Why Apple Arcade offered a "no-compromise" home for EA's Madden NFL 27 Arcade Edition

• Apple Arcade allowed EA to build a "complete, no-compromise" Madden experience without ads or in-app purchases.
• EA sees Apple Arcade as a complementary platform that reaches players beyond its traditional console and free-to-play audiences.
• Ferwerda believes the distinction between console and mobile gaming is "rapidly going away".

Subscription services on mobile have built their model around offering developers and publishers another way to reach players beyond the traditional premium and free-to-play models. 

For EA, bringing Madden NFL to Apple Arcade represents an opportunity to explore that approach with one of its biggest-name sports franchises, aiming to deliver a premium experience across Apple’s ecosystem without the usual mobile monetisation systems. 

Rather than adapting Madden into a traditional free-to-play format, EA saw Apple Arcade as a platform where it could focus on creating an experience designed around gameplay for an IP that hasn't hit the same F2P mobile heights in recent years as another EA stalwart - FC Mobile.

This comes at a time when mobile continues to represent an evolving part of EA’s wider business. During the third quarter of its 2026 fiscal year, the publisher generated $254 million in net mobile revenue, with mobile accounting for around 13% of EA’s total net revenue during that period. EA also highlighted FC Mobile as a key contributor. 

Speaking to PocketGamer.biz, EA Tiburon head of live services and mobile Ryan Ferwerda discusses why Apple Arcade was the right home for Madden NFL 27 Arcade Edition, how the project looks to expand the franchise’s reach and what the team has learned from building a game designed to work across iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV. 

A premium approach 

For Ferwerda, the appeal of Apple Arcade came from the opportunity to create a different kind of mobile experience. 

“Apple Arcade gave us something really rare in mobile gaming with a premium, curated environment where we could deliver a complete, no-compromise Madden experience,” he says. “For a game like Madden, that matters.”

The platform’s model allowed EA to take a different approach to the game from a traditional mobile release. This way, they could focus on the experience itself rather than building the game around ads or in-app purchases. 

“Apple Arcade's model meant we could focus entirely on making the best possible game for players wherever they are.” 

While Madden has already built a well-established audience on consoles and other existing offerings, Ferwerda sees Apple Arcade as a new way to introduce the franchise to players who may not traditionally engage with the series. 

“Madden has an incredibly passionate core audience, but there's a massive group of football fans who haven't played the game in years or ever,” he says. 

Apple Arcade, he explains, provides access to players who may want to interact with games in a different way, be that during a commute or using Apple TV. 

“That's a genuinely new audience for us, and that's exciting.” 

Expanding the audience and building across the Apple ecosystem 

Rather than viewing Apple Arcade as a replacement for EA’s existing mobile strategy, Ferwerda describes it as "a distinct ecosystem within our broader strategy".

EA’s existing Madden NFL mobile experiences services players looking for a free-to-play, competitive live-service game, while Apple Arcade "fills a completely different need", says Ferwerda.

Madden NFL 2026 Mobile Football, first released in 2020 under a different name, currently sits at over $225 million in gross player spending according to App Magic data. 

However, Ferwerda notes again that Apple Arcade fills a different need. 

“It gives us a platform to deliver a premium, curated, ad-free, and microtransaction-free simulation experience on mobile and Mac that wouldn't traditionally fit the standard mobile business model,” he says.

“It allows us to segment our portfolio effectively so we can meet players wherever they choose to play, under whichever business model fits their lifestyle best.” 

Madden NFL 27 Arcade Edition supports a host of platforms, creating a development challenge to ensure that the experience worked consistently across different devices and input methods.

“We didn't view supporting all these platforms as a challenge, but rather as an incredible opportunity,” Ferwerda says.

He also expresses that this is the first fully localised native Madden ever and that it became a huge milestone for the team. One of the biggest areas of focus was creating an experience that would feel natural regardless of how players chose to interact. 

“Building full controller support across every device - pairing that seamlessly with what has traditionally been a touch-first mobile experience - forced us to think in a profoundly different way about how the game feels.” 

Be it players using touch controls on a phone or a controller on Apple TV, Ferwerda says the goal was to ensure that the gameplay experience remained consistent. 

“It pushed us to innovate on user experience across all form factors.” 

Ferwerda says that EA also worked closely with Apple throughout the development and treated them as “co-creators”.

“We maintained consistent touchpoints and a constant feedback loop across engineering, design, and platform optimisation.” 

Measuring success and lessons for future development

Without ads or in-app purchases, Apple Arcade creates a different set of criteria to consider when it comes to player engagement.

For Ferwerda, success is less about traditional mobile metrics and more about the quality of the overall player experience. 

“Apple Arcade provides a different platform to view player engagement,” he says. “Our north star really will be how players experience the game across the Apple ecosystem. It’s a different approach to our player journey, but a complementary one to our overall ecosystem strategy.

“Success is measured by how seamlessly a player can start a game on their commute with an iPhone, pick it back up on their Mac at their desk, or play a game with a controller on Apple TV in the living room, and keep coming back because the core game is genuinely satisfying.”

The development approach to Madden NFL 27 Arcade Edition has also included how EA thinks about creating mobile experiences. Ferwerda notes how the journey has reinforced the importance of scalable technology and how expectations among mobile players are changing as they want deeper experiences. 

“Building a cross-platform title that runs smoothly from an iPhone to an Apple TV or Mac reinforced how powerful unified controller support and scalable engine architecture are for mobile.” 

“Mobile players don't want scaled-down or overly simplified experiences; they want depth, real roster strategy, and compelling narrative systems.” 

One example of that approach is with EA’s narrative messaging system, which supports scenario-based storytelling and deeper progression within the game. 

“The work we did on our Narrative Messaging System for scenario-based storytelling is definitely something that highlights how deep offline or single-player mobile progression can be, and it's a philosophy we'll carry forward.” 

The future of mobile gaming

Looking ahead, Ferwerda believes that the divide between mobile and traditional games platforms will shrink as we see technology improve and player expectations evolve. 

“Mobile is where the world plays.” 

He argues that the opportunity for developers is no longer about creating separate experiences for different platforms, but about meeting the player wherever they choose to engage. 

“The tech has gotten incredibly powerful, and the distinction between 'console' and 'mobile' is rapidly going away.

“That means putting great, uncompromised experiences directly into their hands; purpose-built for whatever piece of glass they choose to engage with, whether that’s an iPhone on a commute or an Apple TV in the living room, all while respecting the core ethos and depth of our games.” 

Madden NFL 27 Arcade Edition releases today on Apple Arcade.