Madden 12 News Post

Madden Creative Director, Ian Cummings is Leaving Tiburon

03:05 PM - April 12, 2011 by Benicio10

According to PastaPadre, Ian Cummings, Creative Director of the Madden franchise, is leaving Tiburon.

He also states there are quite a few other big names going with him.

What do you think about this news?

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Member Comments

# 21 DarkOmnios @ 04/12/11 03:50 PM

They could wait until the games came out, so EA have to hired a new person to replace Ian to that person continues the M12 cycle??

Never like his atitute, but i wish the best for him...

# 22 Von Dozier @ 04/12/11 03:52 PM

Madden 12 will probably be uneffected, but Madden 13 is gonna be veerrryy interesting

# 23 DaveDQ @ 04/12/11 03:53 PM

Ian did fine, and from what I understand he came up from working on the game as a tester, no?

I think it's funny though how some are questioning the state of Madden...lol The franchise wasn't in Ian's back pocket.

# 24 Hova57 @ 04/12/11 03:53 PM

I'm not worried bout madden, cause we got somebody on the inside who cares as much as we do. that's our big homey Adem. Who ever steps in prob will continue on with business as usual. Hopefully he'll introduce himself when that time comes.

# 25 PantherBeast_OS @ 04/12/11 03:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blklightning


	after the last four or five years, i don't know how you can still say this. but i do hope you're right because i'm tired of not having an nfl football game to play with friends.

Well the gameplay for the past few years has been good,but not great. Gameplay for madden has never been off the wall or anything. The only thing that has killed me the past 5-6 years has been the offline franchise more then anything. I'm sure franchise mode will be much better this year then it has been in the past 6 years. Franchise mode ain't going to be perfect or anything. But it will be much improved this year compared to past years. Atleast this is my hope right now. I guess we will find out in the coming weeks with the blogs coming I guess.

# 26 Lexicon @ 04/12/11 03:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Segagendude


	Shocking, but understandable (Him wanting to go elsewhere to make more money) This sucks. Whomever comes in better not take another 8 steps back with the excuse of "I'm learning. Give me time". I'm not liking the future of Madden right now. As someone above posted, the dev team appears to be in disarray. Coupled with the quarterly losses reported,and the overall economy the way it is, there could be a time in the not-too-distant future where Triburon and the Madden team close up shop for good. Think it can't happen? Well, it happened with Aces Studios, the company behind the successful Flight Simulator series for the PC. Overreacting? Maybe just a little, but I'm still concerned. Ian looked to be the "captain" of the ship, and was steering it into the right direction. Now he's leaving, and the ship will be without a captain for who knows how long. In the meantime, how will the series be affected? Guess I'll have to wait and see......like I've been doing for the past several years.

Why do you have such high expectations for a new director? Ian's been director for a while now and the game is not where it should be. Scores were down last year. I've heard more people say they didn't like it than people say they did like it. That doesn't mean it's Ian's fault, but the new director is going to be under the same restrictions as Ian. Hopefully this will be the end of the exclusivity deal. This is a perfect example of why the deal is bad. We're dependant on EA for an NFL game, whether it's good, bad, or incomplete.

# 27 coogrfan @ 04/12/11 04:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkOmnios


	They could wait until the games came out, so EA have to hired a new person to replace Ian to that person continues the M12 cycle?? Never like his atitute, but i wish the best for him...

I read this five times, and I still don't know what he was trying to say.

# 28 kjcheezhead @ 04/12/11 04:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rgiles36


	How long before the very people that openly despise the Madden franchise say they'll miss Ian?

About as long as it took for them to want David Ortiz back. I despise Madden, but I'm indifferent on Ian.

I personally think the bulk of Madden's troubles are caused from an expensive license eating into development funds and too much of the remaining funds getting diverted to casual friendly areas like Madden Ultimate Team and gameflow/plan. It doesn't matter who is in charge if the money for the game keeps getting allocated to areas like these.

