Donny Moore is the most hated man on the Madden dev team

Donny Moore has one of the toughest jobs in the video game industry: determining player ratings in the Madden games.

"No matter what you think it is, it's 20 times more complicated," Madden creative director Rex Dickson told us when asked how he comes up with player ratings. "He uses 10 different websites, magazines."

"He's got like spreadsheets and formulas," added EA's Brad Hilderbrand.

It's not just guesswork either. Dickson explained that Moore uses actual game tape to determine a player's rating (in combination with other factors, I'm sure).

"He actually watches game film because rookies haven't been ranked yet," Dickson told me. "I was actually sitting with him last week watching game film from this guy who was a I AA player who got drafted by the Dolphins. He'd never heard of the guy before so we actually went on YouTube, found the guy's highlight film and started watching what he did, and started crafting his ratings in real time based on what we were seeing."

"A lot goes into it, but he is the most hated man on the Madden dev team by players," he said.

And that is why I don't envy Moore's job. If it's not fans complaining about their favorite player's rating, it's the actual players. In fact, Dickson even had a story in which one player refused to have his face scanned for the game because of his ratings.

"We just sent to of our guys to camps to do face scans so we get the actual players faces into the games. They were just at — I can't remember which team it was — but the starting tight end on the team refused to have his face captured. And they were like, 'what's the deal?' — and he's like, "My f*ckin ratings. You guys give me 70 speed every year and I'm not that slow. And I'm not putting my face in your damn game until you fix my ratings.' And he wouldn't do it. Literally, his face will not be in the game because of his ratings."

You know what's funny — I could actually picture that playing out in my head. I don't know what player that is, or if the issue has been solved, but I look forward to looking at the tight ends to see who it was.

And the fans are probably worse at times. Despite what you may think, there's actual research that goes into player ratings and if a player you like is rated poorly, there's probably a reason for that. But that won't stop you — or the player — from bi*ching about it anyways. No sir, I do not envy Moore's job.

Ratings for Madden NFL 15 haven't yet been revealed, but earlier this week EA Sports posted the top five "new defensive duos" in the game.