Anyone else cover Madden '08?

Apparently I was way ahead of my time when I did a feature the night Mike Ditka Power Football came out.

I'm sure someone will come on here and say they were there with a tape recorder in hand the night Mattel Football II came out though, so I can't claim pioneer status.

 

There has got to be someone in the community worthy of a feature rather than covering this non-story. Sure, guys get excited and stand out in line for Madden... it happens every year.

C'mon, there's got to be something out there you can write about other than this... especially for a feature.

 

I'm not into video games, and our paper does virtually nothing about them, but I remember reading a Chuck Klosterman article in Esquire where he made the case that papers should review video games like they do movies and music. Games have become that much a part of the current culture and climate. We do stories about kids and others waiting in line for the latest Star Wars and Harry Potter movies. We do stories on the end of TV series like The Sopranos and Seinfeld. We cover parties for the unveiling of the newest Harry Potter book. So why not do features on popular video games?

 

I think Kato is right about newspapers covering video games the way they do movies and music. It's a multi-billion dollar industry that hits a younger demographic. If you get those damn kids to pick up the paper for video game reviews, I bet they might even flip to a few other pages.

As far as covering the release of Madden '08, I have no problem with that being in sports. Not only is the game sports-related, most of the people who buy it are, well, sports fans. Again, nothing wrong with getting someone who might not normally pick up your paper to read it and maybe they'll start to like it.

A few years ago, I used to review the three major football games (Madden, Sega 2k-whatever, and Sony). When I'd go out and do prep stuff later on, a lot of the kids would ask me about them, which means they were reading stories other than ones about their teams. I think that's a good thing.

 

I think this is a sports story. So many players, the real players, get geeked up for the new Madden and NCAA Football games each summer. I really wanted to write a story about this. It would have been a cool centerpiece because I could have made it cool.

The school I cover decided it would be an NCAA violation because the kids would be promoting a product.

Eh, their loss.

 

Wow, I thought the people who were afraid of hanging an asterisk on the Bonds headlines were out of touch, but this thread really puts that to shame. Has this board been overrun by old men in their 70s who won't allow anything of interest into their newspapers?
"There has got to be someone in the community worthy of a feature rather than covering this non-story." Are you kidding me? There probably isn't a single story this month that will have as much appeal to a demographic that newspapers have completely lost.
It's that sort of close minded, backwards, and illogical thinking that drove me out of the business. Good luck finding a job when your readership dies off.
And no, I'm not 20, I'm in my 40s. I just understand that the most important aspect to being readable is finding stories people actually want to read. And yeah, some will skip right over a Madden release story. A lot more will skip over that profile of someone in the community.

 

Close-minded, backwards and illlogical? Why thank you.

How is this really a story? The game came out. Great. Guys stand in line. Wonderful.

I love Madden, but I, along with any demographic, would be drawn to a gripping human interest story, enterprise or profile than this trite drivel that is repeated every August.

Be innovative. Great. I'm all for that, but a story on the release of Madden that's been done over and over again for the last five or so years... c'mon, that's illogical.

 

I don't think it is an event that should be covered every year, but a feature every few years isn't the end of the world. And I think it belongs in the sports section.

The story isn't the fact that people waited in line. The story is about video games as a whole. What draws several hundred guys out to the Best Buy for eight hours to buy a game? How much do they get into the game? Do they make up their own playbooks? People that don't play probably don't know how in-depth these games can get. Do they play because they think they could do a better job of coaching their favorite team?

It's as much of a sports story as fantasy football, if not more.

 

If you do Madden, don't you have to do NCAA too? And what happens when Halo 3 and GTA 4 come out?

 

It's a sports story if:

* I have nothing else to run.
* I get paid hourly and have flexible overtime.
* I'm eagerly awaiting Madden '08 and would be sitting in line at midnight anyway.
* I want to get paid for sitting in line at midnight.
* I have nothing else to run and want to quickly bang out a feature story so I can get back to mom's basement and play me some Madden football.
* I'm "Comic Book Guy's brother" and Mom suggested that saying it was the "longest line ever" would get him a free ad and I would get a break on rent.
* I have NOTHING else to run.

 

I'm guessing that many of same people that are picking up your sports section in the morning are also going to buy Madden '08. I'm also guessing that guys who are picking up Madden '08 do not read the Lifestyles section.

Here's the best-of-both-worlds scenario: If you have an edgy Page 2 thing, put it there.

 

I take a week off work, that's what happens.

And you could do something interesting with this. Could. I'm not sure most would though.