Apologies if you already know all about this, but I only just caught up via the salacious Geek On Stun blog. It seems the forthcoming 2006 instalment of EA's long-running American Football series, Madden NFL (or whatever its called), features a Superstar mode, which lets you take a promising young player and literally control his life, selecting an agent, choosing a haircut, optioning movie roles and keeping up to date with friends via a Blackberry-style device. There's more information here.
What a strange, seductive idea. It's obvious of course that EA Sports is under a certain amount of pressure to think of new features for its key brands so that they can be annually re-packaged. Sorry, massively updated. But an American football soap opera option? Perhaps there was a brainstorming meeting where some junior designer blurted out "Madden meets The Sims!" as a jape, only to be taken seriously by his straight-faced seniors.
"I want a design document on my desk by 10am!" someone may well have barked.
And there it is in the game.
Is this going to make it into FIFA I wonder? I can see the press release now: "Can you keep your premiership star out of the Gucci shop on Bond Street? Or China Whites? Or court?!"
