ATLANTA -- As the outlook on Michael Vick's future football career dims, his absence is creating complications for many football video game fans.

The recently released Madden NFL 2008 shipped with Michael Vick as the starting quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons.

When it became apparent that Vick would not be playing for most if not all of the season, people who bought the game started wondering what Electronic Arts would do about the in-game roster.

Gamers at Playmakers, a sports theme barber shop, said they appreciate EA Sports keeping the game realistic and current.

"If you really want to play a good game of Madden and see some real competition you have to go to a barber shop," said a gamer named Griff.

Griff said that updates help keep the game fresh and up to date.

"The real EA fans are so used to them doing exactly what the game is," Griff said. "That's why you can go online and update your roster if somebody gets hurt. EA keeps it real."

"You know EA Sports tries to be as most realistic to the game as possible, so it's an unfortunate situation," said gamer Slick Pulla.

The changes, lumped together with a slew of roster changes and updates across the league, were not unexpected by most gamers.

"We expected it," Griff said. "We expected that EA were going to keep it real. They were taking Pacman out. They were taking Chris Henry out. They are taking everybody that's out."

A spokesman for EA Sports said that Vick will remain in the game for now.

"Vick was the starting quarterback when we locked the rosters and now he may not even be on a roster before the season even starts so we actually never dealt with this situation," said EA spokesman Tyrone Miller.

The latest edition of the Madden NFL game attempts to replicate the NFL rosters for each time with injuries, promotions and cuts.

EA released its first roster update for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 versions of the game over their respective online gaming networks over the weekend and the changes seemed to be a compromise.

While EA chose not to remove Vick from the game entirely, it did move his position down in the depth chart for the Falcons. He is not in any of the three quarterback slots, but he remains on the roster.

Players who wish to continue using Vick in their video game will have the option, but they will need to manually edit their depth charts in the game.

In order to get the latest roster update for Madden NFL 2008, players need to start a ranked online game and the update will download to their local gaming system.

EA Sports will be releasing monthly updates online to reflect the latest changes as they occur throughout the football season.