While the Madden Nation catches a lot of fame on ESPN 2 each year, competitive gamers know the Madden Challenge is where the real professionals reside. At each city, hundreds of the top Madden gamers come out to battle for pride and a chance to reach the finals where big prize payouts reside. While the Madden Challenge is once again bringing out the highest level of competition of any tournament in the world, there are a couple changes this year that have changed how the community feels about the event.

In previous seasons, the Madden Challenge wrapped up at the Pro Bowl in Honolulu. The regional champions were invited by EA to attend the Pro Bowl and compete in the tournament in the week leading up to the big game. This year the Madden Challenge has been moved up in order to complete the tournament before the holiday season. This will accomplish a large goal for EA; to sell more copies of Madden NFL 08 at Christmas.

By having a large marketing release for Madden surrounding the Madden Challenge, the idea is that more gamers will be drawn to purchase the title around the holiday. The videos will likely feature gamers playing the game, sharing their passion for Madden, and walking off with some hefty prize money.

While on the surface it may seem that such a marketing strategy will draw in gamers and move thousands of extra copies of the game, there is something that tells me the strategy won't be incredibly successful. The majority of the gamers that will be targeted by such commercials are those that play competitively in Madden or other games. The issue by targeting such a group, is that those are the gamers who have already purchased Madden NFL 08. By aiming a marketing strategy at a group that already owns the game, it will not likely drive extensive new sales.

The commericials will almost certainly bring in a few new buyers and create awareness of the title among parents, but the niche targeted by such a campaign is already saturated. The appropriate time to run such a campaign is right before the Madden NFL 09 release. While gamers are on the fence about purchasing 09 or waiting for reviews, videos showing the top competitive gamers in a professional tournament, and the insane release party of the Maddenoliday 2007 in Time Square would be great for driving sales of a new release.