When it comes to sports sims, very few boast the longevity that the Madden NFL video game franchise does. Initially released as “John Madden Football” from 1988 through 1993, Madden NFL has been an annual fixture in gaming for as long as most of us remember. The franchise literally predates most of the best-selling consoles of all time. You’ll have to go all the way back to the days of the original Nintendo Entertainment System, otherwise known as the Famicom, for a popular console older than it is. And, one good reason why Madden NFL has had the staying power that it does is because of its massive fanbase.
Every Madden NFL entry sells millions upon millions of copies at launch, which is good for more than 130 million units sold throughout its lifetime. The series peaked with Madden NFL 07, selling 7.7 million units in the USA alone, as it set a still-recognized record by the World Guinness Records. Although if you ask every fan, they’ll tell you that Madden 2004 was the best title in the franchise ever.
The Madden franchise has clesrly cemented itself as a gaming staple for decades. But what if, instead of buying each new iteration, you had invested that $60 in EA stock every year? You may be surprised at how much richer you could be today.
Rather than debating the best Madden game or features, let’s talk finances. If you took the cost of a new Madden every year and bought EA stock instead, how much money would you have now? Some call each new Madden a mere reskin until the next console generation. But EA’s revenue suggests players keep coming back.
By running some numbers, we found investing yearly Madden costs in EA stock could have delivered impressive returns over time. The results may make you think twice before buying the latest Madden release.
If we assume that the video game prices stayed at $60 from 1990 all the way through 2024 (EA wouldn’t go public until 1989), you’d have spent around $2,040. If you’d purchased EA shares instead, you’d today have around 182.99 shares, which, based on the market value of $120.45 per share as of September 20, 2023, means you’d have a little over $22,000 – a near 10x profit.
Of course, there’s a lot of caveats. Video game prices didn’t stay at $60. The price varied from $40 to $60 depending on the platform from 1988 to 1990. Then, from Madden NFL 91 to Madden NFL 95, the prices shifted from $50 to $70. The prices would stabilize around the mid-90s, hovering at $50 from Madden NFL 96 all the way through Madden NFL 2000. From there, the price would stay at mostly $59.99 from Madden NFL 06 all the way through Madden NFL 2021, which split the pricing from $59.99 for older consoles like the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One and $69.99 for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S/X. Madden NFL would continue the same pricing scheme until Madden NFL 23. Afterward, Madden NFL 24 would unify the price of both the current-gen and next-gen consoles.
Not to mention, EA has almost always sold more expensive editions of Madden NFL, and we can argue that these sell as well as the Standard Editions.
At the moment, the most expensive Madden NFL 24 copy is the Digital Edition, which sells for $99.99 and comes with 4600 Madden Points and 3-Day Early Access to the game.
The pricing doesn’t account for inflation either, ($60 in 1990 would be worth around $140.95 today). Besides, who would’ve thought that Madden NFL would last as long? Don’t forget, as popular football is in the United States, it doesn’t guarantee that a sports sim based on it will last for a lifetime. Electronic Arts recently parted ways with FIFA and decided to go the solo route. Finally, one of EA’s foremost sporting sims, NBA Live, went from an annual release from 95 to being canceled in 2019.
Then again, we’re betting on companies here – not just the games they made. If, for example, you’d had the foresight to set aside an extra $60 to buy shares of EA alongside a copy of any game EA tries to shove down our throats every year for over a decade, you’d be financially capable of putting a sizable dent on your student loans and/or housing mortgage or almost have enough to make a sensible car purchase, like the latest Toyota Corolla.
Of course, with Apple investing heavily in gaming and selling the iPhone 15 as the “best game console”, you could try a similar approach with the iPhone and be much more well-off. You wouldn’t make millions – Reddit literally did the math for the guy – but the amount of money you’d have made in less than two decades is so much more than the money you put in.
Another alternative is to keep the physical copies of the first editions of games. The last we heard, an early copy of John Madden Football sold for nearly half a million.
Basically, gamers would be pretty darn rich right now if they bought stocks in the companies making their favourite games each time they purchased a new copy. Or, well, maybe not. Who knows?
