Electronic Arts, NCAA 09, Madden 09 and gamer unrest

In my Saturday column, I wrote about the growing number of complaints with EA's just-released NCAA 09 football game and the soon-to-be-released Madden 09.

In the column, I referenced a forum posting from a Madden developer who -- to me, anyway -- seemed to be acknowledging that the new Madden title was missing some key elements that a lot of Madden fans had come to expect.

Over the weekend, I received an e-mail from that developer who said that I had misinterpreted some of his comments, and he noted that he had posted a follow-up to his original comments.

Definitely go read the follow up if you're a hard core Madden fan, because it does seem to address some of the gripes gamers had with missing gameplay settings.

I never did hear from anyone at EA about NCAA, though.

I'll admit right here that I'm not a big football gamer, so I don't really have the expertise to say how critical these problems are (although the videos I've seen of NCAA's problems would be obvious to a catatonic chimp -- here's one, with plenty of profanity), but the unrest among the hardcore fans is undeniable.