Reuters, AP -- Riding what can only be described as a licensing title wave, EA is set to announce that it has brokered an exclusive licensing agreement with God, The Almighty.

In an unofficial statement, Larry Probst said, "Well, we really feel it was a good deal for us. I mean, we have a quite a few titles that feature God in them, such as Populus, Black and White, and even The Sims, just to name a few. We felt that it was in our best interests to get the exclusive on Him before anyone else had the chance to snap Him up."

The contract is speculated to hold God to an exclusive five year deal with EA, including using His likeness on box art, marketing, and especially His Voice of God for trailers and previews to the song of twenty five billion a year for five years. "Everyone knows we have more money than God," Probst proclaimed, "we just figured we should leverage that and grab God while we still could."

"Well, I thought it was a great deal at the time, I mean, five years is only a blink of an eye for me, but I have to admit that I had my doubts at first," God said in an interview. "I'm looking at it from the perspective that at least this way I can make sure everyone at EA gets Sunday off."

It is speculated that God might even be used to offset the "quality of life" issues EA is experiencing. "We're hoping that God can just snap his fingers and have the game created for us in an instant. We can have our designers pitch the idea to him, and presto, instant game. It's going to save us a lot of man-hours and labor costs. Come to think of it, our overhead will pretty much be zero for the next five years," Larry explained.

Theory even has it that in a bold legal positioning move, EA plans to sue for copyright infringement on behalf of all games, everywhere after this deal goes through. "Let's face it," Probst said, "God made everything. Free will debates aside, He made it. You can think you had the idea first, but it was really Him, through you. Call it Divine Inspiration or whatever you like, but it's His, and now, by contract, EA's." What this means for the rest of the industry, and gamers in general, remains to be seen.

Posted by bowler at April 20, 2005 11:18 AM | TrackBack