[Update] An EA Sports spokesman sent us the following statement:
“We’re always exploring new platforms to deliver accessible and innovative sports experiences, as FIFA Superstars and Tiger Woods PGA TOUR Online have demonstrated. You can expect us to continue this with our other franchises, but we have no announcements to make at this time regarding a Madden NFL game for Facebook.”
There you have it — for now, Madden NFL Superstars remains unofficial.
[Original story] Back in February, EA Sports president Peter Moore mentioned that a Madden game would soon be making its way to Facebook. We’ve seen neither hide nor hair of the game since then, but in the interim, EA launched FIFA Superstars on Facebook and saw it become a successful product. FIFA Superstars is developed by Playfish, the social gaming creator that EA bought for $275 million last November, and now it appears that EA may be bringing Madden to Facebook as Madden NFL Superstars.
Bitmob’s community manager was trying to play FIFA Superstars this morning when he came across the following error message on Facebook: “Sorry, EA Sports Madden Superstars is currently down for maintenance but will return shortly.” (You can see a screenshot, courtesy of Bitmob, in the gallery below.) Presumably, someone at Playfish messed up, and now we know the name of Facebook’s Madden game.
Say what you want about casual gaming, but it’s smart for EA to get into the business. They likely wanted to test the waters with FIFA Superstars before diving in with Madden, their marquee brand. But it makes sense to bring Madden to Facebook now — FIFA Superstars‘ user base grew significantly during this summer’s World Cup, and the 2010 NFL season kicks off in just three weeks.
We’ve contacted EA for comment and will update this post with any reply.
Madden NFL Superstars Revealed [Bitmob — thanks, Brett!]
