14 DAY TRIAL // Tired of seeing a variety of messages pop up on your Facebook page without them actually meaning anything to you personally? Soon, some of them will be Madden-themed if EA Sports has its way and manages to move the complete American football simulation experience to the popular social gaming platform.
Peter Moore, who is the president of the EA Sports division, believes that the future of one of the most important franchises he is overseeing depends on accessing a wider slice of potential gamers. Talking to Bloomberg television, Peter Moore said that “We have to make ‘Madden’ more accessible. You’ll see us on Facebook going forward.”
The company leader did not offer any more details on the Facebook move but he is probably talking about the big project Playfish, recently acquired by Electronic Arts for 300 million dollars, had been teasing as being in development. The Facebook Madden will probably aim to initially be a sort of marketing platform for the series, which registered lower sales during 2009 but in the future, Electronic Arts might also offer some paid content related to it.
Moore recognized the fact that the experience on Facebook needs to be simpler than that offered on home gaming consoles and that could prove a problem for EA Sports. After all, the company has not yet cracked the code on creating a more accessible and popular experience of Madden for the Nintendo Wii, which needs less emphasis on graphics and more on the control scheme and on offering easy to grasp and use mechanics.
Facebook-oriented games are free and rely heavily on a player's social circle. The structure appears more suited for a game of management and team tactics based around the Madden NFL concept but EA Sports might also task each gamer with being an actual player in a fictional team that needs to link up with friends to create a team and win matches.