Madden NFL
It's from 1988, before you were born.
- Publisher
- EA Sports
- Genre
- Sports simulation
- Series debut
- 1988
- Namesake
- John Madden
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About
As of 2026, it's 38 years old.
Madden NFL is the football simulation so dominant it became the only football video game that matters, named after a coach-turned-broadcaster whose enthusiasm was so infectious he sold the sport to people who didn't even watch it. There is also the 'Madden Curse,' the genuine superstition that whoever lands on the cover is doomed to get injured.
Going national in 2000 (with roots stretching back to the late '80s), it turned an annual sports release into a cultural event and a yearly debate about whether anything actually changed.
Deep, dependable, and quietly cursed, Madden is the game that made armchair quarterbacks out of an entire country.
