Madden: Lack of consistency cast doubt on any true long term planning - RaychelSnr's Blog

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Madden: Lack of consistency cast doubt on any true long term planning Stuck

Posted on August 8, 2012 at 12:52 PM.

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Remember the vision cone? What about Fight for the fumble?

What about Pro-Tak and Locomotion? The extra point? Weapons? Lead blocker control? The highlight stick?

And what of when the EA hype machine simply overstates the new features for Madden? What about Gameflow and hype about changing how plays are called in football games forever? While I personally do enjoy gameflow, it's apparent the NCAA Football team doesn't find it worthwhile for a football simulation. Gameflow has been so game-changing the NCAA Football team in the same building has decided not to implement it.

So pardon me, for not being enthused about any new Madden features that are described as huge in press materials: the past five years or so prove that most Madden features are actually going to either be dramatically downscaled or disappear completely from the game within a couple of years.

With all of the talk of long term plans every year for the franchise, one has to ask a simple question: are the long term plans of the Madden NFL football series truly to waste tons of development time each year on features which simply aren't going to survive another release or two?

If so, what kind of business model is that? If not, what kind of long-term planning is truly going on if any?

Don't get me wrong, some features do make the cut and do last awhile and in big ways. I have no doubts the Infinity Engine will be sticking around -- albeit hopefully much improved in the coming years. But to me at least, the jury is still out on Connected Careers. Part of me wants to believe it's going to work, but another part of me simply feels as if it could be a huge gimmick that simply allows the EA marketing team to promote the 'All-New Franchise Mode' soon enough.

And it's only fair to blame some of the long-term plan gaffes on simple personnel turnover. Lots of the guys at the top have left throughout this generation: Madden seems to be a pressure cooker job which few can actually stand to tolerate. When you are losing your visionaries on a yearly basis, it's hard to stick to a long-term plan for very long.

That's why the addition of Cam Weber as a visionary type of guy was a pretty big move -- as the franchise does seem to be slowly finding some year to year stability in what it's building on and what it's keeping versus throwing away.

Another thing you have to look at: is this a common phenomenon across other games in our genre? The evidence says that there is some feature destruction in other franchises, but almost always at a lesser extent of Madden (and NCAA to an extent).

FIFA Soccer, since it has found solid ground earlier this generation, has always had a logical progression of it's big features. In fact, this is a trait of most of our genre's best games. Features have built upon features -- you see that from this year from last year with the Impact Engine moving onto the Player Impact Engine. If FIFA were Madden, you'd see an Impact Engine one year, and a Weapons Feature with an all new QTE mode for penalty kicks the next, followed by an all new Physics engine the next year.

See how ridiculous that is? But that's how Madden has operated for the entirety of this generation.

You can repeat the same type of progression pattern in other franchises which have been quite successful this console generation, from NBA 2K to NHL to MLB: The Show and beyond.

But Madden? Madden stands alone in a sort of schizophrenic feature driven madness with no rhyme or reason of it from year to year. Some years a feature is added and it's gone literally the next. Other's it's added and phased out in later years until it's simply no longer in the game. Rarely, a feature is added and actually remains -- but it's rarely spoken of again.

The prescription seems simple enough: simply get a plan and stick to it. Don't go on crusades for features that simply won't be in the game in coming years.

Perhaps you just design smarter. Perhaps you build off of previous year's efforts instead of completely re-writing the game plan each year. Perhaps you try to keep a stable set of leaders around so you can actually do all of this.

Regardless, EA Tiburon's Madden team has been a lot like the Yankees in the 80s. I'm not sure who is playing the role of Steinbrenner, but there's enough turnover that it simply causes chaos within the leadership and so far, the results have spoken for themselves.

Perhaps Madden NFL 13 is the beginning of a new era where Madden games build upon themselves. Perhaps.

But history says don't get attached to the new features on the back of the box, they simply won't be there in a couple of years.

Comments

# 16 BK_NC @ Aug 8

I thought the article was spot on. With Madden 2006 and FIFA 2006, EA Tiburon and EA Canada took vastly different tracts. EA Tiburon blew up Madden with the 360 version. Carried over nothing of the features that worked and were popular with the PS2 game. FIFA decided apparently on a long term plan of continual innovation.

