Breaking Down Madden: Core Experience and Audience

[cdh72469]

It has to be difficult for EA to strike a balance to satisfy both "casual" and hardcore players. I put casual in quotes because I would have called myself somewhere between the two years ago but now with family and real world responsibilities reducing gaming time for me I would probably fall in that "casual" category now days. I just don't have to time to get too in depth in games because game playing falls at the bottom of my priority and time list these days.

[TimLawNYC]

EA needs to stop worrying about catering to "casual" fans. If somebody likes pro football and video games, they're probably going to buy Madden. If a person doesn't like video games or isn't interested enough in the NFL to have a basic knowledge of the rules and mechanics of a football game, they're going to buy Cooking Mama or something and won't consider Madden no matter how many idiotic minigames ("Fight for the Fumble", anyone?) EA includes to anger its true fan base. There's not a lot of room for expansion of Madden's customer base, IMO, that wouldn't also be taken care of by focusing on making an actual realistic sim of football with solid gameplay and minimal bugs.

Never in the history of the world has a console owner said "You know, I really don't like football and don';t know anything about the game, so I wouldn't normally be interested in NCAA Football for my XBox, but this 'Mascot Mashup' game mode sounds super fun, so I'm gonna buy it anyway because I get to play as a whole team of Herbie Husker!". The "casual" modes and features don't sway anybody's buying decision, and all they do is annoy actual customers who want to play sim football and don't ever want to mash buttons to "Fight for the Fumble".

[Jarbeez]

Here is a novel idea. If the game was becoming "too complicated" for casual gamers, wouldn't the right move be to put an actual game manual in with the game, so that a player can reference it while playing? Instead of removing features or changing things to make it easier.

Also, I would think that would be a better use of the difficulty system, but hey I'm no marketing whiz so what do I know? (Be gentle...)

[btemp]

I think you guys, and definitely EA, aren't giving casual gamers enough credit. A game that appeals to more hardcore gamers, as long as you put some form of instruction manual into the game, will find that casual gamers adapt to and love Madden. One of my friends had a younger sibling and he and his friends, even though quite young and not knowing anything about football, were able to pick Madden up and have a ton of fun (and start learning football). This was Madden 08 on last gen.

As long as the controls don't get so complicated to play the base games casual gamers will be fine.

[VinnyVegas28]

Does anyone think that it is realistic to create a superstar and play in a "CC" against other players? This is for the casual fan and I am not knocking this at all. To each his own but for those who want true realism, please let us have our offline franchise mode specific to that, like we had in the past. If EA is going to combine all of the modes into one, don't strip them down.You can appeal to all fan bases if you implement the correct way.

[qdog]

are there really no more nano blitzes? if so i might consider playing oline now.

[Sportsflibs]

"EA wants to deliver the complete NFL experience from the beginning of a television broadcast, all the way down to the field. This statement is quite literally echoed with Madden 12’s tag line: TRUE TO THE GAME."

NFL players don't experience the game on TV. They experience the game on the field. The television experience is different from the on field experience. Television experience elements take gamers away from the feel of playing the game on the field.

[btemp]

Quote: Originally Posted by cuttingteeth

I deleted my initial post in here, but I want to make about the same point as to what the business model for this game should be: Logic states you look through all the years of Madden sales, pick the year that sold the most and whatever that game's core features/options were, that's what every game should at least have coded in. Again, that's just simple business ethics they'll teach you in first-in classes.

I think you're way off on how to track Madden sales. First, you can't pick the year that sold the most because there are a huge number of variables for what determines how Madden sold. Perhaps last years Madden was particularly strong? Annual titles like Madden often have a year lag between sales (see NCAA 12 and 13). How much was spent on marketing? What WAS marketed? Were the features easy to market and appealing? Who was the cover athlete? How much press did Madden receive? What other big games were released around the same time? Was this before or after the monopoly? How many consoles were there and how does Madden sell on each console?

As you can see, there are a variety of possibilities for why Madden sold as well (or as poorly) as it did. And it wouldn't be a business ethics course that taught this.