The Inside story of how “Madden NFL” became a video game dynasty.. | The Original Source for Great Online Media.. Will Barnes Onlinefile:///Users/jimhejl/Documents/MaddenDynasty.html[4/2/11 7:09:34 AM]
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n the beginning, there was the word. And that word was no.
On a cloudymorning in 1984, three men met in an Amtrak dining car winding through the RockyMountains, en route from Denver to Oakland, Calif. The first was Trip Hawkins, acloset “Strat-O-Matic Football” junkie and founder of video game maker ElectronicArts (which has a relationship with ESPN to integrate content into its games). Thesecond was Joe Ybarra, Hawkins’ lieutenant, a high school chess champ turned pigskinfanatic. The third was John Madden, the former Super Bowl-winning coach, hardware storepitchman, televised NFL evangelist and poet laureate of interior line play.Boom! He’ll remember that number!
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See how “Madden NFL” has evolved through the years.Then, as now, Madden had no use for airplanes. He was nearly as leery of computers. Thiswas before Google, PlayStation or the Internet. People didn’t carry credit card-thin smartphones in their pockets, and video games were quarter-eating diversions for nerdy boys.Madden was a football guy. Intelligent as hell, sure. Unafraid of the telestrator. Oncetaught an X’s and O’s class at Berkeley. Yet was totally unmoved by “Pac-Man fever.” Honestly didn’t know what the heck a PC did. Booming and boisterous, an alpha male tothe core, Madden brandished a cigar throughout the meeting — one nearly a foot long withthe diameter of a quarter; a veritable kraken of Cohibas to be gazed upon with despair. Achew toy.Spittle-splattered but unbowed, Hawkins made his pitch, the same one he previously haddelivered in a fast-food parking lot outside Madden’s Bay Area office:
Help me build agame. Lend your expertise. I’ll put your name on the box.
Madden was intrigued.
Maybe,
he thought,
this could become a coaching tool. Pick a play,run it on a machine, see if it works. No need to scrimmage.
If it’s not 11-on-11, it’s not
real football
. That was a deal breaker. If it was going to beme, and going to be pro football, it had to have 22 guys on the screen. If we couldn’t havethat, we couldn’t have a game.– JOHN MADDENHe sketched formations on paper, lines branching in every direction — little masterworks of unintentional abstract art that Hawkins would later frame.The one-time Oakland Raiders coach talked philosophy:
Where’s my playing field? Belowsea level and it rains a lot? Then give me Gene Upshaw. Put the defense on skis and pushthem all day long.
Hawkins listened. Ybarra took notes. The duo promised they would create as sophisticateda simulation as home computers would allow. Real football, with seven players to a side …Right there, Madden balked — even though he was technically under contract with EA toendorse a football game. “If it’s not 11-on-11,” he said, “it’s not
real football
.”
The Inside story of how “Madden NFL” became a video game dynasty..
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The Inside story of how “Madden NFL” became a video game dynasty.. | The Original Source for Great Online Media.. Will Barnes Onlinefile:///Users/jimhejl/Documents/MaddenDynasty.html[4/2/11 7:09:34 AM]
Loading...“That was a deal breaker,” Madden recalled. “If it was going to be me and going to be profootball, it had to have 22 guys on the screen. If we couldn’t have that, we couldn’t have agame.” John Madden discusses the early development of the “Madden” video game.
The consummate video game
1982
Harvard grad and former Apple employee TripHawkins founds video game maker ElectronicArts, in part to create a football game; one yearlater, the company releases “One-on-One: Dr. Jvs. Larry Bird,” the first game to feature licensedsports celebrities. Art imitates life.