Tiburon seemed to only have a one year plan every year. Come up with colorful features they could market for that year to sell the game. Then the next year they had to think of something new to sell the game. It didn't seem to matter to them a feature made long term sense for the game or if there was an vision for the game. I think its been apparent given EA's admission recently that they haven't been as innovative as FIFA and the fact since 2006 versions of the games FIFA has doubled in sales as of FIFA 12 and Madden has lost half its sales since Madden 2006 (PS2 included). The Tiburon mentality wasn't to constantly innovate every year to grow the audience, it was to rest on the fact they had the exclusive and to think up a few features they could market each year. Never a thought till now of building year upon year a consistent feature list and innovative gameplay. Tiburon has been a massive failure this generation. Squandering the 10 million in sales Madden was doing every year on the PS2. Thinking an exclusive license would keep people coming back.

I'm hopeful Tiburon has learned some lessons. I think they've brought in some EA Canada management so maybe their approach is changing. I hope Connect Careers is a first step in a rebuilding program and not just the same old thing of throwing something against the wall to see if it sticks.

If Madden & Tiburon are on the right track with CC and their supposed change in mentality, I wish they would take it a step further. I wish they wouldn't put the Madden and NCAA dev teams on separate islands where they see themselves as competitors which is how it comes across. Madden and NCAA should at best be a share experience with more in common than what separates them in particular with features and they should have great synergies between them but they don't.

Both games should have gotten the rebuilding with Connected Careers at the same time and the feature integrated across both games. Not just with Madden alone on its island.

EA needs essentially only one football development team. With sub-teams devoted to making sure Madden represents the NFL game well and a sub-team to do the same for NCAA. They need to stop this stove-piped development of both of these games. They could save so much in development costs. The games could feed off each other every year instead of feeling like competitors developed worlds apart. They could make the football experience so compelling that people would feel the need to buy BOTH games.

After seeing Madden falter this generation, I hope they are on the right track with Madden 13 but only time will tell if the Tiburon team has really changed its ways. But I still feel they need to go even further.

# 17 xMoJox @ Aug 8

The vision cone which was once a key feature turned into an optional one and then just faded away, which is sad because during that time the QB's awareness rating actually meant something!

# 18 joefrommo117 @ Aug 8

This article hits the nail on the head. To take it one step further, all these 'features' took the place of needed gameplay and presentation improvements, so what we ended up were a merry-go-round of features and the same boring gameplay and laggy, disjointed presentation elements. This year, Connected Careers had better be fantastic to offset all the features they're removing to make it happen, which will be a steep hill IMO. Presentation was supposed to be improved by switching announcing teams, but it seems the same disjointed mess it always has been.

I had Madden 11 for 2 weeks, and Madden 12 for a day before trading them. I love football, but the game has just not been any fun for a few years now. This will likely be the just the second time since '97 that I don't go right out and buy Madden (NFL 2K5 being the other) - waiting and trusting them to fix rosters is just not worth the headache for me. I might pick it up once some updated rosters are in place and I've seen some feedback on Connected Careers.

# 19 chi_hawks @ Aug 8

It seems as though the people coming up with the "innovations" aren't people that play the product, and/or know much about football at all. Instead, its marketing heads looking at the short term (next year) and seeing what will boost sales and give some back-of-the-box bang for the development buck. I guess from a business standpoint, I can't blame them. Just sucks for the rest of us.

# 20 Retropyro @ Aug 8

@Chris
Of course I'd love a long-term plan. But is this year not Weber's first year heading the franchise after taking over too late last year to have a significant impact on the end product?

I'd prefer minor tweaks and improvements each year rather than a complete overhaul. But Madden on the current gen has just not had that ability. You need a solid base to make some improvements each year (NBA 2K, The Show), where as each year Madden would be trying to improve a pretty crappy product.

I have no idea how Madden 13 will turn out, but I'm really happy that they at least seem to have thrown out what they have been doing for the last 6 years and gone with what at least looks like a change for the better.

