Dick move or dickiest move?

HA! EA on the wrong end of a licensing issue.

Not that think one company should have exclusive rights or anything, but this is EA...

I think you guys are missing it a bit here: it's the potential individual human beings that want to make something of themselves in the UFC that ultimately suffer for this. EA will just pull an "NFL Blitz" and create Ron Mexico-esque characters: they'll be fine.

This is almost too funny to be true

If you follow UFC at all you'd not be surprised by this, Jim.

They pretty much blacklist any fighters that leave UFC to fight for another league too. This is no different.

UFC sucks.

Go watch Rugby.

Bah, EA is still going to make millions. No need to worry for them people.

Dana white is an absolute genius, granted the people hurt are just guys looking to do their craft but White is a business man, a very smart business man, this is just another logical business move.

Hey Volcanon. You have a sexy girl in your avatar.

I can understand all of the EA hate but seriously they really have improved there image from past fuck ups.

Unlike Activision which is basically the new EA in terms of Dick Moves.

Not a big surprise. Didn't they let a fighter go last year who wouldn't sign away lifetime rights to use his likeness for UFC games??

Who ISN'T banned from UFC?

So they're banning Fedor from UFC?

Who are they kidding?

yeah wise, but dick move is dick move

Sucks, but... well it's business. I loved UFC Undisputed, but if EA makes a better MMA game, I'll play it regardless of it having big names or not. I don't watch UFC, but I like fun games.

The amount of smack talk that's gone on between Dana and Fedor (actually it's more like the amount of smack talk that Dana has dished out on to Fedor and Fedor has replied politely) will probably make it so that he never fights in the UFC. Who knows though, if Kimbo Slice can get a chance then I'm sure once Fedor's contract is up with Affliction maybe Dana will offer huge amounts of money to have him fight in the UFC. Aside from a few guys, the heavyweight division is pretty stagnant when compared to all the others in terms of talent so the UFC needs a guy like Fedor.

@ Diverse

LOL

Wouldn't surprise me.
Dana White didn't get the UFC on top by being Merciful. It doesn't change the fact that no one likes playing as generics, and Pro Evo was the exception to the rule, but still fell under it. Even when Pro Evo was the best Footy game, I still only played as the licensed teams.

I wouldn't play a game where I had to fight as Wallace "Mild Destruction" Mackson versus Jungle Simpson. Unless the game play is miles better than UFC Undisputed like Pro Evo was to Fifa in the PS2 era, which is unlikely.

How is this a surprise to anyone?

Sounds like Dana White allright.

In any case, it depends on if it is indeed a blanket blacklisting for everyone, regardless of promotional affiliations, or if it only concerns fighters who have at some point fought in the UFC.

The UFC contracts require fighters to sign over rights to use their likeness in games/toys/whatever for all eternity basically. Even after leaving the UFC. So it's quite possible this concerns mainly fighters that are out of the UFC, but the still UFC "owns" the rights to, like for example; Barnett, the Shamrock's, Arlovski, Sylvia, Ortiz and so on. Which is still a considerable list of fighters.

In any case, I would love an MMA game that showcased MMA fighters outside of the UFC. There is a whole world of MMA outside of the UFC, and so many people are missing out on some amazing fighters if they think the UFC is all there is to MMA.

reminds me of when they dropped John Fitch and his group when they didn't sign contracts that let the UFC use their likenesses forever before UFC Unleashed came out.

I'd totally believe it. UFC can be bitches when it comes to licensing. Didn't they force some guy to leave because he didn't sign on to the UFC game? Then he came back after giving away his rights.

I kind of hope that, if this rumor is true, it will lead to a lawsuit against Dana White and UFC and, hopefully, UFC is forced to change the contracts they have for the fighters to something that lets them retain control over their likeness when they leave (because that whole bit with the likenesses is extremely anti-competitive, and I'm surprised nobody's blown the whistle on this yet to the FTC).

@kingtobo. No, they really don't EA has improved a lot since the days where they were consistently more evil. Yes, they still have exclusivity on the NFL licence and the Arena Football licence, but they're getting better (if anything, Activision is significantly more evil, almost as bad as Nintendo of America was in the late 80s, early 90s.