While sports fans are clamoring for something…whatever-to watch for in the wake of public safety closings, video game publishers like EA Sports have benefited from increased exposure to cable channels like ESPN, where virtual sports are better than no sports at all. This weekend, it didn’t necessarily work in favor of EA.
Madden Bowl 20, the last “world championship” for players in the annualized championship Madden NFL series of games, so articulated on a huge problem not corrected in the game that its winner sported a username in the game which seemed to spit on the face of EA Sports: “iRUNyouPASSiWIN”. The winner, Raidel “Joke” Brito, played the entire weeklong tournament without performing a single pass, despite Madden being a series which traditionally presents quarterbacks on its covers. All this culminated with a broadcast on Brito’s ESPN2 on Saturday on the way to victory in the semi-final and final of the tournament.
How could an American football simulator be so exploited that its winner gives up half of the sport’s options? Has Brito discovered a small loophole that hasn’t seen EA Sports until the last minute? Not even close.
Instead, Brito has already favored the racing game in the series, which has been criticized for being overpowered and unbalanced for some time. This led him to intelligently exploit the rules of the Madden Bowl 20 “rated salary cap”. Each participant gets a certain amount of in-game money to choose players from various official NFL teams and combine them as they see fit. . Traditionally, this means that you spend more on things you want to focus on (race defense, fast wide receivers) and sacrifice certain categories in exchange.
Run, run, run as often as possible
But that gave Brito the license to spend a bare minimum on the quarterback position, and he instead chose to put a bettor instead of QB. Bingo: This gave him more points to spend on all the other crucial positions, in particular an offensive line (in order to create gaps so that his endless racing game could explode) and a dominant defense. He built the rest of the team accordingly – why choose wide receivers with good “catch” statistics if he only needs them to block? – then he walked game after match in the tournament, starting on May 9 and ending last Saturday, May. 16.
In previous tournaments for the Madden NFL 20 esports cycle, Brito was forced to fight a more random “Madden Ultimate Team” draft mode, a mode that could otherwise be considered more “unfair” in terms of causing players to collide with lists of players come from nowhere. In these games, Brito held up, proving that his feat-based victory in the Madden Bowl 20 tournament was not exactly a fluke. However, his feat of the Salary Cap Ranked rule set led ESPN2 commentators to curtly point out Brito’s dominance, unwilling or unable to comment on the fact that a bettor took the snap with each offensive play.
One of the most amazing game balance failures is that Brito can call the racing game after playing and leave his opponents unable to win by simply pressing “of course he is about to race again” that we’ve ever seen at Ars Technica. . It would be quite embarrassing because it is hosted by tens of thousands of Twitch users, not to mention millions of ESPN2 viewers.
This strange series of events comes months after the end of EA Sports’ takeover of the NFL’s exclusive video game license. The sim-football genre included several major competitors, in particular the NFL2K at the turn of the century, but EA obtained an exclusive license for NFL games from 2005. The NFL chose not to renew this contract after its expiration this season, which led the game publishing group 2K Sports to immediately announce its interest in returning to the genre, but it remains to be seen whether this will include simulation-style football games.
