Dopamine

Last night I loaded up the game but ended up just scrolling through the menu and turned it off.

I realized that I had completely lost the dopamine dependency that MUT had on me.

I no longer have ANY desire to play and it feels good not to feel like I NEED to play the game.

I know that MUT 26 is around the corner and the itch will eventually return, but for now, I'm going to enjoy the rest of the Summer.

Good for you, brother. I spent my weekend cleaning the pool, working on my land and installing a water softener with my beautiful bride without picking up the sticks much and it was way more fulfilling. So yeah I’m seeing the light myself as well and have NOT bought 26. I’m curious to see what RP looks like but am not falling prey to EA’s money grab around that and their F’d up rollouts another year. Honestly if that itch returns for me, I’m hoping it ain’t before Zero Chill next year. 🤝

Khoale37 said:

Good for you, brother. I spent my weekend cleaning the pool, working on my land and installing a water softener with my beautiful bride without picking up the sticks much and it was way more fulfilling. So yeah I’m seeing the light myself as well and have NOT bought 26. I’m curious to see what RP looks like but am not falling prey to EA’s money grab around that and their F’d up rollouts another year. Honestly if that itch returns for me, I’m hoping it ain’t before Zero Chill next year. 🤝

Sounds like you had a wonderful weekend!

MUT 25 was my return from a 10-year hiatus and I learned a lot about MUT this year, mostly by making every mistake a rookie can make.

The biggest thing I learned is that I was disappointed 100% of the time I spent money on the game, so I won't spend a dime in MUT 26.

Secondly, There isn't a card I can't live without, so just make do with what I can get.

Lastly, have fun and get better :)

I spent over 1,000 hours on MUT 25; had I spent that time in the gym... That's also something to consider come August 14th.

That’s awesome. I just had a conversation with someone the other day about why people play so much. My answer was dopamine.

Mythomaniac said:

Last night I loaded up the game but ended up just scrolling through the menu and turned it off.

I realized that I had completely lost the dopamine dependency that MUT had on me.

I no longer have ANY desire to play and it feels good not to feel like I NEED to play the game.

I know that MUT 26 is around the corner and the itch will eventually return, but for now, I'm going to enjoy the rest of the Summer.

Bravo, sir.  I'm still enjoying playing Squads with the boys, although basically every other game mode has been lackluster -- and this was a decent weekend, in terms of content, possibly/probably the last decent content drop before Rookie Premiers.  Although, there hasn't really been anything to play for in months.  I'm loving my new Gronk USER, felt liek i waited a really long time for a legitimate upgrade over Joe Flacco.  And Colston Loveland is potentially one of the best cards in the entire game.

I have yet to pre-order M26 and i'm seriously trying to talk myself into take at least a couple/few months off.  Had a good time checking out M26 Closed Beta last weekend, but at the end of the day, it's the same basic game, yet another in a long series of copy/paste jobs from EA, although with a hefty dose of lipstick on their bloated, buggy ass, inconsistent mess of a pig/game.

If there ever were a year to vote with our wallets, this is it -- the exclusive agreement giving EA ~twenty years of monopoly power to abuse us, the player base, could finally be in jeopardy.  Hopefully I can wait til October for a $35 sale, wish me luck.  If nothing else, i'm hopeful the league takes a "wait and see" approach, although there aren't any other video game companies coming to save us.  Take Two Interactive (2K Games) would be out of the frying pan and into the fire type ordeal, but consumer choice is never a bad thing, so trying to put my money where my mouth is.

Enjoy your summer!  EA will be trying to lure you back with the Rookie Premiers, i'm convinced they'll force us to log in for ~thirty days straight to achieve those.

peatrick said:

Bravo, sir.  I'm still enjoying playing Squads with the boys, although basically every other game mode has been lackluster -- and this was a decent weekend, in terms of content, possibly/probably the last decent content drop before Rookie Premiers.  Although, there hasn't really been anything to play for in months.  I'm loving my new Gronk USER, felt liek i waited a really long time for a legitimate upgrade over Joe Flacco.  And Colston Loveland is potentially one of the best cards in the entire game.

I have yet to pre-order M26 and i'm seriously trying to talk myself into take at least a couple/few months off.  Had a good time checking out M26 Closed Beta last weekend, but at the end of the day, it's the same basic game, yet another in a long series of copy/paste jobs from EA, although with a hefty dose of lipstick on their bloated, buggy ass, inconsistent mess of a pig/game.

