Last December, EA acquired the exclusive license to produce NFL games. Many videogame fans became upset with EA since Visual Concept’s NFL 2k series wouldn’t be made anymore. Midway was actually able to stick it big with its newest Blitz title which sold above expectations.

Based upon a GameDaily story, Electronics Arts also tried to obtain the exclusive rights to the NHL license. EA was turned down though by the hockey league because the league believes that “choice is good” and consumers should have more than one option for a hockey game. It must have taken a lot to stand up to EA, but was it the right decision for the NHL? Theoretically, more hockey games on the market means competition within the genre, so you should expect to see better hockey games than what we’d be seeing had the license been exclusively given to EA.

Of course EA makes the argument that it would still work to make the best hockey game possible not only to save face but also because its newest sports games compete with older iterations in the series. After all, if you have Madden NFL 2005 but 2006’s version is hardly any different, why on earth would you go out and buy 2006?

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