Madden Creative Director, Ian Cummings is Leaving Tiburon

[GGEden]

To me, it just sounds like Ian Cummings has lifted off his career while at EA and is now in a position to start up his own development company. Taking a bunch of people with him to start it off. Just spring-boarding from the 'success' of Madden.

[SA1NT401]

I wish Ian and those who left the BEST of luck in their next venture. WHat impact does this have on Madden 12? HOnestly, i couldnt care less about what happens to their "football" title.....Madden is forever dead to me.

NCAA is the only football fix out there in my eyes.....

[guaps]

Regardless of who leaves Tiburon, it is important that the new team introduces a new direction for Madden. The current direction has become uninspiring and uncreative IMO. The current team relies too heavily on market research and polling for new features - the data shows this, the data shows that - that they end up only putting in 'safe' features that people have voted for or have been confirmed to be a good idea by some data, instead of presenting bold and creative ideas for football video gaming.

People know exactly what they get from Madden and many have become cynical as a result - just look at many of the posts in this thread. Many cheer when they hear that there will be major changes on the Madden dev team, but as long as Madden's direction remains uninspiring and uncreative, there is really nothing to cheer about.

[iBlievN5]

Well M12 is done so there's really nothing lost there, however I think we'll miss Ian's contributions. Say what you will, but under Ian, we lost the phase of madden where it was all about the BIG SHINY NEW mechanic like weapons or run to daylight, we got football improvements. Granted, they weren't perfect, but they were undoubtedly the right direction. We got a semblance of a pocket. Locomotion. QB accuracies on different levels, and some things I can't think of currently. I'm saddened that M13 and beyond won't be directed by him since he was probably our last gasp at simulation.

[Smoke6]

Well, hopefully he's in a position where he can give the community what they want or do his best at making sure it happens. I would like to know how much these guys in the suits play madden as I would like to have there PSN Id's or GT's to give them a dose of how badly this game needs some major attention to gameplay.

Best wishes to them all and hopefully the new recruits and promoted should be a fun ride going into the next madden after this one. Just dissappointed in the late release that may or may not have anything to do with this. Maybe ill give NCAA a shot and have more time to get in the groove again like back in the PS2 days.

[marshallfever]

Quote: Originally Posted by GGEden

To me, it just sounds like Ian Cummings has lifted off his career while at EA and is now in a position to start up his own development company. Taking a bunch of people with him to start it off. Just spring-boarding from the 'success' of Madden.

Whats wrong with that? Its a way to make a name for yourself. Now if we found out he put no true effort as the director of Madden the last couple of years, then we have the right to be upset. However using the position he currently had at EA to form a new studio is no biggie.

[iBlievN5]

Quote: Originally Posted by guaps

Regardless of who leaves Tiburon, it is important that the new team introduces a new direction for Madden. The current direction has become uninspiring and uncreative IMO. The current team relies too heavily on market research and polling for new features - the data shows this, the data shows that - that they end up only putting in 'safe' features that people have voted for or have been confirmed to be a good idea by some data, instead of presenting bold and creative ideas for football video gaming. People know exactly what they get from Madden and many have become cynical as a result - just look at many of the posts in this thread. Many cheer when they hear that there will be major changes on the Madden dev team, but as long as Madden's direction remains uninspiring and uncreative, there is really nothing to cheer about.

I don't know of a company that lets their employees do things that won't be blatantly favorable to their audience. I always thought that this was the kind of thinking that made me confused, do you not think Ian has bosses to answer to? that he and he alone decided what got to go into the video game? that he got to requisition his own resources?

When you have a product, bold and creative get you in the door, from there it's attempting to appease the crowd. I'd have like bold/creative, but I also think we've done about all the bold we can do without becoming arcade. Understated improvements like locomotion were cool/usefel, maybe some type of WR/QB chemistry would have been nice though.

[GGEden]

Quote: Originally Posted by marshallfever

Whats wrong with that? Its a way to make a name for yourself. Now if we found out he put no true effort as the director of Madden the last couple of years, then we have the right to be upset. However using the position he currently had at EA to form a new studio is no biggie.

I didn't imply there was something wrong with that