If there ever were a year to vote with our wallets, this is it -- the exclusive agreement giving EA ~twenty years of monopoly power to abuse us, the player base, could finally be in jeopardy.  Hopefully I can wait til October for a $35 sale, wish me luck.  If nothing else, i'm hopeful the league takes a "wait and see" approach, although there aren't any other video game companies coming to save us.  Take Two Interactive (2K Games) would be out of the frying pan and into the fire type ordeal, but consumer choice is never a bad thing, so trying to put my money where my mouth is.

Enjoy your summer!  EA will be trying to lure you back with the Rookie Premiers, i'm convinced they'll force us to log in for ~thirty days straight to achieve those.

The reason the game looks and feels like a copy-and-paste version of the previous one is because… it literally is.

Ever since EA moved from Ignite to Frostbite in 2017, they’ve been locked into building this version of Madden — one that prioritizes visuals over depth. Frostbite wasn’t made for sports gameplay or AI systems, so a lot of the legacy tools that powered smarter play and more fluid animation were left behind.

To truly fix Madden, they'd need to move to a modern engine like Unreal 5 or Unity’s ECS stack. But doing that means taking a few steps backward to reestablish gameplay fundamentals — especially in areas like player interactions and blocking logic, which are still animation-locked because of how deeply tied they are to Frostbite.

A real physics-based system? That would require a full-on rebuild. And with the annual August deadline and most of their dev resources funneled into MUT, there's just no room left for foundational improvements.

Switching to a DLC/live-service model could at least give them the flexibility to build on one solid version over time, rather than repainting the same house every year and calling it new.

But at the end of the day, nobody's making me buy it. So yeah — maybe this is the year to wait and see. Not out of spite, but because that’s the only leverage we have left as players. 

If enough of us hold off, even for a few months, and pick up the game at $35 instead of the $70, it would send a message they can’t ignore.

timrp30 said:

That’s awesome. I just had a conversation with someone the other day about why people play so much. My answer was dopamine.

We are all simple creatures; we do what makes us feel good, and dopamine has a way of making us feel good in anticipation.

EA figured out a way to keep that carrot dangling all year round by constantly releasing higher-rated cards throughout the year. There is always a new QB1 or CB1 around the corner, so we need to be ready with a stack of coins, and the coins aren't going to stack themselves. It's not just about the players — it's the hit of dopamine we get from the thought of pulling something great. 

EA doesn’t sell cards — they sell anticipation.

Mythomaniac said:

The reason the game looks and feels like a copy-and-paste version of the previous one is because… it literally is.

Ever since EA moved from Ignite to Frostbite in 2017, they’ve been locked into building this version of Madden — one that prioritizes visuals over depth. Frostbite wasn’t made for sports gameplay or AI systems, so a lot of the legacy tools that powered smarter play and more fluid animation were left behind.

To truly fix Madden, they'd need to move to a modern engine like Unreal 5 or Unity’s ECS stack. But doing that means taking a few steps backward to reestablish gameplay fundamentals — especially in areas like player interactions and blocking logic, which are still animation-locked because of how deeply tied they are to Frostbite.

A real physics-based system? That would require a full-on rebuild. And with the annual August deadline and most of their dev resources funneled into MUT, there's just no room left for foundational improvements.

Switching to a DLC/live-service model could at least give them the flexibility to build on one solid version over time, rather than repainting the same house every year and calling it new.

But at the end of the day, nobody's making me buy it. So yeah — maybe this is the year to wait and see. Not out of spite, but because that’s the only leverage we have left as players. 

If enough of us hold off, even for a few months, and pick up the game at $35 instead of the $70, it would send a message they can’t ignore.

Appreciate you being able to break this down so concisely for myself and the community. We're seeing the limitations of the Frostbite engine, although I recently experienced UE5 (with Maximum Football), but there's some promise, but will take some significant time, especially with the small size of the team and limited resources.

Mythomaniac said:

Last night I loaded up the game but ended up just scrolling through the menu and turned it off.

I realized that I had completely lost the dopamine dependency that MUT had on me.

I no longer have ANY desire to play and it feels good not to feel like I NEED to play the game.

