Reason for EA Football Hate

If you have been around the gaming industry for any period of time and have ventured into the online forum world. Well you will notice a common trend, people dislike the EA football products. Yet the major gaming review sites every year give Madden and the NCAA franchise excellent review scores. Lets take a quick peek into what has made the EA Football products so hated among the football gaming community and why do customers feel so differently than these supposed "review sites".

Power Struggle

It was not very long ago when we had multiple NFL products to choose from. With many different developers all battling to create the best football product. The presence of competition, led to developers pushing the boundaries on what was possible. Titles such as the revered NFL 2k5 were at the forefront of making huge leaps and bounds in sports game developments. With many of the features that NFL 2k5 has, still have yet to be duplicated. It was the perfect model that competition breeds consumer satisfaction.

Then a drastic change happened in 2005 which changed the Sports gaming world. The NFL signed a 5 year contract with the NFL & the Player Union. Thus locking out any other developer from creating another NFL based football product. In 2008 EA then extended the contract to 2012 and just recently has extended the contract by one more year.

To further compound the issues already for other developers. EA then went out and signed a 15 year deal with ESPN. This marriage seemed like the perfect blend for sports gamers. Both the leader in Sports and the Leader in Sports video games teaming up together. Wow the level of presentation we will see should be off the charts, WRONG!

EA Sports integrated a ESPN sports ticker in its sports franchise and outside of that very little in terms of ESPN presentation has been used in its sports games. There is so much opportunity here for EA and they have chosen to not make use of this contract but also eliminate everyone else from having a shot at utilizing the leader in sports presentation packages. This is a huge slap in the face to all their consumers and we spend far to much money for a game to include a roster update and one new feature or so. There is ZERO reason why they should not have ESPN presentation in all their sports games!

As long as EA holds these contracts it will do nothing but hurt the consumer. Without competition you will see a steady decline in production quality. This has been evident in the last several Madden games and will continue until we the consumers stand against mediocrity.

X & O's

The heart and soul of why consumers are not happy with the EA Football franchises is because their own motto of "If its in the game, Its in the game" is a lie. They have not created a game which mimics the sports we watch on TV. This is the biggest issue and complaints with EA Sports. Everyone does not hate EA Games, everyone hates that EA Games won't make a realistic sports game. Lets look at some of these issues that consumers complain about.

Blocking

It is common knowledge that the EA Football franchises have horrible line play. The problem with this is that the entire game of football starts with the line play. If the line play is broken then the entire game is flawed from the start.

You can create a 160 pound Wide Receiver with the lowest blocking stats and face him against the best 300+ D-lineman in the game. The 160 pound Wide Receiver will stand up the D-lineman over and over. Plus pancaking him many times through out a game. Why is this happening??? Where is the respect of weight, strength, momentum, etc.

So in EA's football world, a O-line built entirely of 170 pound men will compete versus a D-line of star 300+ pound monsters. Anyone see a problem with this picture?

Until the line play is fixed, the entire Madden and NCAA franchise will be broken!

Timing Passing System

A key part of football you hear mentioned all the time is the connection and timing between a quarterback and his wide receivers. From the moment the ball is snapped there is a internal clock working in all the players heads. Quarterback has so many steps to drop back before he knows the Wide Receiver will be breaking on his route. The Wideout knows he has so many yards to cover and at this certain moment the ball should be arriving to him. This timing sounds like a simple feat, and would be so without 11 angry defense men trying to prevent this from happening. This is where the timing of the passing engine becomes so important.

If a QB releases the ball before he is supposed to there are a number of factors that could go wrong. The wideout might not see the ball has been thrown, the QB might place the ball off the mark, the defense might force a INT, etc etc. The game All Pro Football 2k8 did a excellent job with the timing based system which simulates very well how the passing game is in real life.

EA's Football passing engine is nothing close to this. No matter if your QB releases the ball early, late, or on time the wideout will always know the ball is coming even without looking for it. Plus the QB will always throw the ball to a location that puts the wideout in perfect spot to make the catch. This leads to many many issues in the EA passing engine. Defensive pressure is not a factor and makes rushing a QB nonexistent. He will always place the ball where it needs to be and the WR will always know it has been thrown.

Timing passing has to be implemented to have a correct back and forth between the defense and Offense.

Suction Blocking

Ohh the dreaded suction blocking. How many times have you had a defensive player literally touching a offensive ball holder and your defense men gets stuck in a blocking animation that he is unable to make a play on the ball. Then you watch the ball holder scamper for another 15 yards which equals to a frustrating experience and also a unrealistic one.

There is not a great deal of detail that needs to be said about this issue. Until EA figures out how to make it so players don't get stuck in animations, this will always be a issue. This remains in all their new titles even though they said it was fixed.

Mind Reading Players

Why is it that the Defensive Back I am facing is making a break on a out route before my wideout even makes his cut??? Why is it that the D-line is shifting to the side I am running to EVERY PLAY?? Why are Linebackers dropping into zones right where my slant route is headed??

This is mind numbing and should not happen in this current generation. There are stealth games base on hiding and enemy AI not knowing I am sneaking up behind them. There is no excuse for this considering many other football games do not have this problem, Only EA's Football titles.

Mark another big issue with EA Football games. This has to go!

Presentation

I touched on this a little in the ESPN licensing agreement. But to further discuss the issue the main reason people are upset is because there are other titles out doing it 10 times better on a smaller budget and without the license.

Why don't we have pre-game break downs, Half time shows, Weekly highlight shows, Weekly stat coverage and key players, trades and injury breakdowns, to sum it up why don't we see in your game the same level of presentation covering the NFL as we see on ESPN every night? There is no excuse when a game from 2004 (NFL 2k5) has completely dominated the Madden franchise in presentation with less disk space and weaker console.

Another area that falls under presentation that is seriously lacking is the horrible commentary. What can be done to improve the commentary to the quality of The Show or NBA2k11 franchise?

Presentation is immersion and immersion keeps people coming back!

Its a Wrap

The EA Football franchise has been on a steady downward spiral and the only way to help them get out of this spiral is to force them to make a change. The way to do this is to vote with your hard earned dollar. Make a clear statement to EA that we want to see a marked improvement in their football games. They have all the means at their disposal so there should be ZERO excuses on why the MADDEN and NCAA franchises are not on the same level as NBA2k11 or The Show!

Lets show the EA Football developers we no longer will "make do" with what they give us every year. We want a quality product or we will hold out until they deliver!!