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

[steelcurtain311]

Quote: Originally Posted by tlc12576

On this point LT, Im saying it. LOL It can't hurt the consumer or the NFL video game market but it can hurt the actual game of Madden, ala NBA Live. Competition ended that game and probably had alot to do with NBA Elite being unreleased this year. In the long run this MIGHT all make NBA Elite a better game but right now, competition HURT EA's NBA series. I am surprised so many people believe competition makes Madden improvement a given. I wonder how many people believe in spontaneous generation around here too. LOL ( Just because maggots appear on rotten meat doesn't mean rotten meat produces maggots. Likewise, just because EA has improved games with competition doesn't mean competition produces improved EA games) Once again, I LONG FOR THE DAY that competition returns to NFL video games so I can have choice again. That said, competition DOES NOT mean EA will produce a better NFL video game, anything can happen.

I for one, do not want competition to make Madden a better game. I want competition because I want an alternative. I'm endlessly tired of Madden. No matter what little tweaks they do to it, it's the same game every year. It's been one repetitious experiment after another for over 5 years now. And I'm forced to play that or nothing.

[Only1LT]

Quote: Originally Posted by roadman

How do we know competition ended NBA Elite? Just like we don't know if competition has an influence on making products better, how do we know it was competition that led them to close shop and retool? We can speculate that was part of the issue, but it's not a given or guarantee. It could be because they listened their core audience and to the premature meta critic scores as well. I'm sure they are hoping for a short term pain for a long term gain.

Quote: Originally Posted by spankdatazz22

I'd say the quality of the product killed NBA Elite. If EA had NBA exclusivity, do you believe EA still would've chosen not to release Elite? Now translate that to EA/Tiburon and Madden.

In this particular instance, it's just a guess. EA may have delayed/ cancelled NBA Elite anyway, even if there was no comp. Now if they had the exclusive license, then they would probably be obligated to deliver a title, as per the terms of the license, but that's too much to go into, about a hypothetical situation.

tlc is just guessing that competition made EA cancel Elite, but he is right in that competition can potentially hurt a business. After all, if your comp does something better than you and steals your business, than I think that would qualify as hurting.

We just don't have concrete evidence, that EA cancelled Elite because of 2K 11, or if they wouldn't have done it anyway, had 2K11 skipped this year as well. Or if EA had had an exclusive, that they would have even taken the chance to reinvent Live into Elite at all.

We'll never know.

[Only1LT]

Quote: Originally Posted by steelcurtain311

I for one, do not want competition to make Madden a better game. I want competition because I want an alternative. I'm endlessly tired of Madden. No matter what little tweaks they do to it, it's the same game every year. It's been one repetitious experiment after another for over 5 years now. And I'm forced to play that or nothing.

I'd argue that it has been even longer than that, but I'll stop that thought now before this discussion takes a turn for the worse.

[roadman]

Quote: Originally Posted by Only1LT

I'd argue that it has been even longer than that, but I'll stop that thought now before this discussion takes a turn for the worse.

Can it get any worse?

We've had deju vu's, people holding a gun to a person's head reciting the Gettysburg Address, Hawaii vacation contest, etc....

Sorry, just an injection of a little humor in here.

That is all.

[spankdatazz22]

Quote: Originally Posted by Only1LT

tlc is just guessing that competition made EA cancel Elite, but he is right in that competition can potentially hurt a business. After all, if your comp does something better than you and steals your business, than I think that would qualify as hurting.

Technically yes, but in this instance what the competition would be doing is showing where a business was weak. By the competition doing something better it forces [the business] to either improve or risk losing consumers. Something Madden doesn't have to contend with. That they've lost consumers while having no competition is a strong indictment on the product (imo).

Quote: Originally Posted by Only1LT

We just don't have concrete evidence, that EA cancelled Elite because of 2K 11, or if they wouldn't have done it anyway, had 2K11 skipped this year as well. Or if EA had had an exclusive, that they would have even taken the chance to reinvent Live into Elite at all. We'll never know.

Well, we sort of do know. Let's argue the opposite. What if NBA Elite turned out to be a stellar title - would EA have cancelled it in the face of competition? Most of us would say no. And that would've either forced 2K to adjust their game if there was the appropriate consumer response to Elite, or they'd risk getting surpassed in areas where their competition was superior. Just think if Tiburon had exclusivity before 2005 where we'd be. I remember them saying online wasn't possible... until 2K did it. Or Ian Cummings saying true physics w/11 vs. 11 players on the field wasn't doable this gen... until NaturalMotion did it. Interactive sidelines, halftime shows, etc. I don't think for a second that if their was another NFL game out there doing these things, you wouldn't soon see them (or something better) in Madden. I give Tiburon props for what they did during the PS1 (and partially the PS2) era in terms of setting a foundation for videogame football. But this gen I can't think of a single innovation they've come up with. You can look at pretty much every other sports game this gen and point to various innovations they've come up with to push their genres forward - it hasn't happened with football.

I don't think lack of competition is the single greatest reason why Madden/NCAA are in the state they are; I'd say Tiburon itself is the number one reason. But lack of competition has contributed greatly to it

[Only1LT]

Quote: Originally Posted by roadman

Can it get any worse? We've had deju vu's, people holding a gun to a person's head reciting the Gettysburg Address, Hawaii vacation contest, etc.... Sorry, just an injection of a little humor in here. That is all.

