It’s no secret that there are certain video game developers and publishers who “ride on the coattails” of what has come before and merely make “small changes” to try and get people to buy “all-new games.” The difference between companies like Nintendo and Electronic Arts is that The Big N actually cares about quality with each game it makes, and EA is all about the money and how much it can get from players. To prove this, you need only look at the Madden NFL series, which over the last several years and iterations has been called out for the repetitive nature of its looks, gameplay and overall feel.
This is hardly new territory for EA, but one would hope they would’ve fixed things by now. Yet, they haven’t, and that makes this particular story about the company so curious. Someone on Reddit found a job listing for a “Technical Director” within EA. The job is for “American Football,” and when you look at the “job requirements” and such, you’ll see that it’s pretty standard video game jargon for game development.
However, right at the end, they have a “bonus” section saying that they would appreciate someone with “Experience Developing An MMO.”
So, does that mean that EA Sports is developing a Madden NFL MMO? To be fair, we’re really not sure. For all we know, they could be doing a different kind of “American Football Experience.” Furthermore, we aren’t really sure how an MMO would work in the NFL sense.
If we were to make some guesses, it could mean that instead of one person being in control of an entire NFL squad, there could be multiple players on a team, and then they would have to work together to try and win. That could lead to some nice changes in the gameplay, however, that could also lead to lots of issues with balancing, game flow, and just overall fun.
After all, it’s hard enough working as a team in something like a fighting game or an FPS. But now, you expect multiple people to work together during an NFL game? It’s not impossible, but it would be difficult in the gaming space.
EA Sports might be attempting this for simple reasons: the company needs to spice things up. Plus, if it’s an MMO, they can use plenty of microtransactions and fees to try to milk the money from the product like they do with other live-service titles they make.
Until it’s confirmed, though, you must treat this as a rumor.
