Wow. Just 3 more days until the NFL season officially ends. To all of us that typically triggers a long lasting bout of sports-related depression that doesn't subside until a few weeks before the NFL draft, we here on the Madden team are trying to make the best of this opportunity by starting to release information about next year's game, officially titled Madden NFL 10.
Some of you may know me already, but if not, I'm Ian Cummings, the lead designer for Madden NFL 10. This is actually my first year in this position, and I couldn't be more excited. I mean really, it's a dream come true to end up here! From Madden '93 in middle school to Madden NFL '97 in high school to Madden NFL 2000 in college, this Franchise spent just as much time raising me as my parents did.
We have a big team full of incredibly smart and talented people working on Madden NFL 10, but I wanted to take the time out to introduce a few more people that everyone will get to know over the coming year. We will primarily be the members of the team communicating outwards with the community. There are a lot of new faces on the team for this year's game, but luckily I think many of you may know these folks already:
Phil Frazier -
Click Here to go to Phil's profile
Phil "Fillycheze" Frazier is the Senior Producer of the team - "The Don" if you will. Phil has worked on countless versions of Madden in a production capacity, including pretty much every single one on PS2/Xbox/NGC consoles. Phil took over Madden 09 last year very late in the cycle, so (like me) he is quite stoked to have a full product year take place under his direction.
Josh Looman -
Click Here to go to Josh's Profile
I'm extremely happy to present the news that Josh Looman has also just recently joined the team. Josh was the lead designer for NFL Head Coach 09, a game that will go down in history as one of the deepest and most realistic football games ever. Josh is helping out all across the game, but will primarily focus on Franchise mode. You won't find many more people with the attention to detail that this guy has.
Donny Moore -
Click Here to go to Donny's Profile
"Commish Don" was Josh's partner in crime on NFL Head Coach, and along with Josh, Donny is going to work on Franchise mode. Donny worked on the rosters for NCAA & Madden for quite a long time until Head Coach started up. He's also the resident EA Sports fantasy guru, so look around for "commishdon" on the EA fantasy site for his expert advice during the 2008 season (feel free to call him out on his predictions that went wrong).
At the start of the year when we all joined the team, we all got in a room and immediately came to a unanimous decision on what Madden NFL 10 was going to be all about. You saw it in the title of the post, but I'll say it again: "Everything you see on Sunday, see it in Madden NFL". "What does that mean?" you may ask...well it means that we have one goal, and that is to make an NFL football game that is as true to life as possible. We aren't about gimmicks; we aren't about fluff; we aren't about catering to glitchers or cheaters. We're focused on emulating what you as an NFL fan are used to seeing on TV, and what many of you players and coaches have seen on the field. For every single update we provide you with throughout this year, feel free to call us out if anything doesn't stand up to our new mantra.
Since we are mostly new to the team, a big goal of ours was to shake things up and we're hoping to create a lot of "firsts" for Madden's history this year:
1. We will be talking directly about features in the game about 4 months earlier than normal.
2. We will be releasing information on a very regular basis this year (looking at once a week as soon as we get things rolling).
3. We will talk about brand new tech that has been implemented before features have even been built around it, and take community feedback to choose what features we actually build.
4. We will be directly communicating on the forums throughout the development cycle, and also making changes in the game based directly on feedback gathered from the posts.
So the big question..."When does the info start dropping?"
Check back here at Halftime of the Super Bowl for the first real bit of news regarding what is going into Madden NFL 10.
Your pals,
- The Madden team
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