Written by Glenn | 16 August 2011

Think about how you get your tips and strategies in whatever competitive game you play. There's sites out there that provide a lot of info on how to be successful. Then there's sites that produce just cheat codes. Either way, you're getting something from going to those sites.

What would you do if you couldn't access those sites anymore? How would you get your tips and strategies? Would you just YouTube it all day? 

When I was trying to get 9,999 online points in Mario Kart Wii, I hit up Mindscarp's YouTube portal to look at how the world-record holders accomplished their feats. There really isn't a site dedicated to Mario Kart strategies, so that was the best option.

That's hardly the case in Madden. There are plenty of sites that offer tips on how to gain an advantage. However, there are also sites out there that do a mix of cheat codes and real tips.

And in most cases, you have to pay to get the real good juice.

Apparently, EA Sports is trying to stop the paywall.

Shopmaster over at MyMaddenPad shares his thoughts on several Madden tips sites being told to stop charging for tips and cheats as of Monday. I believe this was an issue a couple years ago, but it wasn't made known. 

Now that EA and Prima Games have upped the ante by promoting their own site with tips and info, it seems as though the idea is to get players to go there for their fix.

But what about the guys whose bread and butter was made by selling tips and cheats on these secondary sites?

As I was writing this entry this morning, I tried to go on a couple sites and received error messages, so appearently this is for real.

Here's some thoughts from Shopmaster:

I reached out this past week to a number of Madden websites that sell Madden Guides and inquired about the issue and if they received a letter from EA’s Intellectual Property Office.  So far, I know about 4 websites have received this letter and some haven’t received the letter yet but fully expect to be put on notice soon.  Most don’t want to be identified but was kind enough to share their thoughts on this matter.

 

My biggest question is “Why now?”.  Some of these guys have been doing this for years; they are not doing anything new now.  They’ve always sold guides with videos that broke down their tips in a better fashion than just a PDF that told you how to set it up in text.  So what’s the big deal? Some of these guys are just passionate about the game and breaking down plays.  I’ve had the pleasure to meet some of these guys in person and I remember this one guy started breaking down plays with french fries.  His site is among those that are being shut down.

After talking to multiple people, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not EA at all that is demanding that these sites get shut down.  It is my opinion that the popular strategy guide company Prima Games is putting pressure on EA to shut these sites out.  Now these are strictly my opinions and one else’s but it all makes sense.

I’m a big supporter of Prima Games and the guides they sell for NCAA Football and Madden NFL Football games.  Their strategy guides are good and with my good friends Sgibs and Zfarls doing the guides this year, I expect them to be even better and the NCAA Football 12 one I have is better just not as detailed as some of these NCAA Strategy guides that others have created.   I didn’t think Prima would let them create that kind of guide.  The Official Strategy Guides that Prima prints are just bare knuckle, basic stuff even though I did see some new things this year with Sgibs and Zfarls at the control.   That being said it has never competed with the details that these website were giving out with the video breakdowns.  Prima has never been able to compete with that …… until now.

Now I know a lot of people here are fighting game followers. Is there a site out there that makes people pay to get tips? I can't think of one out there. They probably would get laughed at anyway.