Why the NFL’s Labor Strife Might Be the Best Thing That Happened to Madden (Kotaku)

[pietasterp]

Quote: Originally Posted by thundergatti

I just have to question the assumption you made that no one else would be willing to invest in the license. Its the National Football League, and the game has demonstrated its profitability over time.

Yeah, that's legitimate...I was making a lot of assumptions about the nature of the deal and the financials invovled, and of course I'm just guessing since I have no intimate knowledge of how everything was structured or how the parties are faring from the exclusivity deals. And to clarify, I think that the "Madden NFL" game has demonstrated profitability over time; not sure that would hold true for any other "non-Madden" football game, NFL-licensed or not (sadly...).

Conceptually, though, I think game companies are moving away from licensed products and trying to create their own IP's so that they can keep all of the cake and not have to share. There are few sports games that generate enough revenue for their development/marketing and the costs associated with the license (exclusive or not) to be worth it, and I'd say that short list is probably NFL and maybe NBA and FIFA (only because that's the worldwide version of the NFL license). T2 cannot wait for the MLB exclusive license to end fast enough, and they clearly have been disappointed by the revenue streams generated by that deal (which never made sense to me in the first place, given that it had a huge gaping hole for 1st-party development...in essense, they paid for exclusivity and didn't even get an exclusive license).

Given the huge amounts of money it would take to get a development team together and start a new football franchise from scratch, which everyone except EA would have to do at this point, and without the pop culture cache that the name "Madden" has to guarantee a certain number of sales (the significant percentage of people who buy that game every year because that's just what they do...), the sums of money the NFL would expect for exclusivity would likely be prohibitive to any other company. In addition, it would likely take at least a few years, even if the hypothetical new non-Madden NFL game were mind-bogglingly awesome, to develop and audience just because they don't have that Madden name on the box (unfortunately, our OS fiefdom doesn't amount to a hill of beans in the overall game industry numbers...). That leaves just EA as a serious bidder for the license, and at that point they are telling the NFL how much they are willing to pay, not vice versa. We are already seeing evidence of who wears the pants in this arrangement with this latest announcement, which is the closest thing to genuflecting that the NFL ever does with any of its licensing partners.

At this point, even if the NFL offered the exclusive license to another non-EA company at half the price of what the EA deal is worth, I'm still not sure it would make sense for another company to bite. If I were an investor in Activision or T2 or Disney or whoever, I would certainly not be thrilled to see them bid on the license; no matter the quality of the game, if it doesn't say "Madden" on the box it's automatically at a severe disadvantage. That's the evil empire EA and Madden have become.

[GiantBlue76]

Quote: Originally Posted by mestevo

That's not what you said. Their mocap studio has been around for a while, but the 40yd dash addition to it allowing them to model some of the different forms of locomotion was just one recent example of them continuing to spend money to improve the products. Some of you apparently think that EA will make the same amount even if there's no labor deal and there's no NFL season, you are missing the point in the concession that was made on this years fees.

Yes, actually it is what I said. You're attempting to justify 7 years of failed innovation in your post by blaming it on income. This is the best selling sports game in history and the ONLY NFL game. They have yet to make Madden on this gen that has even caught up to the last gen football games. There is no excuse you could give me in the world to justify that. Not only that, but the games have gotten more and more expensive.

The fact is this, madden 11 is a decent game. I'd give it about a 7.5. Compared to the rest of today's sports games, it gets about a 3. All of the other genre's have pushed the envelope and really come out with some incredible works. Football gaming has sunk into the gutter as the worst of all of the sports genres. The first step in correcting a problem is realizing that you have one. The problem with success is it has bred arrogance, and the feeling that they don't need to fix anything. Even consumers who purchase Madden every year are at the point where they are frustrated but they know this is their only NFL game. EA banks on that for older gamers. Newer gamers have never experienced any other games, so they are looking for a pick up and play game. EA can give them that, with little investment in innovation. If you have ever worked in software, innovation is a double edged sword. Innovation costs you money, but it can also be your biggest money maker. When you are not competing against anyone else, there is no incentive to innovate, because it's not worth the money. You are going to get the sale anyway.

[roadman]

Quote: Originally Posted by tazdevil20

Yes, actually it is what I said. You're attempting to justify 7 years of failed innovation in your post by blaming it on income. This is the best selling sports game in history and the ONLY NFL game. They have yet to make Madden on this gen that has even caught up to the last gen football games. There is no excuse you could give me in the world to justify that. Not only that, but the games have gotten more and more expensive. The fact is this, madden 11 is a decent game. I'd give it about a 7.5. Compared to the rest of today's sports games, it gets about a 3. All of the other genre's have pushed the envelope and really come out with some incredible works. Football gaming has sunk into the gutter as the worst of all of the sports genres. The first step in correcting a problem is realizing that you have one. The problem with success is it has bred arrogance, and the feeling that they don't need to fix anything. Even consumers who purchase Madden every year are at the point where they are frustrated but they know this is their only NFL game. EA banks on that for older gamers. Newer gamers have never experienced any other games, so they are looking for a pick up and play game. EA can give them that, with little investment in innovation. If you have ever worked in software, innovation is a double edged sword. Innovation costs you money, but it can also be your biggest money maker. When you are not competing against anyone else, there is no incentive to innovate, because it's not worth the money. You are going to get the sale anyway.

