Madden NFL 25

LEAD ONLINE DESIGNER - PS4 / XB1

Madden 25 was a busy year as I oversaw all PS4 and XB1 console transition features, an all new online competitive experience (Madden Seasons) for our Ultimate Team live service and a new user generated content sharing system called Madden Share.

Madden Seasons went on to score some of the highest engagement metrics for any of our Ultimate Team experiences.

"It's still one of the best multiplayer sports titles available, thanks to consistent, well supported infrastructure and features like Madden Ultimate Team, which extend the game's replayability with features like Online Seasons and challenges." - Kotaku

"Madden Ultimate Team Seasons" - EASports.com

"Playbook 4: Madden Share" - EASports.com

Design Challenges

DESIGN CHALLENGES

Online Seasons Mode

The goal here was to take a mode that had been successful on FIFA and adapt it to football. The conversion itself was simple enough and the benefit of the mode was clear in that it provided a new and additional layer of progression and competition for our monetized, live service mode, Madden Ultimate Team. The challenge was actually creating a common design framework that could be used across two titles (Madden & NCAA) and then coordinating with multiple people on both teams to keep things aligned. In the end we managed to get both versions created and the mode has gone on to be one of the most widely played within Madden.

Sharing Community Content

For years Madden had provided users the tools to create plays, playbooks and team rosters, but never a way to share those creations with the rest of the community. As the first part of a three year UGC (User Generated Content) plan that I pitched, we needed to create the first version of the feature that would allow users to share the content that they could already create. I modeled the system after Reddit and included a voting system which allowed the community to surface preferred creators to top of the list for visibility.

Console Transition Features

One of the first things tasked to me in this transition year project was overseeing the numerous new 1st party console specific features that we were required to support. I was provided with an offsite team for which I coordinated the feature work, schedule and backlog management for. Together we tackled a number of features like Early Interactive, PLM (Process Lifetime Managment) and Game DVR (XB1)/Share(PS4) and our efforts contributed to Madden having the smoothest next gen launch of all EA Sports titles.

Process Improvements

When I joined the Madden team and consequently my new home in the online pod as their designer, I realized that there was an obvious lack of process in place for dealing with feature work. I worked with our DD and Tech Lead to identify areas of improvement and then quickly introduced new processes to the team for estimations, story breakdowns, tests for completion, sign-offs and post mortems. These new processes helped eliminate a lot of confusion, increased efficiency, clarified accountability and significantly improved team morale.