# 29 Lexicon @ 04/12/11 04:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kjcheezhead


	I personally think the bulk of Madden's troubles are caused from an expensive license eating into development funds and too much of the remaining funds getting diverted to casual friendly areas like Madden Ultimate Team and gameflow/plan. It doesn't matter who is in charge if the money for the game keeps getting allocated to areas like these.

Exactly. Peter Moore has the ultimate say.

# 30 Dog @ 04/12/11 04:09 PM

My faith in Madden has all but evaporated

# 31 Hooe @ 04/12/11 04:11 PM

I did find his removal of the "_ea" from his Twitter handle curious; he did this on April 1 though (IIRC) so I didn't make anything of it.

In any case: thank you, Ian, for taking the time to reach out to the Operation Sports community to get our feedback on the game, and also for your efforts towards making the Madden game what it is today. Best of luck to you wherever you're off to next.

# 32 aTTckr @ 04/12/11 04:11 PM

Wow. I really didn't expect that. Thanks for the new vision you brought to Madden Ian. He proabably got frustrated with the garbage engine and the ea executives and understandably so.

Hope to hear soon from your new game.

# 33 bigfnjoe96 @ 04/12/11 04:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CHooe


	In any case: thank you, Ian, for taking the time to reach out to the Operation Sports community to get our feedback on the game, and also for your efforts towards making the Madden game what it is today. Best of luck to you wherever you're off to next.

x2. Be well Ian & don't be a stranger

# 34 Tengo Juego @ 04/12/11 04:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CHooe


	I did find his removal of the "_ea" from his Twitter handle curious; he did this on April 1 though (IIRC) so I didn't make anything of it.

Hasn't it always just been @ian_cummings? And if he changed that, why not he rest of his profile info?

# 35 spankdatazz22 @ 04/12/11 04:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rgiles36


	How long before the very people that openly despise the Madden franchise say they'll miss Ian?

I don't consider myself as openly despising the game, but had my run-ins with Ian once he became prominant with the series. I've never been an Ian-fan, but respected his willingness to engage the community even if it came off as over-hype a lot of the time. I don't see this as a huge loss, because the series has been in the "it's on the right track" phase since the Phil guy was lead. And truthfully none of them have introduced anything significant, from "Game that Adapts to You" years to Pro-Tak, which started out bad and was never cultivated. I guess the person that did Head Coach did some good things but I never played that game. It's great that Ian's gotten a better position to move onto, so congrats to him.

The series has long needed an MVP-like makeover, and fresh ideas/willingness to new approaches are needed. But still could be a situation where the marketing department wags the dog, and the game remains more hype than substance. Regardless, will be interesting to see going forward.

# 36 Hooe @ 04/12/11 04:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tengo Juego


	Hasn't it always just been @ian_cummings? And if he changed that, why not he rest of his profile info?

Nope, he was "@ian_cummings_ea". To the latter, only he knows.

# 37 djordan @ 04/12/11 04:26 PM

OHH ISHH!!! Interesting...

# 38 Brandwin @ 04/12/11 04:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by djordan


	OHH ISHH!!! Man Madden is really done now. Ian was all about making the Madden Franchise better in terms of gameplay. Who the heck is going to take over now? WOW!!!

Overreacting much? Hopefully whoever steps in makes Madden
Better

# 39 Hooe @ 04/12/11 04:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by djordan


	OHH ISHH!!! Man Madden is really done now. Ian was all about making the Madden Franchise better in terms of gameplay. Who the heck is going to take over now? WOW!!!

I'm sure EA Tiburon can find a strong personality who is a natural leader and is passionate about football amongst their ranks. Game studios endure staff turnover all the time.

Call of Duty didn't stop because of the staff turnover at Infinity Ward, Tiburon will continue to truck along just fine, and Madden will continue becoming iteratively better with each passing year.

# 40 djordan @ 04/12/11 04:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DookieMowf


	Overreacting much? Hopefully whoever steps in makes Madden Better

Yeah just a little lol. I wish they would blow the entire spot up. Start fresh. We've had the same damn engine since Madden 01 for PS2.

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Madden Creative Director, Ian Cummings is Leaving Tiburon