The long running videogame franchise Madden lets people play out their American football dreams (apart from when their new star QB rips his ACL in the first play of preseason, still bitter.) One part of setting all this up is giving players ratings out of 100, and the firm behind the game – EA – have been masterful in turning this into something promotable. No longer are the ratings just a mechanic or an easy way to quantify, they slowly release lists of top players and encourage fan debate.

Of course, this is the real world not a videogame, and by fan debate we generally mean people going batshit on twitter about their not at all sexually driven love for a player being disrespected. So, step forward EA in 2022, as they opened an actual, honest to god phone line where annoyed fans could ring up and argue why their player deserved more. Or, I dunno, less possibly.

EA have promised that really good arguments might make them genuinely change the rating ahead of launch later this month, so how did this go? They got over a thousand calls on the first day. I would not want to be on that line.