If you love video games and football, and it’s your dream to work on Madden, save yourself the trouble and don’t even bother.
People having a total meltdown online and then spilling their guts via Twitter, which in turn costs them their careers, is becoming the norm. Though a most recent example, highlighted by Kotaku is relevant to anyone who has loved Madden so much that they dream of some day working on the game. Apparently, it’s a nightmare.
EA
At least that was the case with A.J. Dembroski, who was a member of the game’s community for years and eventually landed himself a legit job on the team. But after two titles, he had to bow out, due to burnt out. The kind that happens when you’re a fan of something and you become perpetually frustrated by stupid things that happen behind the scenes. The stuff that makes fans of anything go “why in the hell did they do that?!”
Dembroski faced such things, and tried fixing them, but was totally powerless. Fast forward some time later, and the dude ends up going on a tirade on Twitter about what went wrong, and even named names (including people who still work on the game, ensuring that he’ll never work there again). Among the stuff that he brings up (and some of which is hardly a shocker to longtime Madden fans)…
- The game is designed purely by the numbers, in the same manner that other yearly franchises are crapped out, like Call of Duty
- New features didn’t pan out thanks to designers who had heads up their asses
- Or good stuff that was proposed was eventually axed for stupid reasons
- The publisher bold face lies to players and could care less about making a decent game
- You have both creative and budgetary constraints due to the exceptionally expensive NFL license
Most of the offending tweets have been deleted, but none of that stuff truly goes away, we all know this. Hence why Dembroski states: “I might end up driving [a] taxi again the rest of my life.” At the very least, it’s nice to know that someone involved in the game was aware of all the problems and tried his best to fix things.