Madden NFL 12 to Kick Off Another 3-Year Plan

[LiquorLogic]

I like the fact that they're doubling the size of the development team.

[Hooe]

Quote: Originally Posted by marshallfever

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thats the biggest news i've heard on this entire issue yet!!!!!!!! Doubling the team sort of implies a lot more things getting done doesn't it? The the size of the team doubling, i'm thinking they're really going to try to push a lot of new content or really dig deep into their engine to get it to perform the way the fans what it too. Or maybe i'm reading too much into it, but thats a big thing right there if its accurate.

The intention is to get more done, certainly.

That said, there's the whole idea of the mythical man-month, the law of diminishing returns, or whatever you want to call it. Adding programmers to a project is not always a good thing for productivity. I'm going to assume EA thoroughly looked into the matter and decided the investment was worth the risk.

[Bgamer90]

Quote: Originally Posted by CHooe

Adding programmers to a project is not always a good thing for productivity. I'm going to assume EA thoroughly looked into the matter and decided the investment was worth the risk.

Yep.

"Social Loafing":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_loafing

..Hopefully that won't happen.

[evad]

Maybe this 3-year plan will help in defining the direction of the game. To me, Madden seems to be going through an identity crisis and cannot pick between arcade or simulation.

I think the last few Madden's have proven that it is impossible to create a football game that excels in both areas.

But EA please prove me wrong on this

[mjcolosk]

For 40 years, the Detroit Lions have been unveiling new "3 year plan" regularly.... At their pinnacle they achieved mediocrity.

I fear that Madden may be destined for the same fate.

[hickhitchell33]

yeah of course it sucks, but whatr else would you rather them say? Lie and say they can turn this around this year, or even next year? The game is rotten to the core, alot of work needs to be done. the 3 year plan sounds realistic to me

[DustinT]

They aren't starting from scratch guys. It's a pretty new team on the game so they came in and set goals. Let them do their **** and make a game.

Regardless, even if Madden was released and was the greatest video game of all-time (not just sports) people here would still find something to bitch about, like the color of face masks or the tint on Vick's visor.

So just sit back and relax. You're buying this game anyway. We all do.

[Hooe]

Quote: Originally Posted by Bgamer90

Yep. "Social Loafing": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_loafing ..Hopefully that won't happen.

It's not necessarily even social loafing that's the cause for the diminished productivity.

When a dev house adds ONE new programmer to a project, that programmer has to be brought up to speed on:

• what exists in the current code base and how to properly use it;
• the programming practices, standards, code organization, and paradigms the studio subscribes to;
• and finally, the programmer's own place on the team, i.e. he feels into his spot and gets comfortable interacting with others on his team with related responsibilities.

Beyond that, there's also the debugging aspect; the new programmer, and any programmer ever, is not going to write flawless code on his first try, and as such time will need to be spent to check back on this developer's code, be it writing test cases or holding code reviews or what have you.

There's a number of hidden costs here, and though the mentioned social phenomenon is a concern, I'd contend the programming logistics concerns are greater. Again, though, this isn't EA's first time around the block; I'm sure they've taken all this into account when making this decision.

For those interested, there's an entire book dedicated to this issue.