Happy Nice Mall

Trip Hawkins first met John Madden in 1984, after he agreed to give the name Madden and his football prowess to a football simulation video game, in the dining car of an Amtrak train traveling from Denver to Oakland, California. Legendary coach and broadcaster Madden quickly made it clear who would make the decisions.

Hawkins, who founded the game company Electronic Arts two years ago, came up with the idea of ​​a video game with seven-by-seven football instead of an 11v11 version, due to the limitations of computer processing power. NFL Madden just looked at him and said, “this isn’t really football,” Hawkins said. He had to accept.

“If it was going to be me and professional football, there had to be 22 guys on screen,” Madden once said. told ESPN. “If we can’t have that, we can’t play a game.”

The extra years spent developing a more realistic game called John Madden Football, released for the Apple II computer in 1988, paid off. Decades later, the Madden NFL series of video games continues to sell millions of copies each year, helping EA become one of the world’s premier gaming companies, and leaving a lasting impression on the football fandom and the NFL.

Despite coaching the Oakland Raiders for a Super Bowl victory and being praised for their work as a television analyst, Madden, who died on Tuesday The 85-year-old is best known to young sports fans as the namesake of the iconic video game franchise that grossed more than $7 billion in revenue.

“Right now, there are people playing Madden in every dorm room, every basement, every couch,” said longtime sports broadcaster Scott Cole, who has been looking for games for the Madden Championship Series for several years., The most competitive Madden NFL tournaments.

According to the company, Madden was much more than a figurehead for the game franchise, which sold over 130 million copies in its first 30 years until 2018. For ten years, Madden has graced the covers of the game, not star athletes like Jerry Rice or Barry Sanders. For early iterations of the game, he lent his broadcast audio and spent days recording color renditions in a studio to narrate simulated games as players control their teams.

He insisted on realism from the start, instructing the developers in such rigorous details as how a defender should tackle and what stances the linesman should use during certain formations.

Early interaction with Hawkins on the train – Madden dreaded flying for life – showed him that although Madden was friendly and fun, he took the development process seriously.

“That was the last word John said. Hawkins said he had such a presence and the ability to be a commander. It didn’t matter if I was running my company, he’d still tell me what to do,” he added with a laugh.

Rex Dickson, the Creative Director of Madden NFL from 2012 to 2018, said he and his dev team would visit Madden annually on the football field in Pleasanton, California, where he would question EA about changes to the game, and then make breakfast burritos and Sit down to watch football with them while they eat ice cream sundaes.

There were televisions everywhere, and Madden’s family members and former Raiders players courted in a “huge man cave,” Dickson recalled, with televisions all over the place, Dickson said. Madden sat in the middle of the room.

“He was definitely a larger-than-life character,” Dickson said, “but what I remember most about him was how charming he was.”

The journey was a reward for star EA employees, but it could also be stressful, as Madden would interrupt during a presentation to explain why the game had misapplied a mechanic.

“He’s not afraid to stop you in the middle of the field and question your football knowledge or ask you to confirm why something is worth the investment, and you’ll have a much better understanding of what you’re talking about,” Dickson said.

Donny Moore, who has worked on the game for EA for 20 years, remembered when Madden was presented with the first version of the game that included referees. “John’s first feedback was that the referees were too close to the scrimmage line,” Moore said. “It was something that a football coach and analyst would immediately notice. Game designers and video game users may not understand this the first time.”

Madden’s desire to make the game as accurate as possible came as he realized that the real sport he loved didn’t always match the way other people create their own entertainment.

Madden: “I actually freaked out once when my son was playing Joe and Michael Frank” told Grantland in 2012. “They were on the bus and the score was 98-96. None of them made any bets. It would be like fourth and 20th and they would go for it. I got very angry. I said, ‘You have to punch. And they never wanted to gamble.”

Still, he hoped the video game would help casual fans learn the intricacies of football games and enjoy the sport more.

Madden enriched the game development process with teachable moments. Once at Madden’s home, Hawkins mocked Madden for never delivering a playbook containing 150 games that could be used in-game as required in his contract.

“He basically took a 1980 Raiders playbook off the shelf and handed it to me and said, ‘Here you go,'” Hawkins said. “’Here’s the playbook, go figure it out.’”

Tim Esfandiari is a former college football player and twitch streamer He said that Madden’s goal of bringing football to the masses inspired him, broadcasting Madden matches and speaking about football to his nearly one million followers.

“What he wants to do is very similar to what I’m trying to do with my broadcasts,” Esfandiari said, adding that most of his viewers are “not American, they don’t know anything about football, but have just started playing football now.” video game.

Cam Weber, vice president of EA Sports, added: “Fans who haven’t had the chance to see Coach Madden on the sidelines or hear his voice from the booth know him and are fascinated by his legacy through the Madden NFL franchise.”

The game also influenced a generation of players and coaches.

Raheem Morris, who says he majored in college at Madden, was hired as head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2009 at the age of 32. He attributed to Madden a youth movement among coaches in sports: they set up franchises, they play the game, they set up games, they create games since we were about 12 years old. Tampa Bay Times.

Like many of the long-running franchises, the popularity of the Madden NFL has fluctuated over the years. The 2003 NFL season came to a head with quarterback Michael Vick on the cover of the game, who dazzled real-life football audiences as his dazzling speed and video game became unstoppable.

Prior to the Atlanta Falcons’ wild game against the Green Bay Packers in January 2003, Vick spoke with Madden and announcer Al Michaels. Vick says Madden told him that if the Falcons, a 6-point bet underdog, beat Green Bay, he would put Vick on the cover of the video game for the next loop. The Falcons did just that.

“I didn’t think it was just because of John – I was one of the most dynamic players back then and it was the perfect fit – but John promised me and he kept his word,” Vick said. meeting.

Vick said that people are constantly saying they enjoy using his character in the video game, a tribute to the detailed player profiles and different styles.

“Being in the game and what I represent in the game has drawn more attention to myself and to quarterbacks who look like me and play the game like me,” Vick said. “Now it doesn’t matter how you look or how you play – now anyone can adorn the front cover.”

However, in recent years, players said that the game has become stale. Unlike other hit series like League of Legends or Dota, which mostly feature single games with constant updates, EA releases a new Madden NFL every year, and players often complain that each release feels largely the same, with a few new features alongside roster updates.

“Things are starting to go wrong,” Esfandiari said. “For most of the 2010s, there were a lot of people who were uncomfortable with Madden’s situation.”

Yet their grunts didn’t stop gamers from continuing to flock to the title, although some young fans hardly knew that the word Madden meant anything other than a video game.

“You won’t see Bill Belichick Football in 40 years,” Moore said. “Unique in video games, unique in sports, a person’s name transcending the sport itself.”

Emmanuel Morgan contributing reporting.