EA censors Colin Kaepernick's name in Madden 19

IGN Article

Wow EA, that's pretty stupid.

What world am I living in now? I don't understand this at all other than EA is afraid they might piss off a certain percentage of people buying Madden games. Even if that is the case, first I would wager that most of the people buying Madden either support Colin or don't care about this issue and second, keep politics out of your SPORTS video games, please.

What do you guys think about this?

"We made an unfortunate mistake with our Madden NFL soundtrack. Members of our team misunderstood the fact that while we don’t have rights to include Colin Kaepernick in the game, this doesn’t affect soundtracks."

This is a good "Oh shit, don't sue us, it was a legitimate mistake" excuse. It's bullshit, but it's a decent cover story for their actions.

I was hoping it was just a trademark usage concern, if they censored his named for any other reason they can buzz off.

Although this can’t be the first time a non-playing NFL player has been in a song...

@mikemcn: Ya I guess that would really determine if they're just covering themselves or not. I'm not ready to instantly jump on the 'fuck EA' bandwagon just yet. It smells fishy, but for now I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

This is such a weird story on so many levels.

My initial response to their excuse was that it was complete bullshit, but then when I thought about it I find it very hard to believe that EA would intentionally censor his name assuming that nobody would notice. Like, nobody who bought Madden was a Big Sean fan, and knows that Kaepernick's name is missing from the song? And then post about it on social media so the story gets picked up and become a PR nightmare? And if EA thought they needed to avoid a mention of Kaepernick for political reasons, why would they put two songs on the soundtrack that mention him by name and then censor it? They couldn't pick any other songs to use, or they noticed too late?

I think that if I allowed myself to believe that the censoring was intentional and they really are that stupid, I might lose whatever faith I had left in the human race.

@theoriginalatlas: Exactly. Its more noticeable to censor it than it is to leave at be. Or to your point, just leave the song out entirely. I think this is just an EA witch Hunt scenario. Don't get me wrong, they've definitely nficked up many things as of late and I get the hate...but this may be a time I side with them.

Either way, I wasn't planning on buying their recycled sports trash anyways.

They won't be getting my support, so I don't have to worry whether or not I'm supporting a shit bag company.

So i only watch "American Football" when it's the Superbowl, this guy is SF49'er right? also what did he do? that EA thought it be okay to remove his name? (this is coming from a Football lackey).

@soulcake: He was the guy that started kneeling during the National Anthem, which a lot of other players followed and now it's this huge issue in the league (A lot of military organizations help fund the NFL and got them all pissy, it's a political problem, half of NFL's fans are morons and are making it more complicated than it needs to be, it's a mess).

Anyways, Kap is off the 49ers right now, but everyone in the world knows that the dude is talented enough to be on a team somewhere as a backup but no owner is willing to take a chance on the guy, and Kaepernick is currently in a lawsuit against the NFL along with several other players that stood with Kaepernick with this issue. I believe that's all the context you need to know. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong on anything.

Anyways, why in the world would EA include this song in their game in the first place? Seems like a gigantic oversight by everybody within the company... maybe they wanted to make some kind of message, and then decided to censor out that message? Completely baffling.

@turboman: Thanks for the info!

i'll guess EA will be releasing Vince McMahon's XFL 2019 next year.... instead of a other John Madden NFL game.

Given that EA has the exclusive license of the making NFL games, and that the NFL organization is trying to double down on making the kneeling issue to just go away, I honestly have little doubt that someone high up in the executive chain ordered a complete scrub of Kaepernick's name from the game. The higher ups probably had no knowledge a song they licensed had his name in it and the lower developers were simply following the letter and intent of the order without wasting the song license.

I really doubt the team leader in charge of scrubbing Colin's name from the song didn't double check with their own superiors.

If they are censoring Colin Kaepernick, then they damn well better include the option for silent protest in the locker room.

PS: The NFL is a joke. If only they spent half as much time on domestic abuse or CTE issues as they have this kneeling issue.

@captain_insano: When I read that, I thought: "Someone in PR had to have gotten a raise for this." It's really grossly impressive.

I can't speak for ex-NFL players, but I know for sure some NBA players are referenced on this soundtrack. That Kamaiyah/Schoolboy Q song definitely talks about Kobe.

Others are pointing out this isn't a radio edit of the song, it's an edit made using the song's stems that only cuts out the Kaepernick reference. It'd be pretty fair to guess it was an edit made for this game.

@turboman: What exactly is the problem with kneeling during the anthem? Is this just supposed to be disrespectful or something?

EA's response to this is hilariously transparent.

@sessh: It is a peaceful protest that is being purposefully being misunderstood in bad faith.

@ballsleon: @kingbonesaw: Okay, that's completely ridiculous than and a real bad showing by EA, which I guess, shouldn't surprise anyone sadly.

So while it's entirely possible that the explanation is bullshit, in this instance I am actually inclined to believe them. Having worked in corporate legal departments, I can easily envision a scenario in which wires got crossed sending a question up and down the chain.

For example, someone on the dev team hears the song, and because they work intimately with the actual game, they know they don't have the rights to use Colin Kapernick as a player likeness, but because they aren't a lawyer, they aren't sure if that also extends to the song lyrics. So they figure "We should ask Legal first to be sure."

So the question gets sent up the chain, but because the devs aren't lawyers, it gets phrased in such a way that it isn't clear to the Legal department that they are talking about the song lyrics rather than the likeness. In other words the question easily could have gotten phrased like "Hi guys, quick question - If we don't have the rights to use Colin Kapernick, can we use his name in the game?"

Then the Legal department, because they are very busy and the question looks very simple, take the question at face value without following up like they should and assume the dev team is talking about a player likeness. So the answer that gets passed back down from Legal is "If you don't have the rights, don't use him. We could get sued."

Then that gets interpreted by the dev team as "Oh, shit. We better bleep that name out of the song so we don't get in trouble."

So everyone has acted in good faith but the situation get fucked up anyway.

Or it could just be PR and corporate being a bunch of jerks. It IS EA.

Can we censor out players' faces in the game that have like, arrest records for domestic abuse?

I remember when Def Jam Fight for NY came out, in Redman's 'Let's Get Dirty' on the Xbox version they cut out the line:

"My dress code is all black when I'm makin the moves
Similar to the new Playstation 2"

I always rename them, cut them and edit them down to 12 (lowest rating) so no one will sign them.

Welp, I'm not surprised that EA dropped the ball on this one. Normally I'd say "Damned if you do, damned if you don't" when a developer and/or publisher has to pick a lesser evil, in this case between triggering those who are anti-Kaepernick and acting like he's Voldemort. But to go with plan B but also include songs that mention Kaepernick by name, like, yeah it's a political shit sandwich where everyone involved is taking a bite, but EA can't seem to get a goddamn thing right these days by just having him in the game.

Hah, jesus, what a fuck-up.