Chaz McCray, left, and Joey Diiorio shake hands after Diiorio won the Madden NFL Youth Championship at Lambeau Field on April 26. The event was cosponsored by the NFL and PlayVS.

Once again, the NFL and EA Sports have agreed to another multi-year exclusive agreement. The NFL wants to be the only game in town and despises competition.

This makes sense in every aspect of life, except when it comes to gaming. EA Sports will once again hold the rights to simulation football games, meaning no one else can create a simulation-style game related to the real NFL likeness of its teams, players, branding, etc. It would need to be an arcade button-smashing type of game or feature generic teams, like some games we have seen in the past.

Back in the day, sports would have a plethora of games each year to choose from. Fans loved the competition. Take the NBA, for instance, from the early 90s to the 2000s. There was NBA Jam, NBA Live, NBA Shoot Around, NBA 2K, just to name a few, all in the same year. Fans could choose which ones they liked better. In 2005, EA Sports was terrified of NFL 2K5, which sold for $19.99, and still has a massive amount of playability today.

But the NFL stepped in, wagging its finger like an angry Karen, and bought out all the rights, effectively ending competition. For a while, gamers had two options when it came to games: they could purchase the 2K version of a sport or the EA version. This has also ended in the NFL gaming market. It is a loss for the true players who must settle for only one game year in and year out, which is primarily a copy-and-paste of updated rosters.

"EA SPORTS and the NFL have built one of the most iconic partnerships in all of sports and entertainment, and we see so much opportunity ahead to deliver for football fans everywhere," said Cam Weber, president of EA SPORTS. "With more than 2 billion games of Madden NFL played each year, the global community of football fans connecting through play has never been bigger. Together with the NFL, we will continue to shape the interactive future of football – expanding Madden NFL, growing College Football, and creating new breakthrough experiences for the next generation of fans."

"Madden NFL has become one of the most widely recognized and culturally relevant gaming franchises in the world," said Renie Anderson, executive vice president and chief revenue officer at the NFL. "As we look to this new chapter in our partnership with EA SPORTS, our focus remains on the success of NFL simulation gameplay and providing our fans with the best entertainment and experiences around the sport they love."

You can spin it however you want with different verbiage, but fans and players alike enjoy various graphics and features when others have some skin in the game with their own version.

This article originally appeared on Touchdown Wire: Another exclusive agreement between the NFL and EA Sports: It means a loss for the players

Reporting by Josh Petry, Touchdown Wire / Touchdown Wire

USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect