Madden NFL 12 Blog - No Additions This Year For Online Franchise Mode

[g2thecore]

Quote: Originally Posted by GGEden

I can't count how many people in this thread have said they're canceling pre-orders, or made up their minds to skip M12 for NCAA12. That's now a category of "people not buying game because OF wasn't touched as promised, and nothing was ever done with the 'we've got OF servers to add things in people want'." Not just 'any old feature', but a very important mode for Madden communities. The number of people in that category can only grow as more people hear the news, and will represent a % loss of sales. There might be an increase % sales of people who don't care about online, or casual gamers, to offset that. But losing long-time stalwart Madden buyers is never a good thing. As Tazdevil has always suggested, it should be one franchise mode, that can be filled up with humans or played single-player. Surely something so genius and simple. The problem is not only EA Tiburon's focus on cosmetics over game-play, but a lack of vision and ingenuity of how to design modes/ideas.

Well I can't say that this isn't a great idea. A lot of other games have managed to do this.

Quote: Originally Posted by ebugaloo

They already did take an extra year. I suppose the proof will be in the pudding (sales). They will also see it if certain gamertags, that showed up to play Madden 11 (and previous games) not return to play 12. I would note that XBox unit sales declined by 300K, PS3 unit sales declined by 200K. That is with an increasing installed base of XBox and PS3 consoles, so that makes the sales decline look even worse. Assuming we have an NFL season this year, if you are right, sales should be slightly up from last year. If not, then their bet against online franchise may be a factor. I know a few users in here seem to be willing to vote with their wallets. Lastly, while this may annoy some folks, I think it would be reasonable to charge a marginal fee for online franchise, as is done with NCAA Football 12.

Quote: Originally Posted by ebugaloo

Sorry, accidentally hit the submit button early. Let me finish my thought. Lastly, while this may annoy some folks, I think it would be reasonable to charge a marginal fee for online franchise, as is done with NCAA Football 12. A working online franchise I imagine gets me 30+ hours of additional gameplay. If they charged me, say $3 to $5, that is insignificant relative to the incremental entertainment I get out of the game. By not providing this, it is lost revenue for EA.

And I agree with you that there will be some form of loss of revenue. Look regardless of what is done, the game will always be "incomplete" for some people. Not that I'm saying that your complaint isn't a valid one, quite the contrary actually, but I'm pretty sure EA is fully aware of the outcome of their decisions. I'm very sympathetic of guys like you, because I was there just last year. It's infuriating to know that the mode that YOU care about the most, was left untouched. One can only hope that some time in the near future, all the modes can get equal love as it should be.

[roadman]

Quote: Originally Posted by GGEden

A company should never take that attitude of "oh well, they can just not buy it, we'll pick up sales elsewhere." It's a reason why Madden global sales remain quagmired in the 5-6 million sales across the main two consoles. If that number is to ever rise to the 26+ million console owners (ps3/360), which even 50% of is a realistic potential, an attitude adjustment in EA HQ is required. In the 7 years of NFL exclusive license, that attitude has been in play, and is probably a big cause for where EA-consumer relationship is right now. It's not just the announcement tho, the fact it wasn't touched, but that it joins a laundry list of letdowns and broken promises, and resulting excuses + what consumers see they ended up focusing on yet again (cosmetics, cut-scenes, cheerleaders, entrances, etc). Like others have said, they made announcements/promises about the OF server existing to allow constant upgrading etc, they promised end of M11 that online would get focused on, etc. Btw, I respect your input, just responding.

Oh, I agree with your first part, but I don't think any company has a defeatist attitude like that. I'm just saying offline franchise suffered just as much if not more years of not being touched, and EA seems to come through on their promise from last year.

See, I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I see significant improvements over 11 for replay ability. Gameplay wise, you can't dismiss no more suction blocking or tackling. My gosh, that was the biggest you tube rant the last several years and now there is consecutive hit tackles. Also, improved zone defense. I could cheese all day if I wanted to on Madden 11 with wide open slants across the middle. If I threw across the middle on the NCAA demo for 12, it was either incomplete or intercepted.

Custom playbooks, DPP, player traits and a deep franchise mode will keep me playing year round. I think all this get's swept under the carpet when there is negative news that comes out. People forget about the positives that are included in the game all the negatives comes out, whether it's years of frustration, cosmetic changes, etc.....

This does nothing to diminish the no improvements to OF. It's a shame that it happened, but it's following the same pattern as Offline Franchise last year. I could be wrong, but I thought they said there would be major improvements with offline franchise, don't recall anything said about any promises with OF, I could be wrong, though.

Respect your opinion as well.

[g2thecore]

Quote: Originally Posted by roadman

Custom playbooks, DPP, player traits and a deep franchise mode will keep me playing year round. I think all this get's swept under the carpet when there is negative news that comes out. People forget about the positives that are included in the game all the negatives comes out, whether it's years of frustration, cosmetic changes, etc.....

This is the problem. I know a lot of people are upset about OF not getting any love, but I think you guys are forgetting all the improvements that HAVE been made. We shouldn't ignore these things. Good point.

[GGEden]

Quote: Originally Posted by mestevo

A company hasn't. You mistake the attitude of posters responding to those making melodramatic overtures as if online franchise was just dropped with that of EA. They've explained that resources to improve the mode ended up not being available for this cycle. Nothing more, nothing less. No promises made or broken, just the reason why it is not being updated.

I'll look around for any links showing EA saying OF would be a focus of M12. The OF server to provide dynamic upgrades to OF is something that was promised not seen.

Yeah, there's some melodramatic overtures, but I can also understand why there might be outside of any default anti-EA.

That EA-consumer relationship i mentioned before is especially exasperated after the NFL license was awarded. There are a lot of people who are stalwart Madden buyers who genuinely frustrate with the dev cycle thing, year to year forward one step back two steps thing with features, bugs, modes, graphics, etc. That there are disgruntled consumers, and % loss of sales due to whatever reason, whether OF or whatever, is something to avoid.

Eg, at the same time as we have this EA/Madden:consumer relationship, disgruntlement, there is also an EA/NHL:consumer and EA/FIFA:consumer and EA/NCAA:consumer and EA/BF:consumer growth of sales, respect, trust, hope, etc.

btw, go the Locos!

[GiantBlue76]

I've read this entire thread...

Here is what I will say regarding this. Those of you who know me on here, (and I do know and respect just about all of you on here), know that I have been a harsh critic of Tiburon. I've been developing software for a large company for about 15 years now. I spent most of my career working on a flagship product that has millions users worldwide. I will say this...

When you have a development team, and you have feature ares in the product, all of the developers don't just simply work on the same thing. Common sense, right? You have art guys, gameplay guys, testers, product managers, etc. etc. When it comes to certain features, you have people that "own" those features. Or maybe a small team of folks who own those features. Once they decided to build online franchise into the game, (which from a company standpoint was a huge mistake because it wasn't complete), they now have a responsibility to their customers to put resources on that area to own it. The whole "we worked on these other areas so we couldn't get to it" stuff is absolute nonsense, and if you believe it when they say it, you are being fooled. That's not how it works. When you implement something and put it out there, SOMEONE has to own it to add features or simply maintain it. Especially if it's a feature that folks are always clamoring for.

Let's take a look at a couple of terms that are commonly used on here, the words "offline" and "online". Those days are gone now. It's 2011, there is no concept of "offline" or "online" anymore. It's single player or multiplayer and multiplayer just so happens to be accomplished through network connections as opposed to the person being in your living room. The point I am making is that everything is "online" all the time. Why is the Madden franchise living in the stone age with how they develop their features? The answer to this is simple. I won't beat a dead horse by mentioning reason #1, since we all know that's a HUGE part of it. However, the other reason is that it makes the game much more compelling (in their mind) the following year. Think about all of the people who may have skipped out on Madden 11. No franchise improvements (even though they knew people were dying for it) but now this year they did a few things (which really isn't alot) and it's got everyone talking about it. Great! Sales should surge! Why not invest in MAYBE 2 developers tops to put the work into making franchise mode online enabled? Nahhhhhhhhhhh, we need to hold that off until next year or the year after! That way we will get them coming back for more!

This is exactly how the marketing people at EA/Tiburon think and no one will ever be able to convince me otherwise. They forgot about the fact that quality ultimately sells and makes you an *** load of money. Crimson said it best last year when he spilled the beans about a meeting some friends of his who work at Tiburon attended. The meeting was to discuss MLB the Show. The consensus of the meeting actually ended up being that the problem with MLB the Show was that the game was TOO GOOD. Yes, you read that right. Since the game was so good, it did not leave for a compelling enough reason for gamers to buy the game the following year. This was the info I needed to get me into a better place when it comes to Madden. I don't get angry anymore, I don't get frustrated. At the end of the day, there is nothing you can do except to try and make responsible suggestions and have meaningful discussion.

To sum it up, we all knew there would be no improvements to online franchise. This team makes a living out of fixing 2 or 3 bugs and adding one or two items to the game per year. That's just how it is. No surprises. The best thing to do is to enjoy things the best way you can. For some that is not buying the game and for others it's "making due". If you run an online league, the best thing to do is use League Manager and get the best group of guys together that you can.

Just think guys, at this time next year, we will be here saying all of the exact same things again.

[roadman]

Taz;

I agree with 99.9% of your post. Good post and well delivered.

I will only add, if you ever played NCAA, they have a heckuva OF, and now the Director of NCAA took Phil's spot, Executive Producer at Madden.

I'm sure he will be overseeing OF and the implementation of it for Madden as he helped put together NCAA's. If it's as good as NCAA's, we are in for a real treat.

Also, I think doubling the game play team will help out profusely. It sure can't hurt.

[GiantBlue76]

Quote: Originally Posted by roadman

Taz; I agree with 99.9% of your post. Good post and well delivered. I will only add, if you ever played NCAA, they have a heckuva OF, and now the Director of NCAA took Phil's spot, Executive Producer at Madden. I'm sure he will be overseeing OF and the implementation of it for Madden as he helped put together NCAA's. If it's as good as NCAA's, we are in for a real treat. Also, I think doubling the game play team will help out profusely. It sure can't hurt.

Road, what's up my man?

I played the NCAA demo and guess what? ... I absolutely LOVED it! If we can get some good gameplay from Madden this year, it will really make my league much more enjoyable since League Manager has a host of improvements.

[GGEden]

EA are good politicians. Shame gaming doesn't work where we can vote another company in to have a crack at NFL simulation like we can in elections. A way to hold the football game accountable to the bearer of that NFL license seeing as how important that license is (pretty much eradicating competition).