Gamers are threatening the franchise with a boycott

Aug 28, 2014 06:24 GMT  ·  By

Madden NFL 15 is now out and most reactions to the video game have been positive so far, with plenty of gamers mentioning that the new defensive focus adds an extra dimension to the title.

But on the official forum, a lot of gamers are at the moment complaining that EA Sports has removed one of the features of the series that they loved: the ability to use Online Team Play to join their friends in virtual matches.

The longest running thread on the subject at the moment states, “Teamplay has a much larger meaning to your game than you realize. A quick search and I was able to find numerous leagues, with thousands of players combined who play through the teamplay function on both Playstation and Xbox. There are thousands of players who buy your game strictly for teamplay, nothing else.”

The community is asking the development team to offer an official reason for the removal of Team Play from Madden NFL 15 and to state whether it has plans to add the feature back at a certain point using a patch.

Apparently, some gamers who bought the title have already asked the official Electronic Arts support center about the lack of the mode and have not received any sort of official answer.

A number of threads dealing with the same issues have been removed after they were used for direct attacks against the development team.

Some of the players are speculating that Team Play has been eliminated from Madden NFL 15 in order to redirect more players to the Ultimate Team game mode, which has been growing in popularity during the last few years and can deliver more revenue for the company in the long term.

EA Sports has not offered any sort of official statement up until now, and it’s unclear how many of the fans of the franchise will carry through with their threats of abandoning all future games as long as the mode is not re-introduced.

Madden NFL 15 is available on the PlayStation 4, the Xbox One and last-gen consoles, and EA Sports has already delivered a day one update for the rosters and plans to continue to update the game based on feedback from the player community.

It’s highly unlikely that EA Sports will commit the resources needed to bring back Team Play based on just a number of fan reactions, as long as their long-term sales prospects are unaffected.