Taken from UFC

Jun 23, 2009 08:18 GMT  ·  By

One of the important announcements that Electronic Arts made at this year’s E3 was that it sought to expand the EA Sports line up by adding a mixed martial arts series, which would be known as EA Sports MMA.

The game was said to receive the same attention that the company offers well-known franchises like Madden NFL, FIFA or NBA.

The only problem with the MMA concept is that most of the fighters who could appear in such a title have their image rights managed by a firm called Zuffa, which has already sold rights for the UFC to THQ. The publisher's first release using them, UFC 2009: Undisputed, has already moved more than 2 million units and proved to be a success.

So, Electronic Arts could be left in the unfortunate position of creating a fighting game populated with unknown characters that use slightly different names than in reality or sport radically different looks. Still, the company seems confident in its ability to attract famous names.

Peter Moore, who is the head of EA Sports, told Gamasutra that “We are looking obviously at every fighter that we can, that we feel is applicable from a quality level and then analyzing their image rights, and if they're available and we want them - then we'll get them. If they're not then we'll move on to the next fighter.”

Until now, EA Sports has not announced who are the fighters it has signed to the MMA franchise, but leaked reports are saying that Fedor Emelianenko and Gegard Mousasi are set for a photo tour on behalf of the new game and will probably be featured in it.

Tim Sylvia, a former champion in the UFC, and Randy Couture also seem to have given Electronic Arts the rights to their image, but the publisher has refused to confirm these signings, saying that official information will only be released once the line up for the game is certain.