Everyone knows how the story ends. “Madden”
uber alles
. Twenty-two guys on the screen?Try a 22-year-old pop culture phenomenon, a video game once immortalized in atelevision commercial featuring the apocalyptic strains of “O Fortuna” from the “CarminaBurana” cantata — and the effect was only slightly over-the-top.Courtesy of Digital ChocolateTrip Hawkins dreamed of starting a game based on realistic football simulations.You can measure the impact of “Madden” through its sales: as many as 2 million copies ina single week, 85 million copies since the game’s inception and more than $3 billion intotal revenue. You can chart the game’s ascent, shoulder to shoulder, alongside the $20billion-a-year video game industry, which is either co-opting Hollywood (see “Tomb Raider” and “Prince of Persia”) or topping it (opening-week gross of “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
2″: $550 million; “The Dark Knight”: $204 million).
You can witness the cultural power of “Madden”: grown men lining up outside Walmarts forthe game’s annual midnight release; rock bands, such as Good Charlotte, goingmainstream via inclusion on the “Madden” soundtrack; a pokerlike underground circuit of cash tournaments; the black-cat mojo of the “Madden” cover curse superseding the SportsIllustrated cover jinx; Madden himself being recognized less for his Hall of Fame coaching
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The Inside story of how “Madden NFL” became a video game dynasty.. | The Original Source for Great Online Media.. Will Barnes Onlinefile:///Users/jimhejl/Documents/MaddenDynasty.html[4/2/11 7:09:34 AM]
and broadcasting career than for a game that beat him into Canton.Alternately, you can listen to Cleveland Browns kick returner Josh Cribbs.“I used to play ‘Madden’ all the time with [former teammate] Kellen Winslow [Jr.],” hesaid. “When Kellen got married, he did it at his house. After the ceremony, he went to play‘Madden’! He just got married. His wife is sitting there. And he’s playing. We all made funof him.” It’s a “Madden,” “Madden,” “Madden” world. We’re all just playing in it. How did thishappen? That’s the story you don’t know. … And it’s a story that could have starred JoeMontana.
Dreaming of Joe Cool
1983-84
Hawkins approaches former Oakland Raiderscoach and NFL television analyst John Madden toendorse a football game. Madden agrees, butinsists on realistic game play with 22 on-screenplayers, a daunting technical challenge.
They wanted Montana. Wouldn’t anybody? Think about it: You’re Hawkins; a pigskin gameis your lifelong dream. As a child, he played wingback on a flag-football squad. He also fellin love with the 1967 edition of “Strat-O-Matic Football,” a paper-and-dice pigskin gamethat was, in a rudimentary way, the “Madden” of its era.A bright and precocious teenager, Hawkins created a “Strat-O-Matic” knockoff andattempted to start a business. His next-door neighbor in La Jolla, Calif., was former AFLpresident Milt Woodard, which gave Hawkins the opportunity to send a proposal to KansasCity Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt. Hunt wrote back.
Beat it, kid.
No matter. Hawkins ordered parts. Set up an assembly line in his family’s living room.Borrowed $5,000 from his father and took out ads in NFL game programs.He lost every penny.The flop was a slap in the face. How could a great football simulation not sell? Around thesame time, he got his first computer and, with it, an answer. “Strat-O-Matic” was toohard. Players had to crunch too many numbers, obliterating the necessary suspension of disbelief. Solution? Put the math inside the computer. Let the machine do the work.Manny Rubio/US PresswireJoe Montana was the No. 1 target to serve as the face of Hawkins’ video game.While attending Harvard, Hawkins created his own major in game design. He programmedhis first football simulation on a PDP-11 computer, a metal cabinet with flashing lights andtape-reel data storage that spanned two rooms. In 1975, he determined it would takeexactly seven years for enough computers to reach homes to support a gaming business.Eight years later, he was right on schedule. Hawkins was Employee No. 68 at Apple
1975: Hawkins develops f oot ballsimulat ion f or PDP-11
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How “Madden NFL” Became a Video Game Dynasty
This is a historical account of the early-days of the Madden franchise, recalled by key employees at Electronic Arts. I highly suggest that you read the document "Antonick vs EA, Complaint and Demand for Jury Trial"…
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