[topkai22]

One day in the late 90s or early 2000s a friend and I were playing Madden. My dad walked into the room and announced “huh, why are they playing football on a Friday.” He hadn’t noticed at a casual glance that it was a video game- John Madden’s voice was coming out of the TV and it looked like football, so it must be football. That has always stuck with me as an impressive level of immersion.

Sports video games, and Madden in particular, helped mainstream gaming and computing in a very real way. I hope EA brings him back to the cover one last time next year.