President of EA Sports responds to the UFC and their accusations

The news of the UFC ultimatum to all MMA fighters about cooperating with Electronic Arts for their upcoming MMA IP created a bit of a blow back for the UFC as Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta tried to counter reports of an outright ban and then turned their ire on EA. 

Lorenzo Fertitta (via MMA Payout),

"There is no such thing as banned, but this is something that does get under my skin and Dana's skin because when we had the opportunity to go out and build a video game who do you think the first people we called was? EA Sports... We sat in the room with them and I would have cut a worse deal just to be with EA Sports. I wanted them so bad. They looked at them and they told us they didn't think MMA was a sport. This was three years ago."    

Dana White (via MMA Weekly),

"I went to EA Sports," he said. "Know what EA Sports said? 'It's not a sport. This isn't a sport. We would never get involved in something like this.' We come out with a video game and now they want to come out with a video game? (Expletive) you."    

Peter Moore, the president of EA Sports responded in his official blog,

"I also saw the first playable of EA SPORTS MMA while at Tiburon last week. We have a team of incredibly hardcore fans of the sport working hard and making excellent progress, and we look forward to delivering a title in 2010 that we believe will provide further focus and attention to the sport.    

I know there has been some recent discussion about EA SPORTS bringing a challenger to this sport.  I love mixed martial arts, and we've been working on a game concept since I came to EA two years ago. I have great respect for the  organizations and individuals that have invested in the sport's growth over the past decade - so this is one that is near and dear to me and I'm excited to see such good progress to date.  I trace my MMA video game roots back to my support of Crave's UFC title on the Dreamcast in 2000, and have been a fan ever since. Our title will bring both innovation and further authenticity to mixed martial arts, not to mention a strong global publishing network that will help spread the sport's popularity around the world."

[For those of you who do not Peter Moore he also led Microsoft's Xbox division until leaving to go work at Electronic Arts.]

According to Moore, development began in 2007 which is when THQ announced that they were developing a UFC licensed MMA video game. Though didn't give any details regarding the studio developing the game or the game itself. There was a memorable trailer featuring Quinton Jackson and Chuck Liddell in 2007 right around UFC 71. 

Lorezno Fertitta states that they went to EA three years ago, making it around 2006, but EA was unwilling to do business. WKR contacted EA Sport PR and they directed us to Peter Moore's blog. In Moore's statement he tells us that EA was developing the game since he got there. So there is room for this supposed UFC-EA meeting before Moore took over the leadership role. 

Ivan Trembow identifies some of the holes in the UFC story

That is some nice revisionist history ....... The launch (and sales success) of UFC 2009: Undisputed came in May 2009. EA Sports has been working on an MMA video game since 2008, and multiple media outlets wrote about it in 2008, including MMA Payout and the Wrestling Observer.

The UFC's management was fully aware of the existence of EA's MMA game in 2008, as that was one of the major reasons that the UFC threatened its roster of fighters into signing away their lifetime exclusive video game rights for free (ie, to ensure that they couldn't appear in EA's game).    

Since THQ's MMA license is already on the market, and EA's is slated for 2010, a full year behind if it is released in May, it stands to reason that THQ had a year's head start. That would put THQ's development cycle at 2006 the time that Fertitta talks about the supposed EA meeting. 

However there is no indication that such a deal between THQ and the UFC occurred in 2006.