In the year 2020, a massive campaign on Twitter urged the league to sign EA as its official partner NFLDropEA. Yet, despite the outrage over social media that also included coordinated review-bombing of this game's Metacritic site Madden 22 coins, Madden 21 sales were substantially higher. The Madden 22 of this year Madden 22 did well, too, and the Madden series remains the top-selling sporting franchise of all time.
The critics are part of an extremely vocal minority, but one whose task is to be extremely vocal. I'm talking about YouTubers, who earn their living through making videos by streaming themselves playing games they say they dislike.
The variety of YouTubers' areas of focus shows how massive the game these days. There are YouTubers like Belton who upload video of their own games in various games; there's an array of people uploading tips and tricks. Then there are people who are dedicated to slamming on Madden.
In the fall of last year, a channel named SOFTDRINKTV published a 14-minute clip entitled "The most awful Madden of All Time," followed a week later with a 19-minute version titled "Madden NFL 22 is not good - review." They returned to the same well in recent times with a new video entitled "Everything Wrong with Madden NFL 22 (in 16 minutes)."
The narration of this one begins memorably in a dramatic way: "This is the kind of game that causes you to want to stick to your eyeballs with a thumbtack. When you play Madden 22, the blessing of life becomes a curse. It is no longer a desire to live buy madden coins. It creates existential dread."