
I don't believe many other series are in trouble, but it's worth a note that if something comes of this we could see similar suits like I said with the WWE license which is exclusive to 2K now. I think it's only going to be the case if people get fed up with those long running series that literally have no other competition. From what I understand the whole basis of the case is that EA & the NFL in terms of signing the exclusivity deal ensured a monopoly if you will and created a stagnating yearly product at a $50-$60 rate when with competition they had to drop down to $30.
I'm not sure if EA is claiming the rights to any and all football games, but you'd be inclined to believe so with how Madden has come along since it started out. As for the gamer opinion I agree that people should just band together and not buy the game pure and simple. If gamers really wanted to make a statement on a franchise that they feel is more of the same year in and year out, then just don't buy it. But the average consumer will always buy the new Madden cuz "Hey it's new and there's no other football game out there to play!" I'm not sure it's a free will issue per say.
Like I said before, competition breeds innovation and/or copying. If for say Dynasty Warriors didn't have Sengoku Basara or Onechanbara and Tecmo/koei took a EA Madden approach at changing the formula with very minor updates every year I could certainly see people saying to themselves "Well it's the same Dynasty Warriors except that they added one character!" I'm not sure I can say either way whether or not that is the case as I haven't played a single Warriors/ Sengoku game with the exception of the 3rd that was available for Wii.