EA Sports has been very successful in its gaming industry. One of its most successful series of games is the Madden NFL series. Madden NFL is a series of video games based on the national football league. The Madden NFL series has been running for a quarter-century now and has seen 14 series of the games. The most recent is the Madden NFL 25 series. Over the years, EA Sports has stuck with its tradition of producing highly interactive games.

Due to the good quality of the video games produced and the excellent marketing strategies employing in marketing, the NFL series of games have been a market best seller on several occasions. So successful has NFL been that there is even a television program that is based on the Madden NFL game.

NFL 25 contains new features and has a better performance compared to previous versions. It runs on a slightly different engine than its predecessors and is available even on Xbox one platform. Madden NFL 25’s naming deviates from the normal formula where NFL series are named as per the year in which they are released. It was so named to commemorate 25 years of Madden NFL’s existence. The new product has so far received a good reception in the market. This can be partly attributed to the excellent campaign that preceded the launch.

Introduction

Ever since their introduction, video games have received massive appreciation among the gamers. Unlike in the earlier days of their introduction, video games now cut across age and gender. Recent times have creation of video games that are based on real live games like football and soccer. Madden NFL 25 for instance, is based on the National Football League (EA Sports, 2014). Most video games are highly interactive and are designed to capture the attention of the participant as much as possible. Most video games now make use of realistic looking 3D characters. This is a deviation from the trend some years back where most video games were in two dimensions. Video games like the Madden NFL 25 even allow the player to select a virtual city based on real life city, say New York or Tokyo, which they can choose as venues to stage their games.

History of Madden and EA Sports

Madden NFL is a video game owned by EA sports. It is an American football game, and this explains the inclusion of the letters NFL in its name. The letters stand for national football league. The game was developed for EA by Electronic Arts Tiburon and is named after a former football professional, John Madden. From its inception to the year 1993, the game was known as John Madden football (EA Sports, 2014). Madden is a former coach of Oakland raiders and a commentator. After 1993, name was changed to Madden NFL. The games are produced as a series with each additional series being an improvement of the previous one. The Madden NFL series has been very successful in the market. So far, it is the best-selling game in the United States market. Madden NFL series has been so successful that there are even television shows based on the game. The shows involve a competition where players play the game and the winner is rewarded.

Electronic Art Sports, better known as EA Sports, is extremely popular when it comes to gaming. The company began in 1991 as the Electronics Art Sports Network and has headquarters in Vancouver, Canada. Other than Madden NFL the company several other game brands in the market. These include FIFA, NBA Live, and Nascar among others. One major factor that adds to the popularity of the games released by this company is that they are not affiliated to any single platform. They have had releases for Sega Genesis, Xbox, PlayStation and several others.

Madden NFL 25 and previous versions

Madden NFL 25, just like the previous versions, is an American football video game. The game too is based on the National Football League. NFL 25 was released on August 2013 and was available on two platforms; Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 (EA Sports, 2014). Since the preceding version was NFL 13, most people expected Madden NFL 25 to named NFL 14 but that never happened. The 25 in the name was to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Madden series. While the seventh generation version of the game runs on the game engine of previous games, the eighth generation version of NFL 25 runs on an Ignite engine. This version of NFL 25 was released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2013.

Ever since EA Sports added the franchise mode to the NFL games in 1998, the game has seen several versions up to Madden NFL 25. Between the year 2000 and 2005, the games included a full year at the end. For instance the one released in 2000 was named Madden NFL, 2000 (EA Sports, 2014). After 2005, this was shortened to only the last two digits of the year. Hence the one released in 2006 was named Madden NFL 06. Every version of Madden NFL released is an improvement of the past and NFL 25 is no exception. The NFL 25 has a new precision modifier that enables the players to be more precise. It also has been redesigned to take full advantage of the Infinity Engine 2 on which it runs. It has a new way of selecting line ups and allows people to share stuff with friends.

Marketing

Before launching NFL 25 in the market, EA Sports contracted Crimson Hexagon for Sight to conduct an analysis of the various social media conversations that were going on about the product. The company’s main aim was to fight out what factors made consumers anticipate the release of the game. They found out that almost 50% of the people conversing had the intent to make a purchase (Perreault, Cannon, & McCarthy, 2012). Other conversations stemmed from anticipation of old features and frustration with some old features of the game.When the game demo was released those people who had shown intent to purchase increased to 34%.

When NFL was released on August 2013, it was available only at Amazon.com. Initially, the game was released for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. In November the same year, it was released for both PlayStation 4 and Xbox 1. Currently, the game can be ordered through Amazon, Game Stop, Walmart, Amazon and several others.

In its marketing, NFL uses ads that appeal strongly to humor. They found that this resonates well with gamers. The marketing team also realized that most of the people having conversations about the NFL 25 were EA Sports game lovers, as opposed to people new to gaming. From the social media, the company was able to tell what customers thought was a favorable gaming experience, how many people had intent to purchase and how people reacted to advertisements (Perreault, Cannon, & McCarthy, 2012). This information enabled the company conduct pre-product planning, capitalize on aspects favorite to the target market, and get opinion and feedback from current and potential consumers. They were also keen to note how consumers react to their promotion messages.

Conclusion

Ever since video gaming was introduced towards the end of the last century, its popularity has continued to rise, and it can only be expected to rise even further. The Madden NFL series is a clear example of how video games have been over the past years. The games are gaining acceptance. This is both among the traditional group of youths, as well as among the older people. Madden NFL 25 is the latest addition to the EA Sports long list of successful games.

Madden NFL serves game enthusiasts who love American football. Since its introduction in 1993, NFL has been one of the best selling games in the United States and the rest of the world. One important to note is that, over the years EA Sports has strived to improve the quality of the games it churns out with every version of the game being an improvement of the previous one. Madden NFL 25 is an excellent improvement of NFL 13. It is available on more platforms comparatively. The way NFL 25 was introduced to the market is something other game developing companies might want to emulate if they intend to achieve similar success.

References

EA Sports (2014). Madden NFL. Retrieved from http://www.easports.com/madden-nfl

William, Perreault Jr., Joseph Cannon E. & Jerome McCarthy (2012). Essentials of Marketing, (13th ed.). New York: Business and Economics.

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