Up to their old tricks again... EA Sports, the masters at hook and crook, have charged gamers who have spent the MSRP of $59.99 for Madden '10 an additional $10 just for the ability to play the online franchise with friends.

Why? Since when did they start charging for online playing? Was there a charge for NHL '09's online leagues? Or even NCAA Football 10's online dynasty? Just another example of them trying to milk their cash cow at the expense of gamers. I'll assume that they did not want to charge for NHL since gamers could switch over to NHL 2K9, (although not as good as their game) and alienate them. And NCAA Football is no where near as popular as Madden so not too much money to make there either.

It is understandable that EA is trying to make money and be profitable, but nickel and diming your consumers only because you are the only NFL licensed football game in town is lame. Had there been a NFL 2K9 there is absolutely NO WAY this would have been done. I have never played ESPN 2K5 by 2K Sports, but to this day people rave how great it was/is, and how the latest editions of Madden do not compare.

This is why exclusivity sucks... the gamers pay the price for lame efforts by gaming companies, instead of them putting their best foot forward.

"Instead of improving that this year, let's make them wait until next year's edition so they will buy it and have something to look forward to."

That appears to be EA's motto. Not only do they appear to be doing that, but they are charging gamers for features that are normally free. Hopefully their exclusive licensing rights will be up soon and gamers can return to a healthy gaming competition of gaming companies putting out their best product for gamers to enjoy at a fair cost.

Their new motto should be: "If it's in the game, we'll sell it to you next year!"

I usually reserve this blog for videogame issues, but I have to get this off my chest. Just finished watching Game 1 of the NBA playoff series between the Boston Celtics and the Orlando Magic. Orlando won the game 95-90 after blowing a 28 point lead. In the series Orlando should be the favorite due to the Celtics losing their Hall of Fame worthy forward Kevin Garnett for playoffs. Orlando's superstar center Dwight Howard finished with 16pts. (6-12 field goals) 22 rebounds and 3 blocks.

Orlando Head Coach Stan Van Gundy, along with others, must go!!!

Here goes... Orlando center Dwight Howard is considered by many to be the best at his position in the NBA. The Celtics have no one talented enough to consistently challenge him; starting center Kendrick Perkins is the lone man trusted with that task. Should Orlando constantly feed Howard the ball in the post he should score consistently on Perkins as well as get him in foul trouble sending him to the bench with the Celtics having virtually NO ONE after him to guard Howard. Next in line would be 6'8" Glenn 'Big Baby' Davis... by the way Howard is 6'11" with extraordinary leaping ability. There's no way Howard should have only had 12 field goal attempts! Every offensive possession down the floor for Orlando should have gone into the post to Howard with him scoring or dishing off for an easy assist.

This is Van Gundy's fault... as the coach he calls the plays and should have firmly instructed his players to feed the ball to Howard! Me, Magic Johnson, Julius Erving and that old guy from that T-Mobile 'Old School' commercial could have won that game easily by going to your 'bread and butter' Dwight Howard all game long. Picture Shaquille O'Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon or David Robinson only getting 12 shot attempts per game... not going to happen!

His teammates deserve blame too. Rashard Lewis is a 6'9" shooting guard masquerading as a power forward who's only moves are shoot and try to shoot. His only ambition is to get himself going offensively jacking up three pointers like he's at the All-Star game competition. I love fellow Queens native Rafer 'Skip to My Lou' Alston, but he's not realizing the need to feed the post either and I expect more from the playground legend. Skip would be great on this team as the point guard on the second unit.

Bottom line, remove Van Gundy for a coach like Avery Johnson, someone who will ensure that the game plan is ran and will hold his players accountable for not playing defense. Trade away Lewis for a true power forward (someone Charles Oakley-like) and attain a playmaking point guard (Chris Paul may very well be available) and this could be a team that contends for many championships, doing something even the great Shaquille O'Neal couldn't do... bring the Larry O'Brien Championship trophy to Orlando.

Paying for clothing is nothing new, matter of fact its an everyday common practice; don't pay and you're likely to get arrested for indecent exposure.

Lately there's been an uprising over the need to pay for fashion. If you're not aware this uprising is currently happening on XBox Live's NXE (New Xbox Experience). One of the biggest additions of NXE was the gamer avatar where you can customize your online appearance to look the way you want, similar to Nintendo's Miis. Now there's a lot of talk of how Microsoft is planning on charging gamers a fee to add to their avatar's wardrobe. If this is true, then just two words... bad idea!

It's accepted that XBL gamers pay monthly fee's to play online and those fee's make it so that Microsoft can provide certain services (whatever they may be) or pay for downloaded game content (multiplayer maps, additional missions, etc.) but gamers get tired of being 'nickel and dimed' over every download. Solution... here's an idea that's hopefully been tossed around.

You receive gamer points for unlocking achievements in 360 games, so why not use the gamer score as a bank account used to purchase avatar clothing. Besides showing off for others to see, what other use does the gamer score have? Some individuals have wondered what's so important about achievements? Using this system achievements have more meaning and the gamer puts in more time playing the Publisher's game to unlock that next achievement getting more points just to buy those 'new boots' for their avatar.

Or here's another suggestion... publishers can reward gamers for those really impressive achievements; for example Call of Duty 4's Mile High Club achievement. Give the gamer a Special Ops outfit with the avatar wearing a parachute, chute on the ground with COD 4 written on it; that let's everyone know where exactly the outfit came from giving the game more profile with others who see the avatar dressed this way. Or a COD 4 t-shirt for getting half the achievements in the game.

Companies gave away free gamerpics and themes as promotions for movies, TV shows and so on. Now this can be done in the form of clothing for NXE avatars. Punisher War Zone premiered today... give away Punisher t-shirts for avatars, many different ways of approaching this idea. Gamers love the avatars, but hate the idea of paying to clothe them... shucks I've grown tired of paying to clothe ME. Think I'm going to head down to the Salvation Army for second hand clothes after I finish writing this.