It's in the Game: Madden NFL

This documentary series delves into the history of the iconic Madden NFL franchise, exploring its humble beginnings and its evolution into a cultural phenomenon.

While the series may appeal more to long-time Madden fans, it's still an engaging watch for anyone interested in the history of video games and the NFL. Even if you're not a die-hard Madden fan, you'll still appreciate the series' insights into the cultural impact of the franchise and the evolution of video game technology. It's a behind-the-scenes look at how the sausage was made, and how John Madden was very much a chef in that process.

It's a fascinating look at how technology, culture, and sports have intertwined to create one of the most successful gaming franchises of all time.

The documentary is a glorified PR piece not an honest examination of EA's monopoly on football video games. Since acquiring exclusive NFL rights, EA has ruined what was once a thriving, innovative gaming genre. The series has been on autopilot for years, recycling the same clunky mechanics, outdated animations, and buggy gameplay with little effort to improve. Meanwhile, the lack of competition has stifled creativity and left fans yearning for the golden days of games like NFL 2K.

This documentary conveniently sidesteps EA's role in degrading the football gaming experience, choosing instead to focus on nostalgia and surface-level praise. There's no accountability for the bare-minimum annual updates that feel more like expensive roster patches than new games. If you're hoping for an honest critique of how exclusivity has harmed the industry, you'll be sorely disappointed. Save yourself the time-this documentary is as uninspired as Madden's franchise mode has been for the past decade.

It's In The Game is a documentary that is a bit unconventional. It isn't the "comprehensive Madden history lesson" many may be expecting, and the first episode comes off perhaps a little "b-movie schmaltzy". But if you continue through the remaining three installments, you may see your enjoyment of it grow as mine did!

For a very basic overview, It's In The Game uses a two-pronged structure:

-Roughly one half of each episode is devoted to the current Madden developers trying to get the '25 version ready for launch--from the initial planning to player scans to game AI and everything in-between, viewers are given a look at how the current EA group puts together a Madden game.

-The other half of each episode flashes back to previous iterations of the Madden franchise, such as John Madden's initial involvement, the battles with Sony's 2K series, and the whole operation really exploding in the mid-2000s thanks to Michael Vick's electric involvement.

Coming into this episodic doc, I had expected more of a straight history. While It's In The Game doesn't take quite that approach, it does cover most of the big topics (just not game-by-game, so to speak). I was especially fascinated to see how the direct competition with the 2K games really sharpened Madden from 2004-2006. Of course, seeing Coach Madden's direct input in the early days was also wonderful--his earnest (if not outright maniacal) insistence on realism really shaped the franchise into the behemoth it ultimately became.

At first, the "current day" material was my least favorite part of this doc. But as the curtain gets pulled back on just how big of an operation the whole thing is, I found myself really enjoying those segments too! Some will call it a "hack job" or an ad for the latest Madden, and it could always be interpreted in that sense--but I never got the feeling it was outrightly configured in that way. The current Madden devs seem very forthright about the negative nature that the games are sometimes perceived in.

About the only criticism I can levy at this doc is that it does skip over some of Madden's "leaner years" where everyone could see that some laurels were being rested on. But considering the length that would have added to this project and the effect it would have had on EA's overall involvement, I didn't view that omission as a project-sinker.

Overall, I really enjoyed It's In The Game for simultaneously showing Madden football's past and present operations. The first episode: 8/10 stars. The next two: 9/10 stars. The finale: the full 10/10. This one gets better as it goes along, to be sure!

It's a well made an interesting documentary. The initial episodes about the creation of the game are very interesting and it appears that people really cared about what they were building. However, when it gets into the competing games of the time it seriously suffers from only having 1 point of view. Saying that Madden was by far the better game on the market and the "closest thing to being on the field" was why the NFL wanted an exclusive agreement is a complete lie. Simply put EA just paid a huge sum to have a monopoly on the competition.

This is definitely worth a watch but take what you hear with a huge shovel of salt.

I can't believe anyone could give this lower than a 10? I have been playing Madden and video games since the early 80's and this was a clear/informative series of all the ins and outs of the history of EA Sports/Madden video games! Not to mention the competition they faced from the other football video games ! I'm so grateful and fortunate to have such fond memories of playing their games over the years with friends and family! Stuff we still talk about years later and until we die.

Thank you EA Sports and Coach Madden for making something that makes so many people happy day after day! Football is life!