Is madden building on a broken foundation?

[fanforlife21]

I know there are a lot of posts talking about the trouble madden has had this generation but after seeing some of the madden 12 gameplay although early I see the same problems again. I'm not gonna go into detail because I am sure everyone has heard this stuff already, but where did the Madden franchise go wrong?

I remember back on the PS2 days madden was one of the biggest franchises in videogames. I still remember picking up my ps2 and a copy of madden 2001 and how great that game looked and played. They just seemed to nail every detail. Even though it was their first time on a new console it seemed like EA really took their time and made a good game.

Fast forward to Madden 07 for the the PS3 although the game looked very pretty it just did not feel like madden. It was very clunky and had numerous AI problems. Now being a yearly game the EA sports team behind madden does not really have the time or resources to build a new engine when they have a game coming out every year. While I understand this I can see why this generation has really turned south for the Madden franchise.

Madden is building on an engine that was pretty much completely broken to begin with. The madden 06 game was rushed to market and it seems the team just built upon that engine for years to come. I obviously do not know this as fact but the game seems to play very similar to these early titles with some refinement.

I know this was a very long post and some of the things might have been said before, but I am interested in hearing your opinions on the topic. To me it just seems like EA needs to go back to the drawing board rather than try to fix something that is completely broken to begin with. There is so much to this game of football that we love and Madden just seems to ignore so much of it this generation of games.

[tatmanfish]

personally, I think your partly right. I know they just coded over the old gen codes. Thats where a lot of these problems occured. Then they have to go back and try to recode things. Not everyone codes the same so it can be very tedious to go back and not only try to figure out someone elses code, but then try to code over it or recode it makes it even worse.

This is my theory anyways.

[TheDelta]

As I've said often before, the problem is simple: money. Back in the day, Madden had to compete for the football video game market. To compete, you need to make a superiour product (or better, a product the consumer considers superious) than the competition, that costs money.

When Madden gained the exclusive license, that competition was gone. Since american football IS the NFL, there simply is no room for a major market share for a non-NFL game, much as I'd like to see one succeed. But 90% of all customers surely wouldn't even think of buying a football game without those magical three letters on the cover. So EA was in the comfortable situation to be able to release a game that's pretty much the same as last year's installment, as long as the rosters are accurate, it looks a little bit better and the game is at least playable, people will buy it.

So do you throw more money than necessary after a game that will sell anyway? Of course not, this is a business, after all. EA isn't there to make games as great as possible, it's there to make as much profit off of those games as possible.

The problem is that I'm quite sure the Madden budget was already seriously downsized by the time next gen came around. Making a new game costs a lot more money than just updating another one, and since there was no reason to spend money (because there were no other next gen football game to compete with), it's easy to see how the engine for next gen was probably not as well made as could have been possible with more funds (and thus, more manpower)

Since the exclusive license is here to stay, thinking that EA will really "go back to the drawing board" seems pretty naive to me. Going back to the drawing board costs a LOT more money than just building on what you have, so no, I'm quite sure we won't see a new engine or anything like that before the next generation of gaming system makes that necessary.

[Smoke6]

Yes they are, I do not understand there development process as each year subtle features are scrapped instead of kept with more being added on to the game.

Its like having a 4 br 2 bthrm house and you want to add another bathroom and you take out one bathroom and added the other all the while you were aiming to have 3 bathrooms in the house and now you have 2 again.

you are supposed to add to the existing foundation and only scrap what cant be fixed and try to work on whats been broken while adding new features and things to add the overwhelming content the game should of had by now.

Just take this generation as a loss to the gamer and make up for it with the euphoria engine and have rating and physics that truly matter this time.

[TNT713]

I get my $60 worth even when the game isn't stellar.

Later

[je_2512]

Quote: Originally Posted by TNT713

I get my $60 worth even when the game isn't stellar. Later

Wow....I'm happy for you....wish I could say the same.

Even Later

[CRMosier_LM]

Yeah the current dev team got kinda screwed by having to work with what was in place by the previous team. But a huge issue is available memory on the consoles. They are making the same game for 2 consoles and one has very limited availability in terms of memory and capabilities. No I'm not gonna say which one.. it doesn't matter, it is what it is. You have to remember that they are programming on hardware that was outdated within a month of when it was released. Not to mention the intricacies of programming 22 players on the field to do each task in a specific manner takes up a ton of resources. One player on the field doesn't do what he is supposed to do and there you go... Massive problems. If you look at other games, not nearly as much is required to make them top notch. Not to say that other games done put everything they have into a game... Just that there is much more to football.

[jbd345]

I think people are forgetting that this is a video game running on 6 year old technology what more can they do? The technology itself is already almost becoming outdated. I think by madden 13 or 14 if the next generation consoles are not out by then, Im afraid we've seen the most they can do. I love madden but i believe the technology is holding them back.