I know that MUT 26 is around the corner and the itch will eventually return, but for now, I'm going to enjoy the rest of the Summer.

i havent played the game since before my vacation, ive logged on a few times but never got into anything. ive wanted to change my team but im holding myself back to save coins for RPs. ive been playing alot of 2K and im having fun with it

I'm not here to argue, but it's pretty important to work on a work-life-play balance. This community really needs some time management lessons, and everyone needs more than one hobby imo. /end rant here if you don't want to listen to unc recall the story of his youth, or skip to the last paragraph if you're still with me and don't want to read all that between.

When I was younger, say up through my 20s, I really didn't have a ton of responsibility and my job was a job- not a career. It was easy to dump time into MUT and ignore the world whenever I wanted. Looking back it was a tremendous waste of my time and I could have been more productive, learning, making more money, etc., but ignorance is a folly of youth. No ragrets bc I had a really good time.

By the time I was in my 30s, that job had led me to my now budding career, and I met the love of my life. I consider myself very lucky that I met a beautiful woman, got married and we now have two kids. I found that during these years, I did not obsess over MUT anymore. Obviously these kinds of priorities make it easy to put down the sticks, and spending my hard-earned money on anything but to make those three smile became almost nonexistent. 

But here's the thing: I only completely stopped playing for a few years (M18-21) when life was so full I couldn't squeeze anything else in. I did not stop playing out of frustration.

Now, even with a full house to take care of, landscaping, pool, garden, diapers, trash, laundry, work...I still manage to make time to play when I want to. Granted, that usually means not going to bed with my wife, staying up in my office and sacrificing some sleep. But it is much better this way. Actually, if I am being completely honest, I can't take MUT too seriously anymore. Don't get me wrong, I still make a game out of the MUT market and I really enjoy building a team, but the devs are so up their own ass (we got the gritty and a reverse hurdle before fixes to game breaking bugs like Film Study for years) and this game's community (outside of this site) is one of the more pathetic groupings I've seen- exploiting every flaw with no regard for the quality of games nor any respect for the game itself, even less respect for the other (human being) gamers they play with or against. 

I guess my point is to find something real in life to balance this nonsense. I think we have all been there - like we just got a huge W in a super bowl or we just pulled that LTD out of a coin pack or something else that is monumental for someone playing this game - but when we turn to the real world to share it , no one really cares. Honestly, they shouldn't care. It's a game based on a children's game that we all take way too seriously. 

But what I am really trying to say is that you will start to notice is that this game will find it's level in your life. You will start making choices that impact your relationship with it. You will decide that going to bed with your wife is a better choice a lot of the time, so you make that choice. You decide that being too tired to play on the floor with your son in the morning is not a better option than grinding another hour of MUT, so you make the choice to sleep instead. There are an unlimited amount of things to choose over this game, you just need to find some that resonate with you. You might find that eventually all other choices are better for you, or that none of them are. I believe you have to allow life to add some other options. 

I don't feel the highs from MUT that I used to because I found too many other things that gave me an even better feeling. Everyone should have at least one, imo.

JDrum99 said:

I'm not here to argue, but it's pretty important to work on a work-life-play balance. This community really needs some time management lessons, and everyone needs more than one hobby imo. /end rant here if you don't want to listen to unc recall the story of his youth, or skip to the last paragraph if you're still with me and don't want to read all that between.

When I was younger, say up through my 20s, I really didn't have a ton of responsibility and my job was a job- not a career. It was easy to dump time into MUT and ignore the world whenever I wanted. Looking back it was a tremendous waste of my time and I could have been more productive, learning, making more money, etc., but ignorance is a folly of youth. No ragrets bc I had a really good time.

By the time I was in my 30s, that job had led me to my now budding career, and I met the love of my life. I consider myself very lucky that I met a beautiful woman, got married and we now have two kids. I found that during these years, I did not obsess over MUT anymore. Obviously these kinds of priorities make it easy to put down the sticks, and spending my hard-earned money on anything but to make those three smile became almost nonexistent. 

But here's the thing: I only completely stopped playing for a few years (M18-21) when life was so full I couldn't squeeze anything else in. I did not stop playing out of frustration.