Lol, Touche

[Only1LT]

Quote: Originally Posted by spankdatazz22

Technically yes, but in this instance what the competition would be doing is showing where a business was weak. By the competition doing something better it forces [the business] to either improve or risk losing consumers. Something Madden doesn't have to contend with. That they've lost consumers while having no competition is a strong indictment on the product (imo). Well, we sort of do know. Let's argue the opposite. What if NBA Elite turned out to be a stellar title - would EA have cancelled it in the face of competition? Most of us would say no. And that would've either forced 2K to adjust their game if there was the appropriate consumer response to Elite, or they'd risk getting surpassed in areas where their competition was superior. Just think if Tiburon had exclusivity before 2005 where we'd be. I remember them saying online wasn't possible... until 2K did it. Or Ian Cummings saying true physics w/11 vs. 11 players on the field wasn't doable this gen... until NaturalMotion did it. Interactive sidelines, halftime shows, etc. I don't think for a second that if their was another NFL game out there doing these things, you wouldn't soon see them (or something better) in Madden. I give Tiburon props for what they did during the PS1 (and partially the PS2) era in terms of setting a foundation for videogame football. But this gen I can't think of a single innovation they've come up with. You can look at pretty much every other sports game this gen and point to various innovations they've come up with to push their genres forward - it hasn't happened with football. I don't think lack of competition is the single greatest reason why Madden/NCAA are in the state they are; I'd say Tiburon itself is the number one reason. But lack of competition has contributed greatly to it

Mamma, there goes that word "force" again lol.

Competition doing something better does not "force" someone to improve. There are several ways that EA could try and combat competition doing something better beside improving their product. They could increase advertising. Come up with slam campaigns. Do give away promos. They could do exclusive deals to eliminate comp (does Dr Evil finger to mouth pose lol). And any other number of things, that do not include making the actual product itself better.

The idea that comp "forces" the comp to put out a better product is a nice pie in the sky, this is what makes capitalism great, idea. It's also a nice idea to think that politicians should be elected solely based on their talking points about the issues in regards to their opponent and nothing else extraneous. But this is the really real world lol, and things don't always work that way.

As for your second point, we don't really know. Not everyone reads forums. Not everyone plays demos. Hell, not everyone reads previews on game sites or game mags. NBA Live may not be AS big as Madden, but it has a big following. There are undoubtedly people out there that would buy Elite, sight unseen, just like with Madden. What am I getting at?

EA put money into trying to reinvent Live. By cancelling it, and theoretically starting over again, or at least doing major tweaking to what's there, they will be spending more money and using more man hours. They could have easily released the game. It doesn't matter if the game got killed, it wouldn't be the first Live to get killed lol, they still would have moved some copies. How many I can't say, but definitely more than zero, which is what they sold by cancelling it. Knowing that, I would argue that them cancelling it had less to do with 2K, and more to do with them really not being happy with the title at all.

This is EA we are talking about. The company that most people think have been on cruise control with Madden since the exclusive license. So why would people, who think that EA is that kind of company, think that they wouldn't release some POS game whether it was ready or not? You can't have it both ways.

I'm not saying that it isn't possible that 2K 11 is the reason that they cancelled Elite, I'm just saying that it is also possible that they actually cancelled it because they weren't happy with it, regardless.

Your last bolded statement was fine until the very last sentence. If you had said But I think lack of competition has contributed greatly to it, it would have been fine as well. The lack of "I think", like you had in the sentence before it, means that, you think, the last statement, is a statement of fact, which you have no way of knowing if it is or not.

[Blue Line]

Quote: Originally Posted by spankdatazz22

Technically yes, but in this instance what the competition would be doing is showing where a business was weak. By the competition doing something better it forces [the business] to either improve or risk losing consumers. Something Madden doesn't have to contend with. That they've lost consumers while having no competition is a strong indictment on the product (imo). Well, we sort of do know. Let's argue the opposite. What if NBA Elite turned out to be a stellar title - would EA have cancelled it in the face of competition? Most of us would say no. And that would've either forced 2K to adjust their game if there was the appropriate consumer response to Elite, or they'd risk getting surpassed in areas where their competition was superior. Just think if Tiburon had exclusivity before 2005 where we'd be. I remember them saying online wasn't possible... until 2K did it. Or Ian Cummings saying true physics w/11 vs. 11 players on the field wasn't doable this gen... until NaturalMotion did it. Interactive sidelines, halftime shows, etc. I don't think for a second that if their was another NFL game out there doing these things, you wouldn't soon see them (or something better) in Madden. I give Tiburon props for what they did during the PS1 (and partially the PS2) era in terms of setting a foundation for videogame football. But this gen I can't think of a single innovation they've come up with. You can look at pretty much every other sports game this gen and point to various innovations they've come up with to push their genres forward - it hasn't happened with football. I don't think lack of competition is the single greatest reason why Madden/NCAA are in the state they are; I'd say Tiburon itself is the number one reason. But lack of competition has contributed greatly to it

very well said.....competition does one of two things; it makes the competitor step up their game in the fear of loosing business or the competition is too great thus causing one company to fold its cards. folks thats what competition does in all aspects of life. for those that are saying "all competition does is it gives us another choice" well thats really nice however that is not the purpose of this discussion. companies do not care if you as the consumer have the luxury of picking more than one title. companies care about sales and money. and yes i do believe that NBA 2k's supremacy had alot to do with nba elite's demise.

for those that want to keep arguing this...well lets agree to disagree. i guess we can only wait and see what happens to madden once 2k puts out a football title.