Video Games

[MR25]

Arch Manning and players like him are already raking in mucho bucks from other NIL deals. I don't feel too bad about them only getting $600 from EA.

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

It's not that I feel bad for them, just that, if I was their agent, I'd try to negotiate with EA for a bigger deal. And if they're not budging, it would be a business decision on if it makes sense or not. But Arch saying "no" now, while it won't really help him, could help future athletes with leverage

[Morkle]

So what are they going to do when potentially a majority of players don't sign NIL deals? Just go back to the number route?

[Rylan]

Randomize and move on with their lives like everyone else had and will.

[MR25]

Wasn't randomized before though, which is why there were issues causing the game to be discontinued.

Like in NCAA 14, despite being listed as Bama RB #42, any rational person would say "That's Eddie Lacy".

They did say they would approximate what the team historically had at that position if someone opts out.

[Rylan]

Yes, i get that. but we all moved on. In CFB theres not one player out of 11,000 that is needed for the game to be a success. and I would argue that if all 11,000 say no, that the game will still sell.

[tifosi77]

Re $$$ for college ball players in video games

$600 and a copy of the game?!? Luxury. They will sit on a stool in a brightly lit ring of lights and their face will be laser scanned. The process will take approximately five minutes of their time. That's it. That's their contribution. The 'benefit' of licensing the likeness of John Q Pussbucket the 9th OL from Passamaquoddy State is that it makes the game 'complete' and reduces the workload of having to come up with permutations of that player's name to block during character gen so you can't create an unlicensed likeness. That's............. I mean, really, that's it. That worth considerably less than $600 in my book, esp if you've got 10k other no-name future professional rug cleaners to do this with.

'Royalties' lol

A few actors/athletes will be doing the mocap, and those performers will be getting anywhere from a few hundo to maybe a thousand or so (probably not a free copy of the game, tho). Their work will be leveraged across 100s of different player models.

Only speaking from my own experience here. The first party studios at Sony would come to the office once a year and get employees to volunteer for facial scans to be rendered as background characters in games. Sign a waiver, do it for free on your lunch break, now you're immortalized forever as some rando sitting in the stands in right field of Petco Park in MLB The Show '17, or 'villager #18' that Aloy walks past in the next Horizon game.

[tifosi77]

$600 + a copy of the game is hilariously insulting.

I mean, that's certainly one way to look at it. Another way is EA is on the hook for almost $7MM if 11,000 players opt in, before ever selling a copy of the game. Bigger name players will get their NIL $$ elsewhere, so this is more of a 'everyone gets something' deal.

Royalties is kinda funny. Let's say they sell 10 million copies at $70, which would be bonkers. That's $700MM in sales. What's a fair royalty to put into a pot? 1%? That leaves $7MM to divide among 11,000 estimated opt ins. That's......$636 dollars a person.

It's moot, anyway. Video games don't pay royalties. Certain AAA games might have talent deals for a couple key actors - who are also doing mocap/performance-cap, voice, promotional and advertising work, etc - that carry some sort of ongoing participation, but that's not what we're talking about here.

[nocera]

What I’ve learned from all of this is that I should tell everybody I shoot that it’s for a video game. Apparently that pays much worse.

[tifosi77]

It's contextual. People do not actually appear in a video game, their digital likeness does, after dozens if not hundreds of artists have a go at reconstructing their image. They aren't being represented as a photographed being.

Actors - like, professional-ass unionized actors - might get $1500 for a whole day's work on a game, $2k on the very high end. More typical is a few hundred bucks and a very perfunctory thank you. In this case, it's even less than a game actor typically gets as day player because the sportsballers aren't required to actually do anything; EA could accomplish 95% of the same effect using publicly-available assets.

[NTP66]

Cleaning out my basement I came across my old MSI GTX 1650. I figured I'd just let it sit down there, assuming it had no value, but checking eBay they're still going for $75-100. Guess I know what I'm doing with it now.

Had somebody contact me last night asking how quickly I could ship the card after it sold. I told them if they paid before noon, it would be in the mail that same day. Later in the night, he sent me another message saying "send me an offer for $90 and I'll buy it right now". How about no? I'm already listing this for less than other 1650s, and offering free shipping. Either make an offer or use Buy It Now. I guess he waited too long, because somebody else paid full price for it in the middle of the night.

[MR25]

In the first 12 hours of the deal being open, 5000+ athletes out of the 11,000ish have already signed their deals.

[Rylan]

Helldivers 2 has been an absolute blast (when I actually have been in game)

[tifosi77]

In the first 12 hours of the deal being open, 5000+ athletes out of the 11,000ish have already signed their deals.

As they should do. Outside of this extremely narrow (and time-limited) context, their name and likeness rights have absolutely no incremental value; I mean, you give those rights away for free when you attend a televised sporting event.

[Morkle]

Helldivers 2 has been an absolute blast (when I actually have been in game)

Love it, love it, love it. SO refreshing to not be a MP game that requires competition to and against each other. Just log in with friends, and go mindless and see what happesns.

[Rylan]

Helldivers 2 has been an absolute blast (when I actually have been in game)

Love it, love it, love it. SO refreshing to not be a MP game that requires competition to and against each other. Just log in with friends, and go mindless and see what happesns.

My first rounds were with randoms, and by the 2nd mission I was yelling for them to get back from a bug breach. lol I ended up staying up way later than I wanted to because I was just enjoying my time in game.

[Morkle]

Yea, it's pretty easy to get lost in time, imo. I play 2-5 missions a night and force myself to log off lol.

[Morkle]

https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootba ... llege-game

EA saying it will prevent manual addition of players who don't accept NIL deal. So does that mean they're removing the ability to edit rosters? That doesn't seem very clear. If that's the case, huge miss.

[dodint]

In #14 Smith is QB for TEAM it wouldn't be hard to block the creation of #14 Smith for TEAM by a user. I'm certain it can be done (and updated by EA) via a simple reference table.

[Morkle]

Sure but then that alters any chance of that going forward the year after for the next release. So that reference table might have a couple thousand name and combo numbers that just cause issues for naming overall.

It shouldn't matter - they could just as easily make them randomized at those positions with different numbers, and names, sizes, and if the player re-edits them, oh well.

[nocera]

They’ll block the names the same way they block the racist and inappropriate names in other games. And just like in other games, people will find a way to sneak by the censor.

[Morkle]

I don't doubt it, it just seems like overkill when they could just completely randomize players in positions that didn't sign up. This seems more aimed at targeting people who spend days configuring rosters like the people at Operation Sports than it does anything else.

[MR25]

Because they want to avoid any issues where a player's name, image, or likeness is used without their consent because that means lawsuit time.

My assumption is that there's going to be a multi-step checklist for it, like

- Team
- First name
- Last name

If all 3 match/if the first two match, it locks you out of either entering the name or selecting the last name of that player.

[Rylan]

I go back to, Helldivers II for $40 is an absolute steal. I really cant think of the last time I played a multiplayer game that I enjoyed this completely.

[Morkle]

I go back to, Helldivers II for $40 is an absolute steal. I really cant think of the last time I played a multiplayer game that I enjoyed this completely.

Yup. For the price, no pay to win, just jump in and play without toxic ****. It’s sublime.