Madden's TV Offer is the Deal That Dares Not Speak Its Name

Last week, Madden NFL 25 announced an "Anniversary Edition" that at first didn't seem like it had much to offer. Then word started to circulate in an officially unofficial way that a promo code could be used to watch DirecTV's Sunday Ticket NFL broadcast on a PC, with or without signing up with the satellite provider.

Well, this being Madden, this being big bad Electronic Arts and, more relevantly, this being the NFL and its less-than-consumer-friendly TV policies, few believed it. After all, the official news release doesn't straight up say this is how you can use the offer, which seems to be more about giving a discount toward a DirecTV subscription. The code, which gives Sunday Ticket access on PC, tablet or mobile phone, is referred to more or less as an alternative for those who cannot receive DirecTV service. Considering DirecTV has 35 million subscribers, there would seem to be few in America who can't get it, but it's true in the case of dorm rooms and some apartment buildings where you can't mount a dish.

So, through the past week word spread that this was going to be a screwjob. You'd buy a hundred-dollar Madden and be unable to use the thing you really wanted because DirecTV would know, by zipcode or IP address or whatever, that its service was available to you.

I'm not ordinarily in the business of policing special edition offers but this one, being enticing to me on a personal level (I have no cable or satellite TV but watch a ton of sports over the Internet), was interesting enough I went to the man putting his name on this unofficially official offer: Anthony Stevenson, Madden's top marketer.

I asked Stevenson if I could use this code to watch Sunday Ticket on my iPad even if I had no intention of signing up with DirecTV.

"There is a unique code in every single anniversary edition, and that code will entitle you to the 17-week full-season trial on PC, tablets and mobile devices," Stevenson said, and I started grinding my teeth.

Why can't we get a simple yes or no?

"We absolutely understand there is some confusion with the language, and how it is written," he said. "To bring this great deal to life—it's very complex and complicated, involving the NFL and its television partners, and DirecTV. The reason is because everyone's interests have to be protected and this has to be written in a certain way."

There's a lot of reading between the lines here. So I'll say what Stevenson could not above: Sunday Ticket is not a thing greatly loved by networks that have paid billions-with-a-b to broadcast Sunday afternoon games. To straight-up invite people to ditch a television set altogether and watch this stuff online, while it may be within the terms of DirecTV's deal with the NFL, is a provocation to its biggest licensing partners. Hence the unofficially-official offer, and the heavily lawyered wording of the news release and the line Stevenson must toe.

The "unable to get DirecTV service" thing is just a fig leaf that allows DirecTV to put out this service, and then let you figure out how to exploit it. You self-select whether or not you have DirecTV access. Protip: Say you do not. Really, how is it going to know? It doesn't matter if there's a contractor in the area to connect you. Maybe you have a landlord that won't allow you to mount a dish to the house you rent.

This is how it works when you use the Sunday Ticket app on the PlayStation Network (note: This offer does not give you access to the PS3's app.) Sunday Ticket on a mobile device is otherwise only possible if you sign up for the deluxe "Sunday Ticket Max" package, which requires a DirecTV subscription. This is a code that essentially breaks off that feature and gives it to you for $ 40 above Madden's cost.

Madden special editions have been, candidly, kind of a snooze up to now. They get a different, sometimes prettier cover and some exclusive in-game content, usually for the Ultimate Team mode (and there's a bunch of that in the Anniversary Edition, too.) This, though, has legitimate value. I almost pulled the trigger on getting Sunday Ticket on the PS3 last year, but didn't, because I work weekends and my lone TV is in a room well away from my office. That changes if it's on my iPad here at my desk. No extra TV, no cable or satellite subscription.

So, I'm going in on this, even if I get a copy of Madden free in advance to review. And if I get screwed, well, I know where Anthony works and what he looks like. I'll say hello for you.

To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.

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The Xbox One has awesome new rumbling triggers, which can offer feedback.

The Xbox One has awesome new rumbling triggers, which can offer feedback. Nick Robinson over at Unwinnable has some issues with this: it's now possible for the triggers to resemble, you know, real triggers. It's a resemblance that makes him feel uncomfortable, but beyond that: what happens when we can't say pulling a trigger on a game is nothing like pulling a trigger in real life anymore?

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The Wii U has Nothing to Offer a Sports Fan. Does It Even Matter Now?

If it wasn't obvious at its launch in November, then this past week should have made it clear: The Wii U is functionally irrelevant to sports video games, and there is no reason for any sports fan to buy the console. The only question now is how much that will really matter to the fate of the machine.

