Amidst the civil unrest of the past few days, many companies have taken to Twitter to support the protesters and EA Sports is now among them. An official statement posted to the Madden NFL account makes their stance clear on the matter:
An official statement from EA SPORTS pic.twitter.com/MKdgJjvKJB
— Madden NFL 20 (@EAMaddenNFL) May 31, 2020
According to the statement, the publisher has decided to forgo tomorrow’s release of their new trailer for the upcoming Madden 21 and instead will be focusing “on actions we can take to drive change against the unjust treatment and systemic bias that is plaguing the nation and our world.” How they will go about this has not been clarified at this time.
There is still the EA Play event happening on June 11th so it’s unclear on how this will impact it, if at all. Madden 21 was officially announced during the Inside Xbox showcase on May 7th and will launch this August for PC, PS4, and Xbox One. Most likely the game will also be coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X once those consoles launch. Here’s hoping the team can impress as we head toward EA Play. And during the Stadia Connect in April, Google Vice President Phil Harrison announced EA will be bringing five games to the game streaming platform including Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Madden NFL, and FIFA.
It’s interesting to note that, according to Variety, NFL owners have already voted to extend EA Sports’ exclusivity agreement with the league this week as part of the agenda for a now virtual spring meeting. EA will retain the exclusive rights to produce simulation-based NFL games up until the 2026 campaign. The NFL’s deal, approved via vote by owners on Thursday, is worth more than $1 billion per year, according to one of the sources. And the NFL has also released their own statement in support of the same protests (which contradicts their initial stance on Colin Kaepernick’s protests a few years back).
The post EA Sports Releases Statement on Black Lives Matters Protests, Will Not Air New Trailer Tomorrow by Allisa James appeared first on DualShockers.