Madden Built a Game Industry in Orlando—and Now Has to Defend It

In the mid-1990s, Electronic Arts was under pressure. Development on a new version of Madden NFL, the video game publisher's cash cow football franchise, was behind schedule. With few options left, EA took a chance on an upstart game studio in Orlando, Fla. The swamps and strip malls of Central Florida were an unusual base for a company competing in the California-centric game industry, but the group pulled off its Hail Mary assignment. In 1998, EA acquired the startup, making it the new steward of Madden.

Today, EA has sold more than 100 million copies of Madden, generating about $4 billion in sales and going strong. The company is expected to reveal more details about the upcoming release of Madden NFL 16 at a news conference on Monday before E3, the annual video game convention in Los Angeles. The Orlando division behind Madden, called EA Tiburon, employs some 800 people, making it by far the biggest game developer in a city better known for amusement parks. “We’ve grown up here,” says Daryl Holt, an EA vice president in Orlando. “The industry has grown up around us.”