"Colin Kaepernick's Madden rating is higher than 17 starters"

[TheEagleXIII]

You gotta scroll through the comments on the original poster's link. Some are pure gold.

So far my favorite is

"EA doesn’t even live up to their own motto.
He’s not in the game."

"The 81 rating matches exactly his rating from his last appearance in the game. All they did was clone over his player profile from 4 years ago.

They didn’t reevaluate or lose any sleep over how to grade him. They pressed copy & paste. LOL People read too much into Madden, like it is actual news."

Ha! My first thought was 'if only they had put as much effort or thought into their games as they did this' but EA still gonna EA, I suppose.

[LoganRuckman]

This topic isn’t about video games, this is political. Why is this here?

I had a similar thought before clicking into the topic, but I don't think it's gone that route yet. For any non-sports fans, note that Madden ratings are a common debate on ESPN, sports radio, and among athletes. August is a slow sports time, so it gives sports fans something to debate.. "why is this guy ranked higher than that guy?".. "is so-and-so as good as Madden says he is?".. asking players "do you agree with your Madden rating?", etc. Looking at the linked article in the original post, that seemed to be the intent of the article as well.

As a big sports fan, I view Kaepernick as a football player, and as a high-profile player who hasn't played in a few years, so that's how I meant my response. EA could have included someone in a similar situation, like Tim Tebow, with a high rating and I think it would also get articles and commentary from fans. If someone hears "Kaepernick" and just thinks politics, that's on them. Or if someone comments on EA getting political, to me that's about video games.. it's not about anyone's personal politics here (which is the issue we try to avoid).

Perhaps, but this was posted in Other Media rather than General or Modern Gaming, which makes me wonder about the motives a little bit.

Personally, I think it would be cool if we had an actual "world issues" forum to discuss politics, religion, social issues, etc. It could create some very interesting discussions with the wonderful and insightful people on the forum, and it might prevent those topics from spilling over into other threads, at least a little bit. I understand that a lot of people might not be on board with this, but I think it'd be interesting to do a little test run of sorts to see how it goes. And if we can be respectful and engage in civil discourse despite differences in world views, we can keep it. If it turns out to be disastrous, then just delete it and say we at least tried.

Would anyone else be interested in that? Or is it a terrible idea?

[Gleebergloben123]

This topic isn’t about video games, this is political. Why is this here?

I had a similar thought before clicking into the topic, but I don't think it's gone that route yet. For any non-sports fans, note that Madden ratings are a common debate on ESPN, sports radio, and among athletes. August is a slow sports time, so it gives sports fans something to debate.. "why is this guy ranked higher than that guy?".. "is so-and-so as good as Madden says he is?".. asking players "do you agree with your Madden rating?", etc. Looking at the linked article in the original post, that seemed to be the intent of the article as well.

As a big sports fan, I view Kaepernick as a football player, and as a high-profile player who hasn't played in a few years, so that's how I meant my response. EA could have included someone in a similar situation, like Tim Tebow, with a high rating and I think it would also get articles and commentary from fans. If someone hears "Kaepernick" and just thinks politics, that's on them. Or if someone comments on EA getting political, to me that's about video games.. it's not about anyone's personal politics here (which is the issue we try to avoid).

Perhaps, but this was posted in Other Media rather than General or Modern Gaming, which makes me wonder about the motives a little bit.

Personally, I think it would be cool if we had an actual "world issues" forum to discuss politics, religion, social issues, etc. It could create some very interesting discussions with the wonderful and insightful people on the forum, and it might prevent those topics from spilling over into other threads, at least a little bit. I understand that a lot of people might not be on board with this, but I think it'd be interesting to do a little test run of sorts to see how it goes. And if we can be respectful and engage in civil discourse despite differences in world views, we can keep it. If it turns out to be disastrous, then just delete it and say we at least tried.

Would anyone else be interested in that? Or is it a terrible idea?

VGC, please never ever ever do this. We need a happy place. (With all due respect to LoganRuckman).

[Retro STrife]

VGC, please never ever ever do this. We need a happy place. (With all due respect to LoganRuckman).

I like your thinking Logan, but I'd vote the same as Gleebergloben. These days even well-intentioned social and political discussions turn divisive. On social media, we start disliking our own friends and relatives simply because of the annoying political positions they take. I think the same would happen here; it's just human nature. I'd much rather see us all dislike each other for more legitimate reasons, ya know, like for thinking the Gamecube was a cool system...

By the way though, I think there is gray area that's fair game when it's video game related. For example, developers injecting social/political commentary into their games and whether that's good or bad is a hot topic in the industry right now, and I've seen opinion pieces in magazines and online about it. This topic is a possible example of that.

[VideoGameCritic]

I think me and Retrostrife are on the same page. I don't want to shut down a thread just because it touches on politics with regard to games, but I don't want politics to run roughshod over these boards like it has just about every other aspect of our lives!

[LoganRuckman]

Yeah, I see what you guys are saying. I don't want us all hating each other either.

I'd much rather see us all dislike each other for more legitimate reasons, ya know, like for thinking the Gamecube was a cool system...

Ok not gonna lie, this actually triggered me a little bit haha. GCN is the best system, and I will die on that hill! And I'll also die on the "6th gen is best gen" hill.

[Retro STrife]

Ok not gonna lie, this actually triggered me a little bit haha. GCN is the best system, and I will die on that hill! And I'll also die on the "6th gen is best gen" hill.

See! Mission accomplished haha. In reality, I have no GCN hate. Just seemed like a good system to pick on for that line.

[icepeople]

As the OP, I was amused by the article merely because it seems obvious EA is doing this to stir up controversy (and thus sales) merely by including CK, let alone the nonsensical rating. Not exactly the first time in the industry, but still of enough interest to mention. But, no, I had/have no desire to turn this thread into a rehash of the infinite number of tirelessly repetitive rants everywhere else on the web.

[C64_Critic]

Keeping with the 'video game' aspect of this issue/thread, can anyone comment on whether the most recent Madden (or even previous iterations) include other players who are not actually current players? All the political stuff aside, I don't understand why Madden would include someone who isn't in the league at all. They may as well have a "C64_Critic" player, at this point I'm as much an employee of the NFL as Kaepernick is.

[icepeople]

Without doing any research admittedly, I assumed including somebody who's been inactive for three years and has no obvious prospects is unprecedented. Obviously a big part of it being a clever/stupid marketing trick (depending on your viewpoint).