Now, even with a full house to take care of, landscaping, pool, garden, diapers, trash, laundry, work...I still manage to make time to play when I want to. Granted, that usually means not going to bed with my wife, staying up in my office and sacrificing some sleep. But it is much better this way. Actually, if I am being completely honest, I can't take MUT too seriously anymore. Don't get me wrong, I still make a game out of the MUT market and I really enjoy building a team, but the devs are so up their own ass (we got the gritty and a reverse hurdle before fixes to game breaking bugs like Film Study for years) and this game's community (outside of this site) is one of the more pathetic groupings I've seen- exploiting every flaw with no regard for the quality of games nor any respect for the game itself, even less respect for the other (human being) gamers they play with or against. 

I guess my point is to find something real in life to balance this nonsense. I think we have all been there - like we just got a huge W in a super bowl or we just pulled that LTD out of a coin pack or something else that is monumental for someone playing this game - but when we turn to the real world to share it , no one really cares. Honestly, they shouldn't care. It's a game based on a children's game that we all take way too seriously. 

But what I am really trying to say is that you will start to notice is that this game will find it's level in your life. You will start making choices that impact your relationship with it. You will decide that going to bed with your wife is a better choice a lot of the time, so you make that choice. You decide that being too tired to play on the floor with your son in the morning is not a better option than grinding another hour of MUT, so you make the choice to sleep instead. There are an unlimited amount of things to choose over this game, you just need to find some that resonate with you. You might find that eventually all other choices are better for you, or that none of them are. I believe you have to allow life to add some other options. 

I don't feel the highs from MUT that I used to because I found too many other things that gave me an even better feeling. Everyone should have at least one, imo.

Powerful post, from a wise man who has clearly been there, done that. 

I still haven't pre-ordered M26 (or CFB). Trying to vote with my wallet for once, nothing else matters to these fools. I'm sure I'll be back before long, heck lotta time between now and August launch date, there's a high probability I have a weak moment, or the kid suckers me into another MVP Bundle after he gets suckered into CFB26 hype machine on social media... last summer he comes to me and says, "no offense, Dad, but it's better than Madden." Then he barely played the game, as expected. 😜

I've barely played a dozen hours of CFB, but easily 1000-1500+ into stupid MUT. Embarrassing.

Addiction is no joke. Seems very few people actually have fun playing this game, it's a compulsion.

peatrick said:

Bravo, sir.  I'm still enjoying playing Squads with the boys, although basically every other game mode has been lackluster -- and this was a decent weekend, in terms of content, possibly/probably the last decent content drop before Rookie Premiers.  Although, there hasn't really been anything to play for in months.  I'm loving my new Gronk USER, felt liek i waited a really long time for a legitimate upgrade over Joe Flacco.  And Colston Loveland is potentially one of the best cards in the entire game.

I have yet to pre-order M26 and i'm seriously trying to talk myself into take at least a couple/few months off.  Had a good time checking out M26 Closed Beta last weekend, but at the end of the day, it's the same basic game, yet another in a long series of copy/paste jobs from EA, although with a hefty dose of lipstick on their bloated, buggy ass, inconsistent mess of a pig/game.

If there ever were a year to vote with our wallets, this is it -- the exclusive agreement giving EA ~twenty years of monopoly power to abuse us, the player base, could finally be in jeopardy.  Hopefully I can wait til October for a $35 sale, wish me luck.  If nothing else, i'm hopeful the league takes a "wait and see" approach, although there aren't any other video game companies coming to save us.  Take Two Interactive (2K Games) would be out of the frying pan and into the fire type ordeal, but consumer choice is never a bad thing, so trying to put my money where my mouth is.

Enjoy your summer!  EA will be trying to lure you back with the Rookie Premiers, i'm convinced they'll force us to log in for ~thirty days straight to achieve those.

What exactly is squads?

JDrum99 said:

I'm not here to argue, but it's pretty important to work on a work-life-play balance. This community really needs some time management lessons, and everyone needs more than one hobby imo. /end rant here if you don't want to listen to unc recall the story of his youth, or skip to the last paragraph if you're still with me and don't want to read all that between.

When I was younger, say up through my 20s, I really didn't have a ton of responsibility and my job was a job- not a career. It was easy to dump time into MUT and ignore the world whenever I wanted. Looking back it was a tremendous waste of my time and I could have been more productive, learning, making more money, etc., but ignorance is a folly of youth. No ragrets bc I had a really good time.

By the time I was in my 30s, that job had led me to my now budding career, and I met the love of my life. I consider myself very lucky that I met a beautiful woman, got married and we now have two kids. I found that during these years, I did not obsess over MUT anymore. Obviously these kinds of priorities make it easy to put down the sticks, and spending my hard-earned money on anything but to make those three smile became almost nonexistent. 

