JOHN MADDEN FOOTBALL FRANCHISE
INVENTED BY: JOHN MADDEN & ELECTRONIC ARTS TIBURON
Bet you didn’t know that one of your favorite video games started on a train with one of the original inventors of Electronic Arts and John Madden. Why? Because Madden hates planes due to a heavy fear of flying. But if it weren’t for Madden’s stubbornness, the game would have never existed. He refused to have his name connected with the game if it was to remain a seven man football game as originally intended. Even though technology made if very difficult to make a football game with any more than seven players, Electronic Arts decided to stick with Madden’s demands. Over $1 billion dollars later, it was a good decision.
There’s also that eerie little story line that comes with the Madden franchise: The Madden Curse. Since 1999 when Garrison Hearst was the first player on a Madden cover (if you even remember him), pretty much every cover boy has really seemed to be cursed. Hearst broke his ankle badly after that cover picture and was never the same again. Eddie George never averaged more than 3 yards a carry after his cover. Marshall Faulk never gained more than 1000 yards in a season again. Michael Vick screwed up his knee, had some dog fights and went to jail. Shaun Alexander was never heard from again and it may be the same thing for Vince Young, the 2007 and 2008 Madden cover boys.
*O.M. – Original Madden
*4 years later they make it classier
*getting cooler, ’96 was before the major breakthrough
MADDEN FOOTBALL 64 (1997) – The major breakthrough in graphics
*Beginning of the Madden Curse: Garrison Hearst, we hardly got to know ya
*Definitely the biggest curse of them all
*Vince’s curse is still going and we’re all watching. It’s like a movie.
*There, there, Vince. You’re career’s not over…Yet.
Every time I play this game, I try to recognize John Madden as the man who wouldn’t give in to the having his name on a sissy game of seven man football. You paved the way for one of the greatest video games of all time and an incredible invention.
