It's in the Game: Madden NFL

Nostalgic look back at the challenges at bringing a game to market that would dominate the cultural zeitgeist at the cross-section of gaming and sport.

To see where the technology started to where it is now and how the madden brand has exploded is quite a story. Should be incredibly interesting to any football fan who dabbled in video games during the sega/nintendo era - or who is a bit younger and can see the history of the iconic game they are playing today.

Yet, the evolution of the madden brand via technology and the sport should be compelling for anyone who enjoys the growth and maturation of a successful consumer product.

First, it's worth watching and half of it is really good. The other half, however, is pure marketing BS.

I found the history, especially early history, very interesting. Unfortunately, they spent half the roughly 3 hours run time shilling Madden and promoting the series.

NFL2K was a much better series and forced EA Sports to improve their title. This series would have you believe Madden "earned " the NFL exclusive rights on merit when in reality EA purchased them, and is a real world case study on the importance of competition in economics.

Hopefully, the NFL licensing agreement will be lost and consumers can get a good competitive football sim again. For anyone who thinks that NCAA will be the catalyst, watch the story behind Joe Montana football.

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 The series has been on autopilot for years, recycling the same clunky mechanics, outdated animations, and buggy gameplay with little effort to improve.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!