Despite Lower Review Scores, Madden 21 Is Selling Very Well

Despite receiving some of the lowest aggregate review scores in years, Madden NFL 21 is selling very well. Electronic Arts has announced that the game has sold more copies and reached more players in its first week than last year's Madden NFL 20.

EA said in a press release that sell-through for Madden 21 in its first week, that is, how many copies were sold to consumers, is up by almost 20 percent compared to Madden 20. The company also announced that players have taken part in nearly 50 percent more games in Madden 21 compared to Madden 20 over its first week.

Madden 21's new mode, The Yard, has proven to be very popular too, with people collectively playing more than 17 million games in the mode to date.

These achievements for Madden 21 are impressive considering that last year's game, Madden 20, was a record-breaker for the series with more unique players and "engagement" for the history of the franchise for its lifetime. Now, some of that success came late in the game, driven by the COVID-19 pandemic that kept people home and playing games, but on a first-week basis, Madden 21 is doing better than Madden 20.

Here are some other stats from Madden 21's first week:

• Players have completed more than 460,000 seasons
• The two most popular teams are the Baltimore Ravens and the Kansas City Chiefs.
• Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes is the best QB in the game currently, with players racking up the most passing touchdowns and passing yards per game with him.
• Ravens QB Lamar Jackson is a force, too, with the second most rushing touchdowns of all players, and the most rushing yards for QBs.
• Usage of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers is up 850 percent compared to last year after Tom Brady became the team's QB.

Madden 21 is currently available for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. The game is coming to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X this holiday when those consoles release, and people can upgrade for free as part of the Dual Entitlement program. Madden 21 will also come to Google Stadia this winter.

For more on this year's Madden, check out GameSpot's Madden 21 review.