One of the best things about Madden is that the game comes out every 12 months, so there's a constant stream of feedback from the fans.

Some of the funniest feedback I get is phone calls and direct emails. And it isn't so much the content; it is the stories people give me about how they got my contact number in the first place and the different types of people who call me. In this past year I received calls and emails from NFL players, college students, cub scouts, parole officers, parents, "ballers," NFL rules officials, developers at other game companies, media, and just general fans who wanted to let us know what tweaks and features they want in Madden..

This year, one guy put together a great list of desired improvements, printed it and sent it to about 15 people on the team. Unless he works at the post office, he spent a good amount of money out of his own pocket sending this much mail out to tell us what he thought about the game, and we respect anyone who is that dedicated to our game. What was great about that guy was that he took the time to be articulate and constructive and that helps us focus on what the person is after. People walked around with this guy's letter for about a week, comparing it to things we already had planned. We dig these kinds of people, because before we were making games, most of us on the team were the kind of people who would send in feedback on what we wanted out of our favorite game.

Over the years, we've always kept up with the various message boards to get feedback... The frequency of hearing a request has a big impact on how we prioritize it's inclusion in the game. We have a lot of creative people on the team, and they have these jobs because they want to create new experiences for gamers. We also have gamers in the community that know what they want and don't want us to change anything. With a game like Madden we sometimes get stuck in having to decide between sticking to what we have done in the past and trying to innovate where we think the improvements are ultimately in the best interest of the gamer's experience.

In the past we tried to scour the boards for insight to help us solve some of these issues. This year, the community is responding well to is the fact that we are able to peel back the curtain more on why and how we are making decisions and posing questions to them about our process.

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