Everything has an origin story. That’s just how it works. Sometimes it’s a basic origin, and sometimes it’s not. In the case of the Madden NFL franchise, it has a long and intricate story that you might not have known about, given that you’ve been playing it for decades. There have been many attempts to tell not just the origin story but also to reveal the impact of what the games have meant to both gamers and NFL players. Enter Amazon Prime Video, which is getting ready to release a 4-part documentary series called “It’s In The Game,” showing off the origins, highs, and lows of the game that John Madden was willing to put his name on to try and create a “realistic” football video game.
As the trailer below highlights, there was a serious struggle to make it work and be meaningful. However, once the game got off the ground and started getting serious momentum, not only did it take the gaming world by storm, but NFL players started taking it as seriously as the game they were actually playing every Sunday. For those players, getting into Madden’s title and later having a great player ranking on it wasn’t just an honor; it was a matter of pride. You had to bust your butt to earn your spot in the game and to be one of the best within it.
As for the gamers, they just wanted a great title to enjoy, and you can see within the trailer the various people who basically live and breathe Madden NFL in the best and worst ways. Check out the trailer below.
The irony of this, in part, is that very recently, on The Discovery Channel, a series called “Game Changers” actually did an incredibly deep dive into the game’s origins, including into the man behind Electronic Arts who got John Madden onboard and assembled the team to help make the game that he wanted. The process was anything but simple, and they not only had to recreate everything Madden personally wanted in the game, but they also had to make it run on systems that weren’t exactly the most powerful machines ever.
After that, they had issues with potential competition, almost getting sued by SEGA over cartridges, and so on. It was anything but easy to make.
Fast forward to now, and the franchise is in trouble due to its label of “it’s the same game every year.” Hopefully, they figure something out, otherwise there might be another documentary about the “Rise and Fall of Madden.”
