Madden Sales Down 18% Y-o-Y in October

[RoyalBoyle78]

what about the gamers like me that sold Madden, do they have record on returns or trade in's. I'm that number would be huge.

[TreFacTor]

My main issue with Ea catering to the more casual fan is that in MY experience, the casual Madden player doesn't buy the game. The fan faithful are the ones at the midnight releases, the ones who invest hours labing to get their game up to speed (more recently to combat or counter glitches and bugs), invest hours into making slider sets that make the game bearable in the least. The casual madden player comes over once every other month to the guys house who he knows bought the game.

My sons are the perfect example of the casual madden player. While we have 3 360's, mine is the only console in the house with a copy of the game (the exception being m11). My sons don't want the game. When I got M10, my sons opted for Guitar Hero and some other junk (yes we do buy multiple copies of the same game occasionally because their not getting their hands on my discs ). But even though they can play the game anytime... they prefer other A.D.D. type games. They may spend maybe an hour at the most on any one title while I would play madden for an entire saturday or sunday.

EA is expecting to get the quick buck and the hardcore suffers (although maybe masochistically) in the end.

[Armor and Sword]

Quote: Originally Posted by TreFacTor

My main issue with Ea catering to the more casual fan is that in MY experience, the casual Madden player doesn't buy the game. The fan faithful are the ones at the midnight releases, the ones who invest hours labing to get their game up to speed (more recently to combat or counter glitches and bugs), invest hours into making slider sets that make the game bearable in the least. The casual madden player comes over once every other month to the guys house who he knows bought the game. My sons are the perfect example of the casual madden player. While we have 3 360's, mine is the only console in the house with a copy of the game (the exception being m11). My sons don't want the game. When I got M10, my sons opted for Guitar Hero and some other junk (yes we do buy multiple copies of the same game occasionally because their not getting their hands on my discs ). But even though they can play the game anytime... they prefer other A.D.D. type games. They may spend maybe an hour at the most on any one title while I would play madden for an entire saturday or sunday. EA is expecting to get the quick buck and the hardcore suffers (although maybe masochistically) in the end.

Yep....this is exactly one of my points. We are a dying breed. Most kids today do not sit down for 3-4 hours and dig deep into their sports games. They don't care to do that. Most of the country is becoming ADD it seems.

Again this is why my expectations for Madden are so low. I just want what you want. Deep and immersive franchise. The game is very playable offline. It is not garbage like so many bashers love to say. It just needs to give us the feeling we are part of the league and immerse us in that regard.

Ian and co know this. They read all this stuff and I think we will get a decent facelift in franchise.

If we don't.....I am not buying Madden.

This is the first time since 2004 that I bought back to back copies of Madden. And the reason was 2010 was such a breakthrough for the game for me (first next gen version I played) and after playing the demo for 2011 it was quite clear to me how much tighter it played than 2010. Those that claim the defense is gone....baaaaa. Offline it is fine with great sliders and it reflects the NFL today. Teams can pass...in 2010 the passing game was awful. Deep ball? Gone. Screens were an exploit. Madden 2010 had serious flaws in that regard. 2011 they fixed all that and gave us the deep ball again.

It's all in how you approach the game. I play with the no switch rule (after getting ton's of feedback on that way of playing) on defense and I do not user catch anymore.

Games play much better that way. Yeah...it sucks we have to put handcuffs on ourselves to play a game, but you have different kinds of players.

1) Those that want as close a representation of Sunday

2) or those who just want to win and bash the cpu (which we can all do if we wanted to every game)

I am in category one. So I am gettting great stats, tight games, thrilling combacks. I am getting great variety in 2011. In Madden 2010 it was sorely missing the fun factor.

[ltw0303cavs]

Yeah , i mean i watch football way more than basketball, but i bought NBA 2K not Madden. Real simple NBA 2k and the Show have "immersion" Madden does not. Their franchise mode has not changed at all, NFL draft one of the biggest parts of the NFL has no feel to it in Madden. Gameplay is great, they have done a great job with that , but now they have to work on the asthetics and franchise

[Armor and Sword]

Quote: Originally Posted by ltw0303cavs

Yeah , i mean i watch football way more than basketball, but i bought NBA 2K not Madden. Real simple NBA 2k and the Show have "immersion" Madden does not. Their franchise mode has not changed at all, NFL draft one of the biggest parts of the NFL has no feel to it in Madden. Gameplay is great, they have done a great job with that , but now they have to work on the asthetics and franchise

NFL Head Coach 2009 - The draft in that game is like it is on ESPN and NFL Network. It is brilliant. In fact the enitre GM/Coaching mode is fantastic. The drawback on the game is the actual gameplay that plays out on the field...it is pretty barebones and buggy. But take that approach to a franchise mode and slap into Madden and you would have one of the best football games ever.

[ChampN252]

I hope someone from EA does read this. It's not all you guy's flaw. Recently the NFL has been going crazy with handing out fines. Every time there is a hard hit in a game, you're wondering if the hitter is going to be penalized/fined. That is turning me away from football. It also seems like they are modifying rules to how they see fit for a certain plays. That's not helping. And for the fact that year after year, we can't get a really good football game has made me find my new love, baseball. Football never was my favorite sports, but the things above made it certain. I can't really get any good advice, but I only play baseball games now, but I'm sure you guys can pull it out. Maybe it's time to find a new cash cow.

[Radja]

i actually really liked 10 but since 11 was just a slight improvement with game play and no improvement with the franchise aspects, it was pointless to purchase it with nba 2k11 coming and some other games i was already playing.

besides, i was still enjoying my previous franchise. there is simply no way i can justify spending 59.99 or subscribing to sports illustrated for a simple roster update.

that being said, i do believe i will be getting 12, if the follow through with some significant franchise improvements. why they cannot have a real injured reserved list and increased pre-season roster size in the next gen systems is as chaz michael michael says, mind bottling. it was in 2k5 on the ps2.

[MAzing87]

For the first time ever, I skipped Madden this year. I threatened to do it a couple of years ago, but I really didn't bother to check Madden 11. I was surprised at first but then again, I'm not. It was hard for me because I love the game of football, I have played on the collegiate level, and love the NFL. After playing Madden 08-10, I just noticed that I wasn't having any fun with the arcadey feel and dumb AI. With this being the only NFL game out, I expected a very high quality NFL game. But in my opinion, its not even close. My focus was always the franchise mode & the career mode, more so than online. No real changes or improvements were made in those modes and that was a turn off. When I played online, I hated the fact that people would disconnect because they were losing. So I didn't play much online.

Anyway to close. This was a surprise to read. I really didn't think sales would drop since there is a Madden cult following every year. But it turns out that there are gamers out there who are getting fed up much like how I did. EA is a powerhouse company that can put out a great football game. They just choose to put minor things in to call them features every year, taking full advantage of the fact that they are the only company to put out a licensed product. All for the maximum profit.