Experienced Madden 22 Review and Plea for Change - Including Mobile

With the release of Madden Mobile 22 has arrived with its older brother Madden 22.Over the years the development team within EA has been working on the development of Frostbyte and its integration with the franchise. The main game itself has received declining reviews starting with Madden 18. My frustrations start with EA Game Changers, these are players whom generate content and are known within the community as a voice to EA and their current Madden developments. As it stands the Game Changers appears to be ways for EA to show the consumer that they are listening to the community, where this simply is just no longer true. Madden has been a beloved franchise among many people, but now those fans are sticking to the older versions of the game and just updating their rosters to current fan curated rosters. I would like to see the financial success that EA is having with this franchise, because this is starting to feel like more of a cash grab that ends up leaving the end user burnt out and feeling used. Outside of the hypotheticals and pleas, I would like to stand my case to someone within EA's Madden Development team and pitch ways to make Madden 23 - or future iterations - of the game desirable and wanted by the userbase. 

Here are my qualifications: 

I have been playing Madden on PC for the past 3 years and Console since Madden 17.

I'm finishing my final year of college with a focus in Marketing, UX/UI and New Media - with jobs and other focuses on Business Management.

I have been playing Madden Mobile since MM16.

I've been a football fan since around 2015 when I finally explored different sports to have interests in.

My primary focus in this scripture isn't to send any hate or anything likewise to EA, this is a want and plea for change in the Madden Franchise for the benefit of the company and the userbase behind it. I also have no access to EA's User Statistics nor their financials.

I will not be talking about anything related to Frostbyte's Physics engine as I know those issues with Madden are bug related and they take time to iron out. The focus on this should be about the actual changes made in the game both for the end user's enjoyment like game modes, and other essentials within Madden.

To start everything off, I will point out I have no statistics on gameplay and altered user experiences as I have usually been more MUT oriented, as this game mode peaks myself the most in interest. To no one's surprise, with every edition of EA Madden titles, there is a time limited MUT section of the game that is generally good for the year of the game's release. As a MUT user, I would separate this experience from the game, or turn it into a yearly pass of sorts. UT has a huge community and forcing the end user to pay for this experience yearly is borderline criminal. Teams get reset, Player overalls decrease and the typical MUT season resets happen. This can be justified as the next year/iteration of the NFL starts and players have bettered or worsened in this time frame. I'd suggest walking in the Footsteps of Blizzard Activision and make MUT the essential of the WARZONE property, where there is a yearly reset, and its a standalone entity that the user can experience. This could be free to play, with suggestive purchases that could enhance the players experience(as it is technically a pay to win game - outside of skill), or it could be a yearly subscription worth $30 (half of the current game price).  This change would benefit EA in the long run with the MUT users as Madden Mobile [Years 16-18] used to function similarly, and returned fairly high profits considering it being free to play. 

Secondly the biggest fish to fry would be the base game, or other additional features that separate one Madden experience from another, and currently this resides in rosters and player ratings. As mention prior, the only major difference to most players relate to similar experiences from the past 5 or so iterations of Madden. With this current release Franchise mode has drastically improved and has been received well to others, with minor complaints relating to the inaccuracy of how the salary caps work(possibly make this a difficulty related feature for those wanting a realistic experience?). Compared to other sports properties not under EA, there are a lot of modes that outshine and out preform even the Franchise mode that we have experienced in this years Madden. A majority of these modes are story based, and allow the user to feel as if their experience within the game is genuine, with more interactions and features available in the different modes. For example Face of the Franchise, doesn't really make the player feel anything outside of a position locked football player. Understandably that is the function within the gameplay, but there is no story, and no stakes to the player that really change the overall experience one could have. Even the inclusion of something like a sporting goods shop with the brands that NFL players and EA have contracts for, so that the player can shop around in. Why have a customizable character, when the user is forced to play MUT to level up the looks of their character, that can only be used in The Yard? 

Madden Mobile is just a complete mess. Logically speaking, 'm concerned that we are going to lose this beautiful app. Madden Mobile Overdrive was a strike out for most users, personally I played this mode for maybe a week and just couldn't help but feeling disappointed. The Overdrive's inclusion in the future iterations of MM were fantastic, as it wasn't forced, but it allowed the user to benefit from its gameplay and overall mechanics, even within the events that Included getting Lamar Jackson etc. But now that 22 is released, the community response was fairly negative within the app store and I can see why. The auction house has been completely removed from a game that has Ultimate Team players at the center of its audience. Removing this feature removed the suspense and want to pull someone rare, as the benefits prior were a high coin selling price, or a better player for your team. In MM's current state, that rare player can only help your team, and not be sold to better your team entirely by upgrading positions that are in need of being upgraded. Otherwise the current modes are perfectly acceptable, but there is one giant glaring problem, and this is the one that worries me the most. Why change the format in which players are rated. Elite, Gold, Silver, Bronze ratings are completely gone. This format has been very traditional and close to the actual games for the longest time. Now its following more of a gacha route, where you can 'evolve' players with shards, or level them up to ridiculous numbers, that relatively haven't been see in a Madden game before. Removing the old OVR standard, and replacing it with this arbitrary scheme not only makes the game more confusing, but it just destroys the scaling of how good each player is. Having 99 overall was the essential of being the MVP of that position, and now it can be achieved day one just by leveling up an 82 Rare Patrick Mahomes 17 times. Why change the formula from Madden Mobile from 16-18 that worked well with the audience, to something that seems so out of touch.

I would gladly like to go more in depth with my analysis and feedback for the company, but I'm going to wait until I can actually be heard for other Madden fans out there,

Please feel free to add your own suggestions and changes below! In the event I could actually talk to someone, I'd love to use other player's feedback to help improve this awesome franchise and bring it back to it's HOF standard.