EA Sports: Madden NFL 13

Pretty much every football fan I know either has a version of Madden NFL or has a friend whose house they sneak over to play the game, something that has made it one of the top video games of all time, if not the top.

The releases of the latest version of the game each year led to a stampede down to the local outlet to grab a copy and try to get a head start on viewing the changing skill sets of players as the game evolved. No other game could compare.

However in recent years an evil foe has risen to threaten its position at the apex of sports game superstardom, soccer! That’s right, FIFA, the game on soccer published by Electronic Arts, also the publisher of Madden NFL has threatened its top dog position and even overtaken it, only to eventually to fall back.

This season EA is taking steps to enhance the fan experience even more in the upcoming version of Madden NFL, that being it will enable fans to vote on top players at various positions and skill sets, the results of which will be added to the final release, which is due Aug. 28, although if you have Season Ticket you can get an early release on Aug. 24.

The most recent question in front of fans on its Facebook page, at least of this writing, is who should be the most elusive running back in Madden 13? LeSean McCoy appears to have a sizable lead over both Adrian Peterson and Jamaal Charles.

Head over to the Facebook page and you can also read the results of previous votes, with the running back position being the most recent to have its various skill sets broken down. I wonder if they have found any attempts at packing the ballot box?

While with just three options even the worst is still an elite player but we have seen attempts to pack the vote during all star voting for real teams over the last few years so why not here? It would be interesting to see a series of write-in candidates get strong support, despite their poor numbers, if just to see the angst this would cause serious gamers.

According to a brief piece in Forbes, Madden had been seeing declining sales over the last five years, and that this year has seen an upsurge in pre-orders prior to the release of the final copy of the game in a few weeks. Hard to say that the two are related but it certainly seems possible.