Madden Needs a Star or EA Needs to Make One

[Steve_OS]

It was only a few years ago when Call of Duty was gaining traction on the...

Written By: Daniel Owens

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[goillini03]

Interesting article. Not sure that EA can create a star, but I do struggle to connect to any of the online guys. The guys I connect to are more laid back youtubers, who are not in the competitive scene. This group needs more love.

[pagkerguy8]

havent heard of any of them....HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!!!!!

[roll2tide]

Most of that article was gibberish to me. Not a knock on the writer, just a reflection of my personal value system where social media scores exactly a 0.

The problem for madden is 2 fold, imo.

1. The community is splintered and it is splintered in a bitter way, at least from one side of things. Competitive players probably don't care much one way or the other about sim players. SIM players, however, have a severe distaste for the competitive style of play and how it has influenced the game. The SIM community is not going to follow a competitive star because they view competitive play as a negative. They don't respect it and feel it taints the purity of the game of football.

2. EA contributes to this division with efforts like M18. The SIM community feels pretty slighted and isn't happy about it. The idea that the SIM community would support at EA star is a farce at this point. An EA critic? Absolutely. An EA star? Absolutely not.

And here's the rub: a large portion of the devoted madden community are offline and/or solo CFM players. EA caters to online, social media connected non SIM players.

The SIM community wants a game EA will not make. EA wants a devoted, united fan base that it cannot get without either giving the SIM community the deep, deep franchise experience it wants or isolating the SIM community into exile and just going all in on the MUT/arcade style of play.

Unlike other (sports) video games, football is truly a team game. There is no equivalent in football to a LBJ or Messi. It is not a FPS. It requires teamwork, strategic IQ, and off the field savvy. EA is producing an embarrassing version of NFL football that caters to a style of play that opposes the very aspects of football that we have loved and respected in real life.

If EA can figure that out and change direction, social media stars will come.

Be Good Or Be Gone
Sent from Galaxy S8+
GT roll2tide
Let's play Madden or Fifa!

[timhere1970]

Impossible to have a competitive star until they make a game that rewards competitors for employing sound football strategy and tactics. Running money plays and exploiting the bad programming of ai controlled players for the victory will never capture the imagination or admiration of football fans.

[Gotmadskillzson]

Negative.........EA Sports should stick to sports games. If EA want to do Esports, do it with Battlefield series or bring Medal of Honor series back and do it with those 2 series. Nadeshot is highly annoying and so are the majority of Esports royalty. Hell most of the members of EA's Ronku program and other EA affiliates have become highly annoying too.

Madden don't need that.

[Hooe]

In order for the Madden e-sports community to create a star player, the Madden video game itself needs more mechanics with which to allow users to better showcase their individual creativity and personality during gameplay. Target passing might be a starting point if that were required during competitive play, but I don't think that's enough. Honestly, it's going to be very difficult with football to allow for the sort of flair you see from users in FPS / MOBA / RTS games because there are so many CPU controlled characters with very rigid assignments on a play-to-play basis, and as a user deviating from your assignment can completely break a play, especially on defense.

Madden probably ought to implement and surface some advanced stat tracking to showcase how effectively individual users are playing the game as well. For example, if I'm watching Problem Wright user-control a linebacker on his MUT Salary Cap team, show me stats for how well he plays that position in various assignments - how well is he is executing his run fits, how often he beats blocks, how often he is successfully pattern reading in zone coverages, how well he's sticking to his assignment in man coverage, and so on. Football more than any other sport really needs more than the standard counting stats to evaluate how well a player is performing, and unfortunately Madden doesn't track anything like that right now.

[fballturkey]

For a star to come or for anyone to care Madden has to not have money plays and things that don't look like football that are necessary to win at the highest levels. We're so far from that point that I don't think Madden will be a serious eSports game in the foreseeable future.