Electronic Arts makes a lot of money from its annual Madden NFL sports game (primarily via the Ultimate Team gambling), which hasn’t seen significant changes in a long time. Despite it, the publisher has gotten some people to raise their voices.

Madden NFL 23’s Connected Franchise Mode (shortened to CFM from now on) is affected, as a glitch has caused many players to lose their save files. Last week, players were experiencing connectivity issues, and Electronic Arts tweeted that the problem had been fixed, so they “can play CFM without any issues.” However, players who logged in for roughly thirteen hours after the “fix” was announced found bugs in their saves. Those who didn’t log in during this period are supposed to be unaffected.

According to Electronic Arts, they are trying to restore corrupted saves from backups, but EA expects that only 40% of leagues will be properly restored. Several people on Reddit are reporting that over 30 of their players have been lost due to the glitch. Some have played three online franchises and lost all three. Active 32-team leagues are loaded with users, and they see it as ridiculous. For another person, it is their 7th Madden game, and the league has made friends in real life, and they see it as painful because they don’t know what to do next.

If we’re concerned, EA says to start a new franchise because the mode is up and running. Think about it: there must have been a lot of work in the save. It’s lost through no fault of our own, then the publisher posted incorrect information (because the fix wasn’t a fix), and the affected data wasn’t adequately backed up… and all they say is start over. No wonder only 47% of the reviews on Steam for Madden NFL 23 are positive, and this move may have been the last straw for many.

Madden’s CFM has been there since Madden NFL 25 (yes, 25!) was released in 2013. You can manage an NFL player, coach, or manager in an online league and even make it into the virtual hall of fame. But all of that could end up in the trash due to a data storage error.

Source: PCGamer