''John Madden Football'', released as ''John Madden American Football'' in Europe, is an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

video game released by

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the ...

. Loosely based on the 1988 computer game of the same title, it was the first entry in what eventually became the yearly

Madden NFL ''Madden NFL'' (known as ''John Madden Football'' until 1993) is an American football video game series developed by EA Tiburon for EA Sports. It is named after Pro Football Hall of Fame coach and commentator John Madden and sold more than 130 m ...

series on home consoles, initially released for the Sega Genesis in 1990. It is sometimes called ''Madden '90'' or ''Madden '91'' to distinguish it from subsequent entries in the series. A

Super NES The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in ...

version was released in 1991, which incorporated content from the second Genesis installment released during the same year (''

John Madden Football '92 ''John Madden Football '92'', released as ''Pro Football'' in Japan, is a football video game released by Electronic Arts in 1991. It was the second Madden title released for the Sega Genesis, following the original ''John Madden Football'' fro ...

''), followed by a completely reworked Amiga version in 1992.

Gameplay

The game includes various field conditions and audibles. The console versions use passwords for saves. It is played from above and behind the

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

rather than from the side as most games of the time. As in the previous version, no actual NFL teams are included due to the lack of NFL or

NFLPA The National Football League Players Association, or NFLPA, is a labor union representing National Football League (NFL) players. The NFLPA, which has headquarters in Washington, D.C., is led by president J. C. Tretter and executive director DeM ...

licenses for authentic teams or player names. In the 1990 Sega Genesis release, only a total of 16 teams are available. Each team was based unofficially on teams from the 1990 NFL season. The following generic teams are included, with colors based on the local NFL team: Buffalo,

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the Can ...

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

, Kansas City,

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

(colors based on Giants),

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

(colors based on Rams) and

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. An All-Madden team is included as a bonus. The SNES release features twenty-eight teams and the All-Madden team. Like in the Sega Genesis release, they are all generic, but each NFL city is represented and uses their respective colors (for instance, Cleveland’s team colors are orange and brown). New York and Los Angeles’ teams are again represented by the Giants’ and Rams’ colors, meaning each city is only represented once. To fill out the team roster, teams from “Oakland” and “New Jersey” were added, with the former wearing silver and black like the Raiders and the latter green and white like the Jets.

Development

Going into the project, Electronic Arts considered the title "the turning point" and "everything to us". As the company was also working on ''

Joe Montana Football ''Joe Montana Football'' is an American football video game developed by Electronic Arts, and published by Sega for the Genesis in 1991. Although the game does feature Joe Montana (as the title respectively says) as a playable character, since S ...

'' for Sega, they contracted out

Park Place Productions Park Place Productions was a corporation founded in 1989 by Michael Knox, Troy Lyndon and Stephen Quinn. History In 1990, contracted by Electronic Arts, the company produced '' John Madden Football'' for the Genesis video game console, descri ...

to develop ''Madden''. As opposed to EA's approach to the previous game, which emphasized realism, the new developers emphasized fun and arcade action. Much of the development team was made up of former

Cinemaware Cinemaware was a video game developer and publisher that released several titles in the 1980s based on various film themes. The company was resurrected in 2000, before being acquired by eGames in 2005. Cinemaware Corp. (1986–1991) The compan ...

developers who previously had worked on '' TV Sports: Football'', a football game released the same year of the previous ''John Madden Football'' release, which, according to IGN, "stole some of EA's thunder"

Reception

Electronic Arts had only expected the Genesis version to sell around 75,000 units, but instead the title sold roughly 400,000 units. It became a

killer app In marketing terminology, a killer application (commonly shortened to killer app) is any computer program or software that is so necessary or desirable that it proves the core value of some larger technology, such as computer hardware, a video game ...

for the Genesis, helping the console gain market share against the

NES The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redesigned version, was released in American ...

. '' Computer and Video Games'' reviewed the Mega Drive version ''John Madden American Football'' and gave it a 95% score, praising the realism and the sound. ''

Sega Power ''Sega Power'', initially known as ''S: The Sega Magazine'', was a Future publication aimed at the Sega range of consoles, including the Master System, Mega Drive, Game Gear and later on the Mega-CD, 32X and Saturn. The magazine was later re ...

'' gave it a 92% score. At the 1990

Golden Joystick Awards The Golden Joystick Awards, also known as the People's Gaming Awards, is a video game award ceremony; it awards the best video games of the year, as voted for originally by the British general public, but is now a global event that can be vote ...

, ''John Madden American Football'' for the Mega Drive won the award for best console game of the year (16-bit). In 2018,

The Strong National Museum of Play The Strong National Museum of Play (known as just The Strong Museum or simply the Strong) is part of The Strong in Rochester, New York, United States. Established in 1969 and based initially on the personal collection of Rochester native Margaret ...

inducted ''John Madden Football'' to its

World Video Game Hall of Fame The World Video Game Hall of Fame is an international hall of fame that opened on June 4, 2015. It is located in The National Museum of Play's ''eGameRevolution'' exhibit; the hall's administration is overseen by The Strong and the Internatio ...

References

External links

* * {{Golden Joystick GOTY Madden NFL 1990 video games Electronic Arts games Super Nintendo Entertainment System games Sega Genesis games EA Sports games Imagineer games Multiplayer and single-player video games Video games scored by Rob Hubbard Golden Joystick Award for Game of the Year winners World Video Game Hall of Fame Video games developed in the United States