What do you call a media juggernaut that grossed over $100 million dollars in its opening weekend last year, has sold over $2 billion in franchise history, has indelibly impacted American sports culture, and held an opening-night party in Times Square featuring a performance by Ozzy Osbourne early Tuesday morning?
Why, Madden NFL Football, of course.
The 18-year-old football video game franchise, produced by EA Sports and crafted by EA Tiburon, has become a cultural icon, and the yearly mid-August launch of the new season’s edition has become a holiday for NFL fans and video game players alike. The game has gone from imitating real life to inspiring it, and expectations are always high for the newest edition to make improvements and continue the storied quality of the series.
The newest edition in the franchise, Madden NFL 08, hit store shelves around the nation yesterday. Along with the aforementioned launch party in Times Square, stores around the nation opened at midnight to try and top last year’s impressive sales numbers. The approximately 2 million units sold across all platforms in the first weekend last August was the best the franchise had done in its history, and led to an opening weekend only matched by the biggest blockbuster movies. Madden NFL 07 for the PlayStation 2 eventually was the best-selling game of 2006, moving 2.8 million copies through December; EA Sports claims more than 7 million copies sold for all platforms since launch.
Quiet Madden-day
However, Madden-mania was not in full fever around Eugene. The Valley River Center GameStop location had about 50 to 60 pre-ordered copies ready for Tuesday; 40 remained for pickup Tuesday afternoon, employee and University senior Ian Tornay said. The Xbox copy was also already sold out for non-pre-orders. The largest number of pre-orders were for the Xbox 360 version. Signs above the sales counter announced Madden NFL 08’s arrival, and balloons were in the store from their early-opening ‘celebration,’ which was relatively tame – approximately eight people came in before regular store hours to pick up preorders, employees said. Tornay also confirmed that nobody had, through Tuesday afternoon, come in and bought a new system explicitly for the new Madden.
All was relatively quiet at Big City Gaming at 13th and Willamette, too, according to store owner Justin Ravenwood-Field. Though the store does not sell new games, three of their five rental copies of Madden NFL 08 were still in stock Tuesday afternoon, and Ravenwood-Field called the day “a little slower than it has been in the past.” A few gamers had played rounds of Madden on the store’s projection “stadium” setup, and the store will also host a Madden tournament “sometime in September,” Ravenwood-Field said – they have done official EA Sports-sanctioned tournaments in the past.
Ravenwood-Field’s personal experience with the game echoes what many did early Tuesday morning – he brought home a personal Xbox 360 copy and played until nearly 5 in the morning, when “(I) needed to get to bed before my wife could find out.”
In the game and of the game
ESPN and EA Sports have taken such dedication to the brand and capitalized on it, treating the game as reason for a holiday in its marketing campaigns. ESPN, an official partner of EA Sports, has utilized Madden in its NFL coverage in the past, and on its NFL studio shows has had analysts debating whether players deserved high statistical ratings in the game based off real-life performances.
Through its 18-year history, the Madden series has evolved from a simple football game into a cultural icon. Building off the success of older football games like Tecmo Bowl, Electronic Arts began the franchise and its popularity exploded through the 1990s – just as video game technology was improving to allow more realistic graphics and intelligence, and the NFL’s popularity began another upward swing. Features from the franchise – including the behind-the-quarterback camera angle, the already famous voice of commentator John Madden, and deep statistic tracking – have permeated NFL football coverage on TV. Those features, and franchise modes, fantasy drafts, and a more TV-style applied to the game’s menus have influenced most every other sports video game franchise in existence.
One of the most famous Madden influences on real life is the Madden Curse, a supposed injury plague that has struck every Madden cover star in the year they graced the game’s cover. Running backs Garrison Hearst, Marshall Faulk and Shaun Alexander and quarterbacks Daunte Culpepper, Michael Vick and Donovan McNabb have all suffered injuries and failed to reproduce their All-Pro performances while gracing Madden’s cover. Former Texas and current Tennessee Titans quarterback Vince Young is this year’s cover star.
Though arguments against the Madden franchise are many – EA Sports has exclusive rights to the NFL licensing, and some video game reviewers feel the lack of competition hurts the game’s quality, and that few steps have been taken to address that recently – the series still ends as one of the best-reviewed games every year. Currently on Gamerankings.com, the Xbox 360 version of Madden NFL 08 has an average rating of 90% while the PlayStation 3 version is at 85%. Both Tornay and Ravenwood-Field expect the PlayStation 2 version to be the best seller because of the wide installed user base, but the Xbox 360 to outsell the PlayStation 3 because, as Ravenwood-Field said, “It’s the biggest, most popular (system) right now.”
No matter the system, plenty of NFL fans will rush out to buy this year’s copy. Whether or not it replicates last year’s record sales figures, plenty of gamers will be controlling the destiny of the NFL’s 2007 season between now and the season’s on-field start in September.