Madden Senior Producer Talks Collaboration With The College Football Dev Team, Working On An Annualized Series

Mike Mahar, a senior producer at EA Sports who was there to learn more about Madden NFL 24 spoke with me. In our discussion, we got onto EA Sports College Football. The revival of the popular college-focused franchise which was discontinued with NCAA Football 14 EA Sports will be bringing back its college-focused football franchise in 2021. This time they’ll leave the NCAA behind. Mahar corrects me in a humorous way when I mention “the returning of the NCAA Football” during our interview. 

We also dove into what it’s like to develop an annualized title, along with the decisions that come with that. Below you can find the relevant parts of our conversation.

Game Informer says that in developing an annualized sport franchise the biggest challenge is that sports don’t change much year-to-year. But you are expected to provide something different from last year so that customers can justify spending $60 or even $70. How does the team meet that demand while remaining true to their sport?

Mike MaharThat’s the real challenge. First, we want to understand what is important for the new player, whether they are coming in at day zero, or any time. What was their favorite part of Madden 23 or Madden 24? And what were they most interested in? What do they care about? What are they most interested in? We have to really understand what it means to the player. And of course, we are all game makers, and we have to add a little bit of magic… surprise and delight; there’s some artistic flourish that’s involved in that as well. Our goal is to find out what players really want and to try and deliver it. If we can do this successfully, Ultimate will deliver value to the players who say “I really enjoy 24, but I want X,Y and Z.” Madden 25 will give players X,Y and Z as well as 1,2, and 3.

It’s all about football. There are many aspects to American football. Sevens. Now, the top high-school and college students are playing sevens. All kinds of small-sided semi-professional leagues exist. Now, there’s a new aspect of football that is gaining popularity. It’s a new area that I believe is ripe to be explored and integrated into Madden. Superstar Showdown will help us do that.

Are you inspired by other franchises of sports games, such as those published by EA Sports or others?

Ah, yes. We are huge gamers. At dinner the other day, there was a big argument about Jedi: Survivor. Super Smash Bros. and Ghost of Tsushima. It’s hard to believe that we managed to mix three different games into one conversation. We play a lot of games. So, we are inspired by all the games, both those that we played growing up, as well as games that exist today and even games yet to be created. Inspiration comes from a variety of genres including RPGs, storylines, and different ways to reward progression. […]It’s my passion. All of us are gamers. All of us are gamers.

Is there any communication going on between College Football and the dev team?

Absolutely. 100 percent. The way we’re structured is that…we have a central soccer gameplay team creating very unique experiences while also working on fundamentals. Without revealing too much. [there is]Collaboration and co-operation are key. Again, again without revealing anything too specific or promising the world, I do believe the fact we are working on College will raise the bar for both titles. We’ll see an improvement, and College is also coming back. I couldn’t be happier. I think the fact that we’re working on that – it’s a lot of work for us to all do at Tiburon, our studio in American football – but I think the fact that we’re doing that is going to make the quality, the feature set, the innovation is just going to increase more for both products.

The two teams could work separately but together to see each other’s work and maybe incorporate it into your own game.

Our College Team is in an excellent place right now. They’re a super passionate group and a great team to collaborate with. So, I am super excited to work with them and it’s a great thing that we can do this again.

It’s likely that you’ve heard people ask about some of the features from the NCAA game and why they’re not in Madden. Is there a particular feature you loved in old NCAA football games?

Absolutely! Absolutely! I was involved in the design process for some of them. In NCAA Basketball I believe we had an Eras Mode. I recall I designed Tyus Edney with old-school colours like black and white or sepia tones depending on the period. This was done a while ago and shared with college football friends. We asked them, “What’s your opinion?” and then they would come up with Mascot mode where you’re playing as the Stanford Tree or the Syracuse Orange or something. We used to go back and forth and try to challenge each other and inspire each other with the modes. But yeah, all the Road to Glory, the dorm room customization… there’s all kinds of stuff. The back-and-forth was interesting. I think you’re going to find that it’s gonna come back that we’ll be able to share and grow a lot of the feature set together.

Is there any way that Madden can better utilize the NFL and its history by mentioning Eras?

You can talk about it without revealing anything too personal. [Madden]In the moment, I know that players edit draft classes, rosters and share them out. This is something that has already happened to some degree. With some of the customizations that we discussed in terms of [relocation]It’s a field that I believe we will expand. We will be expanding it not only for 24, but in the years to come.