I'll just add to this.

It's also riskier to innovate if:

a) It's not received well by the public. You can go back to the cone passing on that one or weapons.

b) The innovation isn't integrated properly with the game.

[GiantBlue76]

Quote: Originally Posted by roadman

I'll just add to this. It's also riskier to innovate if: a) It's not received well by the public. You can go back to the cone passing on that one or weapons. b) The innovation isn't integrated properly with the game.

There are different types of innovation. Innovation doesn't always equate to a new idea. Innovation can be the augmentation of an existing idea or feature. For example, take football. You can innovate within the tackling mechanics. Does this mean you are simply adding the ability to make a tackle? No, of course not. That's already a core part of the game. However, you could incorporate multi hit tackles, proper gang tackling, different animations, etc. Other things like adding spectator modes for online play. Street Fighter 2 has this. How about progressive lighting? That was already in older games. Enhance the player interaction so that penalties are actually called. How about adding all of the real penalties that are in football. There are ways to innovate without taking big risk. It's the lack of polish that really gets EA's football the criticism. It does a lot of things, but nothing is done well. You get the feeling that it was hacked together with tape and band aids. Take the challenge system for example. I mean, I hate to say this, but do you ever wonder if the developers who own the code for that are scratching their head wondering how 2k was able to do it so incredibly accurately in their game? How 2k was able to have penalties like ineligible man downfield and illegal touching (when you go out of bounds and are the first person to touch the ball), progressive lighting, functioning online league websites that actually have useful content. How about proper DB/WR interaction innovation? Make it blow me away. There is absolutely nothing in Madden that will blow you away. Even their cut scenes are awful and out of context. The first thing you think of when you see a wrong cut scene is that this was done very lazily. It completely ruins the immersion of the game. Not to mention the embarrassment of having Chris Collinsworth call Gus Tom, completely showing they didn't even have the guys in the same room together. Really? I'm sorry, but that list I just gave is plenty enough to warrant lots of criticism.

[Nab_Impervious_XII]

I think a lot of people are really over-exaggerating the disadvantage that new football IPs will experience. Sure, Madden has been researching simulation football for 5 more years than its competitors, but it's actual additions (Lead-Tackle, Cone-Passing, Gameflow, Pro-Tak, etc.) certainly haven't been indicative of 5+ years of research development. There was a lot of fluff and slow advancement within that span. If 2k discovers some kind of new technology by 2013 (like an intelligent way to merge their tackle technology with elements of Europhoria), they can make up the technology gap in an instant. Updating all the uniforms and stadiums will take about 1 year though. But if the essence of the game is ground-breaking, it's a sacrifice that can be legitimately made.

I mean, don't get me wrong. EA certainly has the advantage so far. But there's plenty of room for game-changing situations to arise.

[scores87]

The biggest problem is everything they put in a game is later removed instead of improved

Cone= gone
weapons= gone
truckstick= kindda gone
playmaker= gone
and it still lacks features last gen has (and wii)
which are
the minigames/training like pocket passer and that stuff which is really cool that is why I bought madden 11 for Wii instead of PS3 or 360

[pietasterp]

Quote: Originally Posted by Nab_Impervious_XII

I think a lot of people are really over-exaggerating the disadvantage that new football IPs will experience. Sure, Madden has been researching simulation football for 5 more years than its competitors, but it's actual additions (Lead-Tackle, Cone-Passing, Gameflow, Pro-Tak, etc.) certainly haven't been indicative of 5+ years of research development. There was a lot of fluff and slow advancement within that span. If 2k discovers some kind of new technology by 2013 (like an intelligent way to merge their tackle technology with elements of Europhoria), they can make up the technology gap in an instant. Updating all the uniforms and stadiums will take about 1 year though. But if the essence of the game is ground-breaking, it's a sacrifice that can be legitimately made. I mean, don't get me wrong. EA certainly has the advantage so far. But there's plenty of room for game-changing situations to arise.

I think the issue isn't that another studio couldn't make a technologically equivalent (if not superior) football game, it's that the enormous amount of pop culture cache that Madden enjoys is, at this point in time, borderline insurmountable.

What I mean when I say developing a new football IP would take an incredible amount of investment is that everything, from building the game from scratch to marketing it to the public, would be an uphill battle since to the general public, football videogame = Madden. I think we keep forgetting that we're pretty much the only ones that pay attention to a football game being good; the other 99% of Madden buyers are doing it because that's what people do. And frankly, even the hyper-critical OS crowd all buy the darn game anyway. If all people cared about was the quality of the game, Madden 05 would not have outsold NFL2K5 by such a ridiculous margin (regardless of what you think of either game, I don't think it can be reasonably argued that one title was 5x better or whatever than the other one). But marketing and hype are king, thus the Madden phenomenon.

[dickey1331]

Quote: Originally Posted by BearClaw

I hope you were joking. All of your examples just show how competition improves products. NBA 2K11 pushed the envelope to the point where EA couldn't compete and had to back out. Same goes for NHL 11, it was head and shoulders above 2k, so 2k had to take the year off. And you'd have to be crazy to think MLB The Show didn't force 2K to step up it's game from 2k9 to 2k10.

Ok and you’re still stuck with one company. What if someone doesn’t like NBA 2K and liked Live/Elite but now they don’t get to play it because it doesn’t exist anymore. Competition should make both products better.