Madden 13 views - a month since disclosure of features: - cuttingteeth's Blog

cuttingteeth's Blog

Madden 13 views - a month since disclosure of features:

Posted on July 5, 2012 at 01:37 PM.

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The overall that I'm starting to hear/read on many sites and in countless forums is that M13 is a push to try and be like Fight Night Champion in many ways. Just like with that game series, though, folks did appreciate the new immersion, but they hated not having the same game style (button mashing, yes, but it was what people gravitated to and approved of) that they had in the first place. So, the consensus is...something new is cool but not at the expense of taking away what we liked in the first place.

The best analogies I can add to the mix relates to both my music career (13 years worth) and now into some of the film side of things I'm doing (10 years so far). In the music days, our band had a set sound from the ground up, and we spent a good bit of time clawing our way to a fan base. We were playing this new kind of rock that didn't fit the more popular hardcore or skate punk mold - it was decidedly somewhere in between and apparently just not specific enough to either crowd to always come off their high-horses to accept and just enjoy. Three years, and we made our way to catching many ears, fans and attracting producers from a nice label and studio. Suddenly, in the middle of the production process they (by way of contract and quite what came across like they knew it all - we were dumb) changed our songs - songs that so many people already liked, they changed into these more mainstream, popular culture tinged songs that supposedly sold better according to all of these statistics that they run. Essentially, the band was us...but it wasn't us. We had been forced to do what's often referred to as selling out. It's a huge reason I left the music industry and went into independent film where more creative control is allowed. Still, what's independent eventually isn't anymore, and no matter how you film your project, it may well be a case where your raw footage ends up in some other editor/producer's hands and is molded into something else altogether. By the way...that same sound of our band is now popular and labeled as "easycore" and is making many bands a nice living. Figures.

I think a lot of what keeps happening to the Madden franchise is exactly like what I've described above. It keeps going from one head guy to another and keeps morphing from one thing to another. I'm not against something gradually getting better, but when it compromises everything that was already good and existent, how is that progress? I don't think it is progress. It is simply change. It was one thing, and now, it's another thing. The Madden franchise needs consistency, basically. Without it, the real issues at hand are never going to end. And like with any band or film director or TV show...once the main reason people liked them in the first place gets so far away from its core and/or gets watered down...you don't like it anymore, it doesn't sell or get ratings and eventually just disappears into obscurity. The only thing left will be memories of people who remembered the good times and ask questions like, "What if they had stayed the same? How cool would it be right, now?"

We need to hope, pray, whatever that the team heads in charge of Madden stay put, don't change or other. We need the same people in charge for at least five years to really see what they are capable of. My .02 cents for now.