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The inside story of how Madden NFL became a video game dynasty

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Re: The inside story of how Madden NFL became a video game dynasty

#11

They bought the exclusive contract to the NFL when they faced a challenge from 2K games. That's how this dynasty stays around.

and Front Page Sports Football had already tanked with a version that never got patched to actually work. It had a nice package though. I still think FPS: Football was a better game.

Re: The inside story of how Madden NFL became a video game dynasty

#12
Interesting, I had Madden on the Genesis and enjoyed it a lot. Shortly after that I got into stocks, too bad I didn't put two and two together.

Now that I think of it, I just played the game at home and had no idea how popular and financially successful it was.

Re: The inside story of how Madden NFL became a video game dynasty

#13

There's this odd little rumor/story that gets passed around from time to time that Madden, deep down in the core of its object code, is still running the SNES game engine from the 1990s. From a blog somewhere else: "Madden 2015 has a long, dark history. Inside its inmost code, there's a tiny copy of snes9x, linked to a tiny virtual display, used only in memory, never shown to the user. This arrangement has been used…

If only there was a tiny copy of an NES emulator running Tecmo Super Bowl in there instead.

Re: The inside story of how Madden NFL became a video game dynasty

#14

I'd really like to see a Gruden NFL game myself

Well maybe you could be the one to figure out how this thing works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U0azTHBn-E

I remember asking my dad how I was supposed to play this when I was about 4... he didn't know either.

Re: The inside story of how Madden NFL became a video game dynasty

#15

There's this odd little rumor/story that gets passed around from time to time that Madden, deep down in the core of its object code, is still running the SNES game engine from the 1990s. From a blog somewhere else: "Madden 2015 has a long, dark history. Inside its inmost code, there's a tiny copy of snes9x, linked to a tiny virtual display, used only in memory, never shown to the user. This arrangement has been used…

I worked on Madden for several years. It would be delightful and hilarious if that were true. There is some very old code in there, or at least was when I was on it. I recall digging up the code that updated your score on a touchdown—not a bit of logic that has much need to change—and saw Steve Chiang's initials on it, from back when he still coded. One obvious sign is that it's a fake is that there's no way there wo…

Answer me this: why does the opponent wait until 2 minutes left in the game to do an onsides kick and then they will do it even if I'm ahead by 6 touchdowns?

Re: The inside story of how Madden NFL became a video game dynasty

#16
post #4

FTA: "In 2004, EA paid the NFL a reported $300 million-plus for five years of exclusive rights to teams and players. The deal was later extended to 2013. Just like that, competing games went kaput." They became a monopoly.

The 2K football games were superior at the time. Then they dropped their price significantly ($20 for 2k5 after 2k4 was a success) and EA decided they couldn't compete. So that deal was signed so that they wouldn't have to. And thus I stopped buying NFL games.

Interesting that ESPN doesn't seem to mention this in the article considering their name and properties were used for the 2K games.

Re: The inside story of how Madden NFL became a video game dynasty

#17

There's this odd little rumor/story that gets passed around from time to time that Madden, deep down in the core of its object code, is still running the SNES game engine from the 1990s. From a blog somewhere else: "Madden 2015 has a long, dark history. Inside its inmost code, there's a tiny copy of snes9x, linked to a tiny virtual display, used only in memory, never shown to the user. This arrangement has been used…

Can pretty well confirm this isn't true; 97 for PSX etc was a fresh rewrite in C++.

Re: The inside story of how Madden NFL became a video game dynasty

#18

I'd really like to see a Gruden NFL game myself

Well maybe you could be the one to figure out how this thing works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U0azTHBn-E I remember asking my dad how I was supposed to play this when I was about 4... he didn't know either.

Looks pretty simple to me, you're playing "offensive and defensive coordinator" during the game, instead of the usual "player(s)"

Re: The inside story of how Madden NFL became a video game dynasty

#19

They bought the exclusive contract to the NFL when they faced a challenge from 2K games. That's how this dynasty stays around.

and Front Page Sports Football had already tanked with a version that never got patched to actually work. It had a nice package though. I still think FPS: Football was a better game.

[deleted]

Re: The inside story of how Madden NFL became a video game dynasty

#20

I'd really like to see a Gruden NFL game myself

Well maybe you could be the one to figure out how this thing works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U0azTHBn-E I remember asking my dad how I was supposed to play this when I was about 4... he didn't know either.

While we're on the subject of old football games, no discussion is complete without mentioning the amazing PlayMaker Football released by Broderbund in 1989 and featured on this episode of Computer Chronicles: https://youtu.be/1vMfW32TNo0?t=17m16s
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