At the very least it seems like they are on a proper plan now and for the next few years.

People have begged for better physics, M13 has that. People wanted a more immersive Superstar mode, M13 is looking it may just have that. People wanted a proper online franchise that mirrored all the features from offline, again it looks like they have done that.
Will it work out? Who knows. But I'm not going to critisize them this year for at least listening and attempting to give people what they have been asking for.

I'll judge their efforts in a few weeks. But I'll at least applaud them for recognizing a failing product and having the willingness to make changes.

# 21 muse324 @ Aug 8

I just hope the game doesn't suck. I have bought NCAA every year since it started. I didn't this year because it was rehash of last year. I feel I may do that with Madden this year. I love how they try to new things every year but since they geared themselves to ****** gamers that is where they fell off. You appeal to the masses and this is what happens. Too many misses leads to an uneasy community.

# 22 scatman @ Aug 8

EA Sports in general is about gimmicks in gameplay instead of a clear vision. This model may have worked in the 90's and early 2000's but now I'm to the point where I don't want to read about gimmicks. Give me great gameplay. Look at what gimmicks has done to the Live franchise. Every year until EA gets fresh direction from the top, will be about a gimmick to sell rather than gameplay. Thats my opinion anyway.

# 23 Adibesee @ Aug 8

@BK_NC Well said.

I cannot understand why they dont simply combine NCAA and Madden into one large devolpment team. To take it a step further I belive the entire game should be based off Madden with obvious tweaks for the diffrences between the sports. (recruiting,stadiums,etc). Player Modesls should be the exact same with the exception of player weight and size, but if someone in college has the same measurements as let's say TO then they should look identical minus equipment diffreences. From a ratings standpoint they should use the exact same ratings and include the range to trully go from 0 to 100 Imagine how much work that would decrease when players go to the NFL. They could then focus on tweaking the retings scale to ensure the diffrences matter. Also please remove speed threshold / or at least only have that on rookie mode as the threshold makes no sense. (why would you want to decrease the diffrences in speed between players).

The lack of vision, consistancy and sometimes developmental talent seesm somewhat mind blowing and as a consumer I feel it directly leads to a weaker overall product.

# 24 TreyIM2 @ Aug 8

A couple ppl hit it dead on the head about EA not focusing on actually improving the core game and instead of trying to be 'innovative'. THAT'S the issue more than anything else. Been saying that for years but I will say that CC may not be a bad thing this year cuz that strikes at franchise and such which is what many have wanted. This yr seems more about getting the core game right along with presentation which is another step in the right direction.

# 25 jwtucker710 @ Aug 8

Problem is (probably already mentioned in other posts) but no competition. Let 2K build a new NFL game. This will keep EA on their toes. The NFL should do what the NBA does and not hinder other software parties to make companies with their license. I know, money talks. Sad things about the industry, life in general.

# 26 jwtucker710 @ Aug 8

Sorry, meant to type in previous thread, "to make companies use their license."

# 27 BK_NC @ Aug 8

@jwtucker710 If Madden sales keep dropping over the next few years, you may see them refuse to pay the NFL's exclusive license fee because they won't sell enough copies to make a profit at it given that license apparently costs 9-figures. It might force the NFL to go back to a smaller licensing fee to multiple publishers.

Madden 12 sold about 5 million units. At $27 (out of the $60 msrp that the publisher get) they grossed about $135 million. I've seen it mentioned in articles that EA Sports spends $20 - $40 million a year to develop each of their titles. So last year that left $90 million before subtracting marketing and licensing to John Madden, NFL, & NFLPA. My number may be wrong but I did some digging on Google to find some estimates.

Makes me wonder what is the break even point for Madden as far as unit sales go. $90 million after dev costs seems like a lot but we have no idea how much of that is going to the NFL and NFLPA.

Their lack of consistency and long-term planning after getting the exclusive license may be the way they lose it in the end.

# 28 Adibesee @ Aug 8

@BK_NC Arent they also the publisher for Madden and Ncaa and if so wouldn't they get a larger share of the $60?