Several intemperate, since-deleted tweets from an EA Sports software architect on Friday, slamming the Wii U as "crap," and Nintendo as a console-maker with a self-centered, stone-age approach, may cause that guy a lot of trouble internally. I doubt he loses his job for it. Words are but the skin of thoughts, and he's worked with EA Sports for a very long time. For termination to be on the table, he'd have to be jeopardizing some productive and profitable working relationship with such candid and unauthorized remarks. If EA's own official and authorized statements preceding the outburst are any indication, then none exists. Alienating the Nintendo constituency, however sensitive it may be, is meaningless if you're not even making games for it to buy.

And Electronic Arts isn't. The world's largest maker and seller of sports video games straight up told Kotaku on Thursday it has not a thing in development for the Wii U. Then, to Eurogamer on Friday, an official company statement blamed the "disappointing" sales performance of FIFA 13 on the Wii U as the reason the series wouldn't make another version for the console. Madden was confirmed out a couple of weeks before that. Elsewhere, NBA 2K14 remains "TBA" for its release in October, with WWE 2K14 specifically named for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 only.

Despite the Wii's stepchild status in the core-gaming discussion for the past eight years, it still had a more meaningful presence in the sports genre in any year than its high-definition successor does in its debut, especially in the sports where its motion controller was naturally suited. Yes, EA Sports embarrassed itself with outsourced, de-rigeur ports of its team sports franchises like Madden—not to mention last year's scandalously retreaded FIFA 13, in some ways worse than what MLB 2K13 attempted to pass off. Still, Tiger Woods PGA Tour's Wii version was, through 2011, the critical winner against all other platforms; Grand Slam Tennis—remember that old thing?—had a solid Wii-only release in 2011 before it thudded on the core consoles in 2012. Today, if you want to play golf or tennis on the Wii U—not an unreasonable expectation given the Wii brand's whitebread family reputation—you have to do it with a used copy of Wii Sports or Wii Sports Resort.

Even ice hockey, in 2010, was once a hot topic on the Wii. Three years ago, 2K Sports scrapped its NHL 2K series but stuck with its Wii edition because, despite being a standard-definition port of a team simulation, it still sold well with Canadian moms. That year, EA Sports decided to horn in on the turf with NHL Slapshot, featuring a mini-hockey stick peripheral that I still love fooling with. At E3 2010, I asked a 2K Sports representative why they didn't try the same thing, given the explosion of cheap plastic peripherals on that console. "Oh, we tried," he groaned. Nintendo just didn't dig their pitch. Along came EA Sports though, with clout and cash, and they got approval. Anecdotally, it speaks to the arbitrary success and failure awaiting third-party publishers, going back generations, on platforms built by Nintendo, for Nintendo.

Does any of this really matter? Nintendo may have done just fine, going back to the DS, with a platform suited only to one developer—itself. But even if cartoony sports offerings like EA's embarrassing All-Play series, or token "core" games like The Conduit, Red Steel or Madworld, were sales losers—as the EA Sports tweeter obstreperously, and correctly, reminded us—their presence nominally bootstrapped the Wii to a high-definition hardware generation in which it did not belong.

Now, two days before Microsoft unveils its next console, with EA and EA Sports removing its Nintendo commitment—and 2K Sports sure to follow—the Wii U does not even have that. If the Wii U wasn't faced with being a technological backwater after two years, it's looking at being a niche platform in its first. Sure, Sega—and God, after Aliens: Colonial Marines, what a desperate operation that must be right now—locked arms with Nintendo for three exclusive Sonic the Hedgehog titles on Wii U. That means a treacly minigame collection like Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games is the only licensed sports title, for the foreseeable future, on the Wii U.

I wish it did not come to this. Despite the tone of my remarks above, the only two pieces of gaming hardware I have bought, with my own money, on their day of release are the Wii U and the 3DS—and I recently upgraded to a 3DS XL. As I have written, if the Wii U GamePad was properly used, it could be a godsend in the sports genre—as a yardage book in Tiger Woods PGA Tour; as a recruiting notebook in NCAA Football; as a whiteboard on the sideline in NBA 2K14. Menu sludge is a plague to sports unlike any other genre, and Lord knows how it could help streamline storylines and matchmaking in WWE's career modes.

Maybe this would work if Nintendo was the only, or the clearly dominant console maker, and games were developed for it and then ported to other hardware with the unique features stripped out. Those days are gone forever. Console publishing today is like a series of high-class parties on the same night. Sure, you can have a strict dress code. The B-list guests will be there if they they can wear the same outfit from another event. The A-list will be there if it's worth being seen.

Stick Jockey is Kotaku's column on sports video games. It appears Sundays.

To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.

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Deathstroke is a playable character in Batman: Arkham Origins, according to this preorder offer (of

Deathstroke is a playable character in Batman: Arkham Origins, according to this preorder offer (of course) from Amazon. Click this link and then on the Arkham Origins box in lower right to see it. [via TheSlanted]

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