Why not start from scratch

[Brooke2011]

I can never understand why EA doesn't scrap madden and start from scratch. With all the feedback from this and other communities , they have to realize that they are falling short in translating reality to a video game. Most things in madden have not changed since 2008. It seem that the programming is ported over year after year. The player models are the same. The player movement in relation to what is going on in the game is the same. The camera angles do not relate to a true broadcast camera. Take a look at FIFA and PES. They have captured the field and camera angles that are as close to a real game as can be. Even NBA 2K has a better accurate depiction of thier real life counterpart.

One thing I would do if I was designing madden is look at an app called NFL Rewind and try to replicate the lighting and player models that are seen from the coaches camera angle. Another thing i would do is scrap all the player models and 100 different ways you can create a player. Instead, I would have three distinct player models for each position on the field to choose from. I would have facial scans. for every player. I would have attributes built in for each position on the field . Also, for each position , I would rate them as poor, good and great, these attributes would be applied to each position and adjust that player in that position to correlate with thier respective rating. I would incorporate what nfl 2k did with thier sneakers. I would allow any player to choose from multiple cleats and colors that are current with thier respective team .

If I can come up with some innovations for just being an average joe ,then i think EA can give us a much better product than what we have been getting.

[Segagendude]

They tried that in 06.

We all remember how successful that was.......

[Trackball]

Too much money in recycling code.

[SA1NT401]

Too much money and a less than stellar development team....

EA just doesn't have the talent or will to actually make an attempt.

Re cycle re cycle re cycle.... The EA motto.

[allhailben7]

Do you know how long it would take to scrap everything and build it from the ground up?

We wouldn't get another game until Holiday 2014 if they start right now...

The football sim they put out now is not GOTY worthy, but it is serviceable and they at least let us customize the settings if we so choose. They actually put out "good" games when it comes to the gaming world. I'm not saying that it is great by any means, but they are at least making some great strides now. (Serviceable run blocking and better RB control make 13 unplayable for me)

[JaymeeAwesome]

As much as everyone thinks these online communities are huge, we are still the minority.

[Carlboy82]

With all the hype of the Next Gen consoles, and now your thought on scrapping the game and starting from scratch, i know it all sounds good. But lets all be honest, unless EA gets some Football Minds on the DEV TEAM, that actually know what theyre doing concerning game play, we will never see a SIM TYPE game, that doesnt have dozens of issues.

[Staalker]

It takes years to build an engine, it takes even more time to incorporate physics and then more time still to make it all operate on a stats based system.

Years, and all that time requires money.

Each year they take what they started building and they mold it more. It's a process that you'd have to see to truly understand, but it's not something that can be done quickly.

This is the core problem they have.

See, they want a new game out each year, and that gives them very little time to make large strides in the engine and code. Problem is, they also feel they need to add new features each year as well.

This further increases the resources needed to get the game "right".

Honestly, if they would just add the new art, the new voice-overs and then work to polish what we have for a while, each Madden would be better for quite some time.

As long as they keep trying to add new features and "reinvent the wheel", they have to skimp elsewhere.

Then again, when they don't try to add something new each year, people rage about how it's just a $60 roster update.

Not defending EA or anything, but I spent a decade making games. It's impressive, from a purely technical aspect, that they can even get a working game out each year under the time constraints they have.

I'd wager that they are working in advance. Meaning, what we got in Madden 25 was actually created last year or even earlier. By the time we see it, the tech is pretty old. Only way to really do a game like this with yearly updates and meet the deadline.

That's why I don't have much faith that Madden 25 on next-gen will be much more than we have on current gen. It will look better, I'd almost guarantee that, but overall the game will play the same. Loading times will be better, less frame drops and such due to hardware.

It won't be until next year that we see a true "next-gen" Madden.

I hope to be proven wrong, however.