Pretty cool feature done by SI.com about the features that have been removed from the Madden games over the years by the NFL:
It’s Not In the Game: Eight Features the NFL Made EA Sports Remove from “Madden”
There are a staggering number of steps involved in bringing a video game with the sophistication and legacy of Madden to market, and it shouldn’t surprise you to learn that getting sign-off from the NFL is one of them. Even less surprising is the fact that the league has over the years insisted that EA remove existing features that fans loved, or planned elements that would have been enthusiastically received. It’s the league’s shield on the cover, so they get a say.
Extra Mustard reached out to a handful of former and current Madden producers to learn more about the role the so-called No Fun League (the Nixing Features League? Anyone?) has played in shaping the Madden franchise over the past 25 years. Some producers were measured in their assessment. Said one, “The ownership of the project was very much with EA, but the NFL does have approval rights, as is true of any company that works with licensors. This is not unique to Madden.” Others took a stronger position, such as the producer who told us, “The NFL is ultra-conservative and made us change or remove things all the time.”
Whatever the case, the league clearly has influence over the contents of the game—and as these eight example show, it doesn’t hesitate to use it.
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THE AMBULANCE
The famed Madden ambulance made its debut in Madden ’92, and with its proclivity for running over players en route to retrieving injured stars, it was an immediate fan favorite. Over time the NFL’s own enthusiasm for the emergency vehicle waned, and it eventually became the first in-game element that the NFL asked to have removed. It last appeared in Madden NFL 2001.
“In retrospect, it probably wasn’t the most tasteful thing to celebrate a major injury,” says one producer. “And this was in the era before concussion awareness that we have today.” Even so, the EA team pushed to revive the beloved feature. ”We asked NFL every year if they were ok with bringing the ambulance back,” says a different producer. “They said, ‘We know it’s your legacy, but not comfortable with it.’”
Eventually the two parties compromised on having a cart that drove onto the field, with the league feeling that was more authentic. But even that addition came with caveats: “They did not want to see a player strapped to a backboard, motionless,” says the second producer. “That was a hard restriction, given to us in the mid-2000s. If a guy was carted off the field, he had to be moving around, not paralyzed.”
http://extramustard.si.com/2014/03/12/ea-sports-madden-features-nfl-remove/
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I used to love the ambulance.