EA Boss Not Happy With Madden Sales....

[Radioactiveman]

Quote: Originally Posted by DickDalewood

Best one year leap Madden has ever made, and the game is finally headed in the right direction for the future.

Yep, now I predict managment makes rash/stupid decsion that spirals sales downward even further forcing them to make cuts in development...man EA bungled the exclusive contract...big time. It's a shame.

[White Out]

Someone hit the nail on the head.

As soon as I read this report, I became convinced that EA will now over react and move away from the correct direction the franchise is heading too. I think we can all expect madden 11 to be loud, obnoxious, arcade-like and total crap.

[Flamehead]

Guys, it all about spin--spin, spin, and more spin.

Remember when EA won the exclusive license and how they addressed the consumer fears of "less competition is bad for the product"? They in essence responded "oh no, perish the thought, now that we're the only NFL product on the market, we have even MORE pressure to produce a high quality product. And with all these NFL resources at our disposal, it'll be better than ever!"

Fast forward to 2009. What do we have?

* a series of "next-gen" Maddens that are (anecdotally) the worst rated in the game's history,

* a tourney-focused game if there ever was one,

* a lead individual by the name of Peter Moore who absolutely LOVES the idea of anything and everything "online",

* a QA process that--practically speaking--is non-existent, leading to a DEPENDENCY on patches based on what "cream the community raises to the top" (leading to the theory that EA depends on consumers to QA its game post-release).

There are people of course who prefer to turn blind to this and choose to place their faith in the fact that it's a new team, community interaction, etc., but IMHO, that faith must be earned first, with actual results backing up the "trust us guys, we're like you!".

[Tyrant8RDFL]

Quote: Originally Posted by Flamehead

Guys, it all about spin--spin, spin, and more spin. Remember when EA won the exclusive license and how they addressed the consumer fears of "less competition is bad for the product"? They in essence responded "oh no, perish the thought, now that we're the only NFL product on the market, we have even MORE pressure to produce a high quality product. And with all these NFL resources at our disposal, it'll be better than ever!" Fast forward to 2009. What do we have? * a series of "next-gen" Maddens that are (anecdotally) the worst rated in the game's history, * a tourney-focused game if there ever was one, * a lead individual by the name of Peter Moore who absolutely LOVES the idea of anything and everything "online", * a QA process that--practically speaking--is non-existent, leading to a DEPENDENCY on patches based on what "cream the community raises to the top" (leading to the theory that EA depends on consumers to QA its game post-release). There are people of course who prefer to turn blind to this and choose to place their faith in the fact that it's a new team, community interaction, etc., but IMHO, that faith must be earned first, with actual results backing up the "trust us guys, we're like you!".

This is so true. I do remember exactly what EA said when they received the exclusive deal, and your 100% correct on their response.

It will continnue to spiral downward. They have the wrong heads making decisions for this franchise. Even with all the community feedback and ideas. The game is broken bad.

They must make a huge change with this franchise or it will be over for EA NFL football.

[splff3000]

Quote: Originally Posted by Crimsontide27

Just think, in another 3 years or so we will all be getting an Xbox 720 or PS4 and here we go again with subpar football games. The excuses will be the standard " It will take them a few years to rebuild the engine or whatnot". Im sick of waiting for a good football game, give me a choice again.

Actually, I'm hoping things get better at that point. Even though I think this year's game is still subpar(yet headed in the right direction), I think it's not the fault of this batch of devs. Every time I see something like "tried to add this and it broke that" or "we tried to do this and we just didn't have enough time to implement it", that tells me it's a problem with the engine or engines, as Ian has stated it's not just one engine. I put that on the previous dev team. This dev team is trying to build on a weak foundation. No matter what you do to cover it up, the game is gonna have it's problems because it's built on a bad engine/engines.

After CD, the guys had some great stories about defenders over pursuing the ball carrier and all kinds of stuff. Then we found out later that a lot of that had to be cut out because the engine/engines could handle it. That's what this dev team is dealing with. I think they truly want to do a lot of things and make a great game, but I think their hands are tied by this engine. It's kinda like putting a baby bottle nipple over a 2 liter of coke. No matter how much you try, you're only gonna get so much out at a time........unless you do something to that nipple. In this case the nipple is the engine/engines and the dev team just keeps turning that bottle upside down trying to get more out of it. They're not gonna be able to. This also tells me that we'll probably keep seeing the same set of problems for the rest of this generation of games. I'm hopeful that whoever designs the engine for the next next-gen does a better job than the previous dev team did with this engine. Maybe they could replace that nipple with a removable top, so the devs can get in there and really get it going.


EDIT: For the ones that are 12 or act like they are 12, please refrain from the nipple jokes.

[MAzing87]

Quote: Originally Posted by northface28

Can anyone really be surprised? Out of box all we have is a terribly flawed game that is virtually unplayable to most people. You have to wait 2-3 months before the game is even in working condition. In these tough economic times people are not going to purchase something that is $60 to have it collect dust for 60-90 days. Most people would just wait. I think you see a little of that here, I know next year I plan to implement the "wait and see" strategy. Competition breeds better quality and once EA figures out that cornering the Football video game industry is not in anyone's best interest, we will all be much better off.

Amen!!

[Nintari]

What I don't understand is....why are they keeping the license when they made more money without it? Is it me, or does that seem counter productive to good business?

[XuanWu]

Not surprising considering how redundant Madden is from year-to-year. They make basically no major changes besides roster alterations and menu presentation; and then they expect people to rush out and plop down $65 (incl. tax) on their putatively "New" game? This is the first year I decided not to rush out and buy the "new" Madden and I don't think it will be the last. I haven't regretted my decision one bit. I can always just play Madden 09 with updated rosters - what's the difference?

Oh yeah, long live NFL2K! I still can't believe EA killed NFL2K leaving us all with this ****ty Madden game that never changes each year. They spend more work on finding the new 'Cover Athlete' than actually fixing the same damn problems every year. Wow another $65 roster update! Nice!