For over a decade, Florida-based EA Tiburon - founded as Tiburon Entertainment before being acquired by Electronic Arts in 1998, has served as the primary developer of Madden NFL, one of the highest-revenue franchises in gaming history.
In 2004, EA Sports acquired exclusive rights to the NFL in video games, further cementing Madden's position in the industry while drawing criticism from industry observers for the move's effective stifling of competition.
Through this, Tiburon itself has remained unusually low-profile for a studio responsible for so many dollars. In addition to Madden, it essentially serves as the guardian of all EA football franchises, as well of other sports series such as Tiger Woods PGA Tour and NASCAR.
To help fill in some of the blanks, Tiburon general manager Philip Holt sat down with Gamasutra, discussing the legacy of the Madden juggernaut, the necessity of regularly shipping a game on an 11-month dev cycle, Tiburon's rivalry with sister studio EA Canada, and his thoughts on the NFL exclusivity deal.