But here's the thing: I only completely stopped playing for a few years (M18-21) when life was so full I couldn't squeeze anything else in. I did not stop playing out of frustration.

Now, even with a full house to take care of, landscaping, pool, garden, diapers, trash, laundry, work...I still manage to make time to play when I want to. Granted, that usually means not going to bed with my wife, staying up in my office and sacrificing some sleep. But it is much better this way. Actually, if I am being completely honest, I can't take MUT too seriously anymore. Don't get me wrong, I still make a game out of the MUT market and I really enjoy building a team, but the devs are so up their own ass (we got the gritty and a reverse hurdle before fixes to game breaking bugs like Film Study for years) and this game's community (outside of this site) is one of the more pathetic groupings I've seen- exploiting every flaw with no regard for the quality of games nor any respect for the game itself, even less respect for the other (human being) gamers they play with or against. 

I guess my point is to find something real in life to balance this nonsense. I think we have all been there - like we just got a huge W in a super bowl or we just pulled that LTD out of a coin pack or something else that is monumental for someone playing this game - but when we turn to the real world to share it , no one really cares. Honestly, they shouldn't care. It's a game based on a children's game that we all take way too seriously. 

But what I am really trying to say is that you will start to notice is that this game will find it's level in your life. You will start making choices that impact your relationship with it. You will decide that going to bed with your wife is a better choice a lot of the time, so you make that choice. You decide that being too tired to play on the floor with your son in the morning is not a better option than grinding another hour of MUT, so you make the choice to sleep instead. There are an unlimited amount of things to choose over this game, you just need to find some that resonate with you. You might find that eventually all other choices are better for you, or that none of them are. I believe you have to allow life to add some other options. 

I don't feel the highs from MUT that I used to because I found too many other things that gave me an even better feeling. Everyone should have at least one, imo.

Absolutely agree with a lot of what you're saying — especially the idea that the game will naturally find its place in your life as things evolve. That perspective comes with time and experience, and it's something you really only get to after you've been through that cycle of over-investment and eventually realize that the payoff just isn't what it used to be.

What stood out to me the most is your point about making conscious choices. That’s the part many of us skip over — not because we don’t care, but because the dopamine hit of MUT feels like a choice in the moment. EA’s mastered the art of anticipation-as-product, and it tricks us into thinking we're being productive or making progress, when really we’re just spinning the same wheel with a shinier spoke.

You nailed it when you said nobody in the real world cares when we pull something rare — and they shouldn’t. It’s just hard to remember that when the game is engineered to make us feel like it matters. That’s what makes the balance so tricky. It's not just about time management, it's about managing expectations and emotional investment.

Appreciate you sharing this — there’s value in hearing how others recalibrate as life shifts. It’s a good reminder that you can still enjoy the game, but not at the cost of everything else that actually matters.

peatrick said:

Powerful post, from a wise man who has clearly been there, done that. 

I still haven't pre-ordered M26 (or CFB). Trying to vote with my wallet for once, nothing else matters to these fools. I'm sure I'll be back before long, heck lotta time between now and August launch date, there's a high probability I have a weak moment, or the kid suckers me into another MVP Bundle after he gets suckered into CFB26 hype machine on social media... last summer he comes to me and says, "no offense, Dad, but it's better than Madden." Then he barely played the game, as expected. 😜

I've barely played a dozen hours of CFB, but easily 1000-1500+ into stupid MUT. Embarrassing.

Addiction is no joke. Seems very few people actually have fun playing this game, it's a compulsion.

The self-awareness is there, and that’s the real difference between being stuck in the loop and starting to loosen your grip on it.

The "addiction" piece can be hard to admit, but it’s real.  The quiet, time-stealing, mood-swing-inducing kind that sneaks in because it’s just a game. Except it’s not—not when you're chasing coins at midnight or justifying one more bundle, because this might just be the night you pull that LTD.

Your kid calling it better than Madden, then barely playing? The hype cycle is brutal — it's built to trigger the impulse, not sustain the interest; it's no different that telling ourselves MUT 26 "will be" better, then spend all year complaining about it being the same shit in a different box.

 And I think you nailed the real kicker: a lot of us aren’t even having fun — we’re just wired now to chase the EA Dragon.