Earlier in the week, EA announced the launch of www.EAFootballWorld.com. There has been little talk about this website in the United States, but maybe there should be. This website does not support EA's Madden video game, as the title of the website might suggest to Americans. Instead, this website is EA's latest community website for their FIFA series.
After visiting EAFootballWorld, it is apparent that it's an offshoot of www.EASportsWorld.com. EASportsWorld focuses on all of EA's sports titles. With the announcement of EAFootballWorld.com, is this a sign that EA is going to create separate community sites for all of their sports titles? If so, what URL are they going to use for Madden? EAMaddenWorld.com? That doesn't quite sound right, does it? It seems as though a shift is happening. FIFA is now becoming more popular than Madden worldwide. FIFA 08 actually outsold Madden this year worldwide, and has made ground in the United States as well. Can you image a time when EA would use the words EA and Football together and NOT be talking about Madden?
Here is a list of features that EA boasts for EAFootballWorld.com.
- Join a global community containing legions of like-minded football and gaming fans. Bring old Friends, make new ones and show the world where your allegiances lie by joining Groups.
- Stay ahead of the game with up-to-the-minute football and EA SPORTS news and then kick about the issues with fellow members via Messaging, Forums and Blogs.
- Back up your boasts by uploading Videos of your greatest EA SPORTS moments and claim the bragging rights by comparing Game Stats with your mates.
Don't get me wrong, I love EA's soccer titles. My issue with this is that it seems as though for the past couple years EA has constantly innovated with many of their other sports titles, while not really investing much time to innovate new things for Madden. Isn't Madden the game that really created EASports? With that said, I will concede that Madden NFL 08 was by far the best Madden title in the past few years, so EA did make some progress there. The problem is it just seems as though Madden is beginning to phase out as EA's priority. Instead of lowering the priority on Madden and raising the priority on the soccer titles, I'd like to see them both get the type of attention Madden used to get.
Could it be that the soccer titles get the priority because EA is competing globally with Konami for worldwide soccer dominance, and there is no Madden competitor? Could it be that this is simply a case where EA Canada, the maker of the FIFA series, has done a more efficient job of marketing an innovating than EA Tiburon, the creator of Madden? Maybe EA's just using this website truly as a beta to work the bugs out before launching a Madden site. Only time will tell what EA's planning with their various sports titles. As more information becomes available for Madden NFL 09, SportsGamer will keep you posted.
