EA Sports has released Madden NFL 25 for iOS, the newest iteration in its popular sports franchise. The release marks the first time the game is free to play, along with offering in-app purchases for use with Madden’s Ultimate Team feature which allows the user to collect player cards and use them in game. The game also features all 32 NFL teams and solo challenges, as well as new touch controls that allow for easier gestures.
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An experience 25 years in the making! EA SPORTS delivers the most authentic NFL football experience to date on iPhone® and iPad® with MADDEN NFL 25. Build your Ultimate Team of NFL stars and run the show on offense and defense with new and improved touch controls, game modes and much more!
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Madden NFL 25 can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]
Top Rated Comments
A good game should offer the game for free so that players can try it first for the first few levels/part, and then offer a one-time full game unlock for a finite amount of money and that's it. No more power up/heart/live... But then again, we don't live in a perfect world :(
Ah, the ever-increasing difference between "free" and "free-to-play".
The longer this goes on the harder it will be to stop/reverse.
Yes, it's a business model which can gets the developer more money, but so is racketeering and gambling and all kinds of user-unfriendly models.
Apple need to pull their finger out. They're responsible for a lot of this trend.
First they refused to allow trials/demos. The idea was that the App description would be all-important - but Apple didn't do enough in that area, either. No embedded videos mean that users don't get a good enough idea of how an App works.
This is where in-app purchases came from. Once the business model changed, the games had to change to fit the business model. By most accounts, these games are much less fun because they revolve around power-ups and constantly nag you for money. That's not to mention games that are totally abusive and change the rules of the game in-flight to tempt you to buy add-ons.
The AppStore is not good enough. It's been six years now, and we still have no clear paid upgrade mechanism or trial/demo system. What we have instead is a bunch of "games" that are basically disguised slot-machines.
Apple need to step up their game. Unfortunately developers have no choice of distribution on iOS, so we can't use competition to force them on. If you're unhappy with Apple's statuesque pace of progress on the AppStore your only choice is to ditch the entire platform.
:D