I think MLB The Show 23 really demonstrated a great way to do it with its Negro Leagues Storylines mode, which gave a lot of people new exposure to this underserviced era of the game. You know that sports franchises always push forward. Do you have any ideas on how you can look back at the game and appreciate it from a new perspective?

Yup. I agree. Madden has been around for quite a while. [There are]Some things are great and others we wish to improve. How can you improve or alter the foundation? Madden 24, for example, the skeleton, or the common features, like the ability to create characters, makes it easier when gear can go anywhere. It wasn’t until this year that we had the ability to move gear around. We now have the ability to build up different modes and gear with different body types. So if you want to do something that is a little more off the beaten path where players are skinny or fat or looking a little bit different, all that becomes easier to do, but it starts in 24 with things like the Sapien rig and with unified character letting us bring all the content where we want it to go. Madden 24, the foundation of the game, is what we have to create before we can move on.

After talking with many developers of sports games, I’ve learned that when you annualize a sport, you rarely implement the new features in the way you had envisioned, because your game operates on an annualized schedule. Major features are not fully realized until many years after they were first introduced. Are there features in Madden 24 that you can look at and say “This was where we saw this going”? And are you nearing the end roadmap of Madden 24’s development?

What do you know? You know what? We look at [games we’ve played in other franchises or even in Madden’s past]And think about ways to enhance each of these modes. We have this year a Franchise mode that is massively customizable and allows for a lot of multiplayer. It’s been around for a while, but we see plenty of room to make it better, bigger, different, social and more connected. While I believe that every single one of our game modes has received significant updates this year, based entirely on the feedback we have heard from players about these games modes, there is still no limit as to what direction we could take them in. Our inspiration comes from what we observe, what we desire and also what our players demand. Although they have improved a great deal in the past year with 24, we still can surprise our players by doing a number of new things.

How far in advance does your current roadmap go?

The answer is different. At least three to five. Like anything, if you’re just even doing a budget for your house, things change, platforms change, technology changes, user feedback changes, so we always have to remain flexible, but with the major through-threads through our game – the core gameplay, FieldSense, Franchise, Superstar League, Superstar Showdown, Ultimate Team – each one of those modes has a three-to-five year roadmap and we augment based on player feedback and based on trends and based on where we see new opportunity.

When in the roadmap of this game and the hypothetical Madden NFL 25, do you draw a line? We’re about to stop primary development for 24 and begin transitioning to 25, right? What is the difference between a post-release update for a game and releasing upcoming features?

First, I’d like to say that 24 is no exception. Every year, the game receives extensive updates and improvements. There will be updates to the rosters, authentic updates, players faces, and gear. Ultimate Team has so much live content that they release 24/7 all year round. It’s incredible. The players will benefit from the fact that the game is being developed almost continuously for an entire year. We know when we’ve reached a point at which we can start to develop. [the next title]. and how long will it take to do the job? When it takes longer for something to achieve quality, then we say that “This product will be next” instead of “What quality can we provide to our players in this current cycle?”

You might think that the people who make games such as EA Sports UFC have only two to three years in which they can create their game.

The UFC Team, before I left EA was Fight Night Team. Fight Night champion was the name of my team. So I look over at them, and they’re all my peers and friends who I know and love dearly. Yes, I’m doing exactly what you say. [Laughs]You guys are lucky! However, they know it’s a double-edged sword like anything, right? Expectations are high because they have more time. They want more. And they should. It’s reasonable to expect that, if there is more time between the iterations, that there will be a greater leap in quality, value, and innovation.

Based on your previous answer, I believe I know the answer to this question. You know that we are not making any announcements and that the only thing that matters is your answer. If you had to revive one of EA Sports’ dormant franchises, would it be NBA Street or NFL Street? Would you go for NBA Live or Triple Play or SSX or NBA Jam or NFL Blitz?

When I was working in Vancouver, Triple Play used to be made. Because it’s near and dear to my heart and I just thoroughly enjoyed making it and playing it – before I even got to work on the team, I played it when it was Knockout Kings – I’ll probably say Fight Night. My personal choice, but you’ve listed so many different titles. Each and every one would make a good choice. All of these games I have played and I am sure our fans will appreciate that we bring them all back. [Laughs]

To read our complete preview of Madden NFL 24 click here. Madden NFL 24 will be released on August 18.