Once Michael Jordan returned to the NBA after his (first) retirement, he was never used in any NBA video games (ie, NBA Live 98). Why was this?
MJ and Nike went to the extent of registering his image as a trademark. Thus, it’s complicated and expensive to use his likeness in anything but coverage of games or news.
Actually, the trademarking isn’t even necessary. To use a player’s name, they have to get permission (and they usually pay the player for the privilege). All MJ had to do was say “no” and they couldn’t use his name.
The trademarking gives MJ an even bigger club to use, though.
MJ was in NBA 2k3 by Sega for the PS2
I made my franchise in the game the Wizards just to play him. Course they gave him pretty low stats compared to what I think he deserved, but I think they assign skills based on players’ scoring and such.
In most professional sports, the usage of the likeness of the players is controlled by the players’ union. So if EA wants to make a NBA game, they go to the league to get permission to use team names and logos, and then go to the players’ union to get permission to use the players’ names and likenesses. I can recall both football and baseball games in the SNES era that either had real teams with made up players or real players with made up teams because the manufacturer had only gotten permission from the league or the players’ union, but not both. Every once in a while a player figures he can do a better job marketting/controlling his likeness on his own. Jordan did this throughout his career with the Bulls, and was replaced in games by a nameless, bald-headed #23 with great skills. For a while Jacques Villeneuve did the same in F1 games. I have a feeling this is going to be less and less of an issue than itwas 10 years ago because the current generation of atheletes not only grew up playing video games, they often still do so. Guys like Michael Vick and Kevin Garnett like playing as themselves in videogames, and would be unlikely to opt out of starring in their favourtie games!