Madden NFL and the Future of Video Game Sports (Grantland)

[RGiles36]

Grantland's Tom Bissell, has posted an article discussing Madden NFL and the future of video game sports. Quite a few interesting topics of discussion inside.

Quote:

On this point, Weber was surprisingly forthcoming: "We read the forums, we read the consumer feedback, we read reviews. I think in general there's a feeling that EA's football titles are starting to feel a little bit stagnant in terms of how you play them. And while the games have progressed on a graphics and rendering and A.I. side, how you experience them, and how you play them, hasn't changed that much, especially in this generation of consoles. Clearly, the way sports games are played, and the way Madden in particular is played, is ripe for some massive paradigm shift. Why doesn't the quarterback position feel as visceral and pinpointy as firing a rifle in a first-person shooter? Could you make the experience of being an offensive lineman as interesting as anything on the ball? Why, for that matter, is running the ball such an isometric experience? When I put these and other questions to the Madden team in Florida, many of them smiled.

You'd have to read the lengthy article to put those quotes into their proper context, make sure you check it out, right here.

[alexgamez122]

This is a great article, well done. Gives you a great insight to all the things that the dev team does, all the issues and the overall complexity of the game.

[ABR173rd]

Good article,be interesting to see how the topics discussed translates into M13.

[Gotmadskillzson]

To be honest, this article gets re-written every year. Just be a different writer, different media outlet. I remember one year ESPN wrote the article and another year IGN wrote it.

[dfos81]

I like the fact that they still are getting real football situations and feedback from the Legend, John Madden. They seem to be heading in the right direction and with Madden being retired now, it sounds like they can get even more feedback from him.
Nice read!

[Gotmadskillzson]

Key points to the article for those who don't have time to read the whole thing.

1. Roy Harvey is the executive producer of Madden

2. Anthony White says there is nothing they can't do or put in the game. HOWEVER memory is the bottleneck and what is holding stuff back, since everything takes up memory. Basically it is a console problem this generation. He is the person who is in charge of the playbooks in Madden and NCAA, and responsible for AI movement on the field. So therefore I wish I had his email address, for I can email him the dozens of problems with the AI movement when they execute plays.

3. Mike Young is one of the creative directors of Madden now.

4. Donnie Moore is the ratings czar, of course. So yeah we can all blame him for the exaggerated ratings of Madden players. 330 pound offensive linemen with 80 speed ? Really Donnie ? Really ?

5. Anthony Stevenson is the director of marketing for Madden.

6. EA Sports was more scared of NFL Game Day series then the NFL 2K series.

[jyoung]

This is pretty cool:

Quote:

Someone, they said, might draw up a new play on the dry-erase board. Coach would, in turn, consider that play, explain why the tight ends would be better off doing something else, get up, uncap a marker, and amend the proposed play. That's one of the littler ways in which Coach improves Madden.

[jyoung]

Another highlight:

Quote:

The modern football video game pushes current-generation technology to its limit. Why are football games so "expensive," in the sense that programmers use that word? Well, first, a football game has to render all the players, all of whom have idiosyncrasies of movement and appearance that must be accurate, and, in the case of marquee players, downright meticulous. Second, the game has to render all the coaching staff and the refs. There's also the crowd to render, not to mention the crowd noise, which is keyed to surprisingly complicated crowd A.I. Let's not forget the grass on the field. Or the light. Or the broadcasting. The game's also scripting, on every play, the individual behavior of every player on the field, most of whom will be doing different things on any given play. In a basketball, hockey, or soccer game, the range of behaviors is more limited. In basketball everyone's doing roughly the same thing from an A.I. perspective. Hockey gets a little more complicated, and soccer a little more complicated yet, but football gives you 22 individual actors obeying a wide range of A.I. scripts. Not to mention the fact that every NFL team has an elaborate playbook with distinct tendencies and play styles. Meanwhile, during the plays themselves, there's tons of contact between those 22 individual actors, all of which they have to respond to. And this has to look good — seamless, even. When you start pondering the immense complications of a game like Madden — the product of more than 10 million lines of code — you begin to wonder how the game even runs without shooting fire out of your console.