After the fall of THQ, EA decided to return to the fighting game genre by acquiring the UFC license from the publisher, hoping to attract the Fight Night audience and a new generation of players.
This was a win-win for EA for many reasons: UFC has blown up and is arguably bigger than boxing due to the sheer brutality and stakes of the sport and EA doesn’t have to pay individual fighters to use their likeness like in Fight Night. The reason for this is because when EA was negotiating with the UFC, UFC didn’t make any requirement that EA has to give compensation to the fighters featured in the game.
UFC fighter Kajan Johnson has publicly spoken out by saying it’s “disgraceful” and thinks the fighters are being cheated out of a paycheck.
“I think it’s disgraceful, actually. I think it’s insane,” he told BloodyElbow.com. “I don’t understand how we’re supposed to be such a forward-thinking society, how we’re OK with a giant corporation exploiting the people like this. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”
Kajan Johnson also notes that pretty much every other athlete put into other sports games are compensated fairly but the UFC is the exception.
“Across every single other sport, whether it’s NFL, NBA, MLB, those athletes that are in that game are making money. If they’re using their face and their likeness and their name, they’re gonna be compensated for it. And we’re not — it’s not even on the table for discussion really.”
While it would be easy for gamers to rally behind Johnson and blame EA for another screw-up, he says this massive error falls on the UFC pretty much exclusively.
“I have no problem with UFC 3, I love the EA Sports people. I’m actually pretty close to all those guys who made that game, they’re great people. I have no problem with that company, they’re looking out for them. Once again, the UFC has failed to look out for our best interests when negotiating with another company,” Johnson said. “It’s the UFC’s fault. It’s not EA’s fault. I have no problem with EA, I have no problem with the game, I got a problem with the UFC.”
Johnson went on to say that some fighters are completely oblivious to what’s actually happening and are promoting the game left and right. Johnson has even been lead to believe that the fighters aren’t even getting a copy of the game unless they make a post on social media.
“I got a problem with all the other followers posting ‘Go get the game, go get the game! I’m going to make this post so I can get a free copy!’ The fact that you have to make a fucking post in order to get a free copy of the game that your face is in,” said Johnson. “Everybody and their fucking dog is posting about this game. Are you not even thinking of the fucking money that we all just lost? Are you not even thinking about this massive TV deal that’s coming through, that we’re getting zero points on? What the f-ck. On what planet? It’s insane.” said Johnson.
“I’m heavily fucking disappointed. I’m getting more and more disappointed with the rest of the fighters, because nobody is saying anything. Everyone is willing to lay down and beg at the fucking door. We own the fucking house – we are the house, we are the product. Without us, there’s no show. Yet we’re begging [the UFC]? For what? I don’t get it. I don’t understand how everyone doesn’t see what I see.”
While some may scoff at Johnson since he’s an athlete and most assume they get loads of money from sponsorships, fights, and what not, Johnson wants to stick up for those at the top and bottom of the organization. Some fighters only fight twice a year and he wants to ensure that they get some money to help keep them afloat throughout the year if EA is going to keep including them in the game.
“The statistics from what I’m looking at, people are fighting twice a year, dude. Twice a year, three times a year max. Then you have a couple people like Cowboy who went on this ‘I’m going to fight seven times a year’ probably just for money. It’s crazy, the amount of money that we’re actually making compared to what the company is making. I’m sick of even saying this, something has to change and nothing is changing, it’s driving me insane.”
Johnson stated that he’s one of the few fighters who actually got paid because he helped work on the game and others provided mocap but he wants to form some sort of union to ensure others get the proper compensation.
“We need to form a body, for sure, we need to form a union,” Johnson said. “But the union can’t be a typical union. And from what I’ve seen on Twitter lately, the whole NLRB (The National Labor Relations Board) thing is not doing all that well under (U.S. President Donald) Trump right now. But we need to form a union, but not just for UFC. If it’s just for UFC, it solidifies their monopoly. We need an ACTRA- or an SAG-type model for a union.”
You can listen to the full interview with Johnson below.
EA Sports’ UFC 3 is out now on Xbox One and PS4.
