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The
Madden Series
What could we say about
this series that others have not already said? This has to be,
without a doubt, one of the most popular and well-known titles
in the history of gaming. Whether you play on a console or a PC,
this is the "must-have" title you must add to your
collection each and every single year.
We couldn't add anymore to
the millions of words that have been written about this series,
so we will let someone else do it for us. Nolan Holmes submitted
an article that can be found at GameSpot.com entitled "The
History of Madden Football". Here then is part of that
article:
In a business that is
now used to annual releases of franchise sports product, it is
hard to remember the landscape prior to the introduction of the
Madden series. Conventional wisdom at the time was that you
could only sell one version of a sports game to the consumer,
and anyone who suggested multiple yearly iterations of a product
would have been laughed out of town. Celebrity endorsements were
also a rarity, with only the very biggest stars, such as Magic
Johnson, commanding any kind of interest. And forget about
official licenses from major sporting entities. The leagues were
inflexible in their demands, asking for huge percentages of the
money generated and for guarantees that were out of proportion
to the marketplace potential.
Former
Raider coach John Madden was a well-regarded commentator at the
time, with a growing reputation. He was popular as a product
spokesperson, most notably in a series of commercials for Miller
beer in which he parodied his own reputation by bursting through
walls and doors. Truth be told, Madden was a strange person to
pick to launch a football franchise. Legend has it that EA CEO
Trip Hawkins had to track Madden down in a parking lot to make
the pitch to him about the product line. Obviously, Hawkins was
successful, and the first Madden game appeared on the Apple II
in 1989. True to his reputation, the box cover had Madden
bursting through a chalkboard. In 1990, the legendary Scott Orr
brought John Madden Football to the Genesis. Whether the team
knew it was making history is debatable, but one thing is
certain - it had started the greatest sports franchise in the
history of home console gaming.
And
the rest, as they say, was history...
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