Are Madden NFTs Creating the Wrong Expectations?
After 2 years of constant criticism and ridicule, NFTs are finally being included in triple-A video games. EA Games, one of the largest video game publishers in the gaming industry, announced new “digital creations” coming to their latest Madden release in partnership with Nike this year.
The announcement is already being met with harsh criticism as traditional gamers continue to question the purpose of NFTs in gaming, especially after the market’s collapse in 2022. However, sports games might be the best route for creating meaningful digital sports memorabilia.
Adding NFTs to Madden
Throughout 2023, EA has slowly introduced this new addition to their sports games on a Twitter page called @.dotSWOOSH. There, they describe their new NFT products as digital creations that will help players feel more attached to their custom-made teams in MUT and FUT.
However, it’s not entirely clear if the NFTs being added to the game are representing players or player accessories. So far, the page only depicts sports gear labeled with various Nike logos without much mention of the players which could be a problem. In game modes like Madden Ultimate Team, it’s the player cards that are exciting, not the shoes they wear.
This could be due to the fact that EA recently lost its licensing rights to FIFA after the Association demanded more money. While the company was still able to attract the Premiere League to their upcoming EA Sports FC, the loss of FIFA means that the company is having to come up with new ways to excite players.
Why EA is avoiding the term NFT
Marketing NFTs is easier said than done. Similar to Reddit, EA is avoiding any mention of the term NFT or Blockchain to minimize pushback from gamers. It’s become clear to many that the word is a massive trigger and many companies are finding new ways to describe non-fungible tokens as “digital goods” or “ digital collectibles.”
This has been widely successful for Reddit where they refer to NFTs as collectible avatars and offer them for free to Redditors with more premium options available at a price. Like their gold mechanic, NFTs on Reddit don’t really change the user experience and have not been hit with much criticism for it at all.
How sports games make an impact
EA’s decision to add NFTs to their sports games shouldn’t be taken lightly. Both Madden and FIFA drive the majority of EA’s profits every year due to their massive player base. Sports fandom is a powerful marketing force and it is seen on full display with every subsequent release of Madden and FIFA, which are essentially carbon copies of the previous year’s release, leading to massive sales without much overhead required to develop the game.
The franchises (Madden and FIFA) also helped spur the adoption of microtransactions in gaming when the Ultimate Team mode first began over a decade ago. The mode, which challenges players to build the perfect team, offers card packs and bonuses for a price that inspired the term pay-to-win.
Good for GameFi or bad for games?
Despite claims that NFTs are useless, there are still a variety of benefits that they offer game modes, like Ultimate Team, which rely on scarcity, value, and already utilize marketplaces. In fact, the prospect of NFTs implies that gamers will finally be able to extract the money that they put into a game while, in web2, microtransactions do not allow players to get their money back. However, this is only an ideal scenario where NFTs work perfectly in a healthy, long-lasting market.
At the end of every yearly release’s lifecycle, the value of the cards in Ultimate Team can’t be expected to remain high because there will be less demand from players that move onto next year’s title. Gamers are already aware of this (they have criticized sports games for years about it), but crypto bros might be walking into a false narrative.
