[Steve_OS]

I'm not sure how big of an impact John Madden has on the Madden series nowadays, but he sure did have an impact early in the development process when Trip Hawkins was still there.

Check out what he said to the developers when he was shown an early version of the game. Quotes were found in the book http://www.amazon.com/All-Your-Base-...=operasport-20 by Harold Goldberg.

Quote:

"In a chapter detailing how Trip Hawkins started Electronic Arts, it mentions that Trip dreamed of making high art that would have players crying. At some point that took a back seat to EA’s true calling: being the biggest sports game maker in the world. Early on the company paid big money to sports legends to give authenticity to their games, and when Trip decided to make the definitive football game, he enlisted legendary Oakland Raiders coach and commercial pitchman John Madden to be the (giant) face of the game. When the developers showed Madden an early version of the game that could only display seven players per team, John wasn’t shy about sharing what he thought. “**** that and **** you people. Either we do it ****in’ right or we don’t ****in’ do it at all.” The team was pretty shocked to hear him saying things he’d normally keep confined to the locker room, but it ultimately pushed the team to get their football game as close to perfect as possible. They toiled for years, even as some in the company wanted to cancel the seemingly unending project, and when it finally did launch it created a dynasty that will probably exist as long as people throw footballs and the NFL gives exclusive contracts."

Source - Harold Goldberg's book is filled with game development anecdotes worth sharing (Gamesradar)