It’s in the Game interview: EA Sports’ Daryl Holt on bringing Prime Video’s new Madden NFL docuseries to life

We spoke with EA Sports SVP and group GM Daryl Holt about the new It’s in the Game docuseries, working with Prime Video and SMAC, and looking to the future of Madden.

It's in the Game: Madden NFL / Courtesy of Prime Video

A brand new four-part series has hit Prime Video about the revolutionary partnership that led to the hit video game franchise Madden NFL, which tells the decades-spanning story in a way never done before.

It's in the Game: Madden NFL is an impressive feat, managing to find people from all corners of football, from developers of the game to former and present NFL players who gather to speak about the legacy of Coach Madden and the game, as well as the impact it has had both on and off the field.

Across four hours, we get a detailed history of how the idea began in 1983 in Silicon Valley with Rich Hilleman, all the way to the launch of Madden NFL 25 in 2024.

We spoke with the vice president and group chief operating officer at EA Sports about bringing the series to life, working with the teams at SMAC Entertainment and Prime Video, and looking to the future of Madden. 

It's in the Game: Madden NFL / Courtesy of Prime Video

Video Games on Sports Illustrated: I'd love to know how this all came by you. Did someone bring the project to you or were you out there searching for someone to tell the story of what you at EA have done with Madden. 

Daryl Holt: I would say more the former than the latter. We were always thinking of ways to peel back the curtain and bring people into the magic that is video games, making Madden, and the cultural aspect of that. When Prime and the filmmakers came to us, it was a really good relationship and partnership for us to explore, especially given that Madden had just, at the time, celebrated its 35th anniversary with the release of Madden 24. It's a long-running franchise and we felt like it was a good opportunity to carry on the understanding of that legacy and the history behind it, and what Coach Madden means to us.

Why did you feel that now was the perfect time to tell this story? Was it scary to bring in people from outside EA and invite them into what you have all spent so long taking care of? 

It definitely is interesting to open up the archives and share things that we've never shared before, but it's also a great story. From Coach Madden being involved with us from the very beginning to his legacy and us carrying that torch forward with what we do every year. Also, when you look at what's happening in sports and games, and the culture, there's a whole new generation of sports fans that are coming in who consume sports differently. They interact differently. They're very social versus someone who might have grown up watching Madden as a coach or a broadcaster, who played the games in a more traditional way. Those generations are now bridging the gaps between each other, and I think this project was a unique opportunity to continue that. 

I've seen so many people evolve into fans of NFL teams through Madden. It's great to see the sport grow every year. What do you feel is your responsibility at Madden to keep bringing in new fans? 

Responsibility is a good word. For some of the newer sports fans, their first exposure to the NFL and football is through Madden NFL as a video game. We see that integration and that intersection of sports, culture, entertainment, and we take that responsibility very seriously because it started with Coach Madden. He wanted us to build a very authentic sport simulation, and that was part of the challenge, but also he wanted to teach the sport of football. I think that was one of the things that he loved about our game and interacting with us, is how many people came to know football through playing the game that bears his name. 

I was in Orlando for the launch of Madden 25, and I remember during the presentation that authenticity was the word that kept coming up. We've never had Madden's story told so completely on screen like this before. It goes over four hours. How did you work with the team to condense decades’ worth of history to tell the story this way? 

That was a challenge. It was, ‘Let's open the door of the archive. Let's talk about everything we can think of. Let's go through the interviews’. We talked to so many different NFL players, young and old that grew up with the game or that were part of the circle of influence with Coach Madden. That part – just getting all that information out on the table and understanding what was there – was really a fun, joyful experience. The challenge came to be how do we take this story that could be told probably over a much longer period and get it into something that would have the impact that it has in those four episodes. We had a lot of talks about ‘What else do you need? What else can we do to help provide some background on something?’ But it was also a lot of fun too. It’s the same thing in making video games. When you take that challenge of making a game every year, that has had the longevity that Madden NFL has had, but find the fun and see the enjoyment and the interaction between people as they play it… I think that's what we were looking at even as we were making this documentary. 

It's in the Game: Madden NFL / Courtesy of Prime Video

The series replicates that fun of video games. Each person had their own label. There’s the visionary, the problem solver, the assistant, etc. It felt nostalgic, almost like an ‘80s film or video game. Did you have any say in that aesthetic or is that something they surprised you with? 

It was assumed but somewhat surprising to see how it all comes together. When you're talking about the different generations of people that have been involved in this game, and involved in the sport over the past 36 years that it's been in existence, you have the expectation that you're going to run across different viewpoints and different generational viewpoints. The early episodes felt very much placed in that ‘80s/90s, juxtaposed with the Madden NFL 25 development team working on the game. It's both a modern take and a historical/nostalgic take. 

What are your hopes for the show now that people see it? Who do you want it to reach? What do you want people to take away from it? 

It's bridging the generational gap, bringing players old and new together, and understanding that this is still football and whether you, like us, are making the game, or you're playing it, or you're watching football… there's something about the sport that you learn. Not only about the game, but about yourself through it. Ray Lewis and some of the other NFL players captured that uniqueness when they were talking about it. It’s something we deal with every year as we're building Madden NFL. I hope that we bridge that gap, bring all these generations together, and celebrate what has been the longest-running sports video game franchise while inspiring the next generation to play or be part of the making of it for years to come. 

The sport is evolving each year with new rules, new types of players, new narratives. How are you looking ahead to Madden 26?

Games have gotten more social and the social connections are increasing. It’s definitely an era of self-expression, so putting team builder in the game last year was a starting point, but it's a combination of who you are as a player and how we respond to that as we move forward with the technology. Some of it will be, how do we give you more control and gameplay, and build on the things that we were doing, like physics tackling. How do we give you more customization in franchise mode? How do we give you more story in superstar mode? There are so many different ways to play the game, and so many different players, that technology just keeps giving us new ways to either drive efficiency, expansion or transformation of the sport, which is fun. I think that's part of the challenge, but also the energizing aspect of making games.