. The solution: to compensate the players, thus satiating their needs, and by producing NCAA games again, EA’s revenue would show a drastic increase, thus earning back the money that was spent on player compensation.
College athletes are some of the most hardworking people out there. An average college athlete spends nearly 44 hours a week on a sport, which comes on top of school as well as a job. It’s time that the NCAA stops treating them as amateurs because what they do is a job, for many athletes, it’s the only reason they bother attending college. And by a rule that refuses athletes compensation for their work, game developers such as EA lose out on money that could’ve been made making fans, such as you and me happy.
