EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

[Jerros]

As a gamer that played NES, SNES, and ultimately stopped until I stumbled onto MLB the Show 09 on my buddy's PS3, from what I have read, doesn't Madden on the PS2/xbox offer a more simulation experience compare to the 360/PS3 offerings? Didn't the PS2/xbox Madden "simulation" versions sell quite a boatload? Did they also sell more than the PS3/360 versions? Did pre Madden 05 sell more than post Madden 05?

If and only if the PS2/XBOX was more simulation, why do people keep saying that EA Madden will forever cater to the casual arcaders? Doesn't the PS2/XBOX era say differently and that simulation can be marketed and sold to casual gamers?

Unless of course I'm mistaken and Madden never truly offered a simulation experience ever. Just curious.

Well, think about what you just said, look at the time frames you're talking about when Madden was promoting a game closer in simulation. They had one keep element pushing them to make a credible game, COMPETITION. EA couldn't just cruise along with Madden back then because there were other companies that created football games before this exclusive monopoly destroyed the core of sports gaming. Madden has ZERO motivation to make a game that sim fans want. There's nothing out there to measure themselves by except old titles which sadly are still be compared to Madden. Kinda shows you how far they actually haven't come.

This is why Madden will never be a sim. They are catering to exactly what you said, the casual gamer who knows nothing about football and could care less to know. Most people don't want to play a sim because that requires thinking and strategy. That is too time consuming and considered boring to the average Madden player. And those ore the people EA cares about the most because they are Madden's biggest supporters.

Also, lets not get confused about the numbers. Madden sells are misleading. True enough you have a loyal fan following of casual players but the sim crowd also buys Madden because there's no other alternative. But again, they will never cater to the minority, only the majority, which is the casual gamer.

[strawberryshortcake]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

Well, think about what you just said, look at the time frames you're talking about when Madden was promoting a game closer in simulation. They had one keep element pushing them to make a credible game, COMPETITION. EA couldn't just cruise along with Madden back then because there were other companies that created football games before this exclusive monopoly destroyed the core of sports gaming. Madden has ZERO motivation to make a game that sim fans want. There's nothing out there to measure themselves by except old titles which sadly are still be compared to Madden. Kinda shows you how far they actually haven't come.

This is why Madden will never be a sim. They are catering to exactly what you said, the casual gamer who knows nothing about football and could care less to know. Most people don't want to play a sim because that requires thinking and strategy. That is too time consuming and considered boring to the average Madden player. And those ore the people EA cares about the most because they are Madden's biggest supporters.

Also, lets not get confused about the numbers. Madden sells are misleading. True enough you have a loyal fan following of casual players but the sim crowd also buys Madden because there's no other alternative. But again, they will never cater to the minority, only the majority, which is the casual gamer.

I did consider the competition influence, plus the new console launches. If there are any programmers in here, how difficult or what are the challenges of moving the created video game source code (or whatever it's called, player movement, artificial intelligence, etc) from one system to the next?

Asking because if the Madden brand was continually growing, if the simulation source code from the PS2/XBOX era were already established and functioning properly, wouldn't it take more resources to rebuild from the ground up, and spit out an arcade. Exclusivity locked up competition and threw away the key. Wouldn't it be easier to simply port over a functional product (PS2/XBOX simulation) and slap a new coat of paint (i.e. shiny graphics, better textures, more details) Isn't part of the reason for EA going exclusive to take things easy. A complete port would be the easy way, right?

[cowboy_kmoney]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

If EA wants 2k to compete then open the market up and let them in. They knw it would never b the same because 2k did things back then thsts in there games thsts still not in Madden so u tell me if they were still in the game who would b killing the game right now? EA is just feel themselves because there is no other game out there to Make them step up.

[OhMrHanky]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

I would say there are varying opinions on whether former maddens were meant to be arcade or sim based. For me, personally, strictly my opinion here, they may very well have been TRYING to make a sim game back then (maybe, always, who really knows?). However, their version of sim ALWAYS felt like arcade to me. So, when NFL gameday came out in 96 and improved upon itself in 97, I personally gravitated towards that game because it had a more sim feel to me. Then, gameday just started getting worse in 98, and I went back to madden. Then, 2k came out in 2000? 1999? Whenever, right around that time. Here, maybe madden was TRYING to make a sim game, but whatever they had going on in their code just always felt Arcady to me. 2k felt and looked much more realistic. I still remember the first time I played 2k and saw a safety jump in the air behind a WR going for an int, but the WR caught the ball in front of him and kept running as the safety was now out of position to make the tackle. This was one of the most realistic things I had ever seen in a football game before. The player movement felt more real, too. My thing with madden, particularly in that era, was that the players always felt like they were 'skating' around. There was absolutely no sense of player movement or momentum. So, to say that earlier maddens were geared towards sim more than recent history, I just don't know that holds true. Maybe, they were trying for sim, but for me, madden always felt Arcady. And, then u have the ALLPRO level where u blow out the CPU. Then, Allmadden, where your oline blocks nobody, their players do whatever they want, etc. that absolutely felt Arcady to me. That, to me, was something fundamental in their code base and was stuck there until 2010, I'd say, when they tried to imement a better engine. And, again, in madden 13, when they finally went to a real time physics engine. So, I don't know. I think they may have been trying for sim all along, but they sure didn't know how to implement it. Lol.


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[Glenn33]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

Me personally ... I am tired of waxing poetic over a game that is 10 years old. I loved it truly and it was an all timer for me. But I have moved on. Madden is what it is and I have learned to enjoy what we have. So RIP 2k5. I am going to start dating someone else now.

[Demoncrom]

And the biggest loser/jerk award for e3 goes to (drumroll)

Rex Dickson from EA with his bs "bring it 2k" comment.
What does he win folks.

Another year of mediocore football for the masses. Yeah NFL!

[K33057]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

Bottom line is===$$$$$
EA is in control and making Money like crazy as is the NFL..
So its either madden or enjoy any other game we have..
Truly time to get over it and move on...

[OriolesFanRD]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

Just stop buying the game. Do what some folks do for a day with gas. Don't buy Madden at launch. EA would flip tables and start to take the community seriously. But if you continue to buy this hot garbage, they'll continue to give you..... HOT GARBAGE.

lol @ EA for not having features from PS2 edition of Madden. Your fail is strong.

[FBall Life]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

Just stop buying the game. Do what some folks do for a day with gas. Don't buy Madden at launch. EA would flip tables and start to take the community seriously. But if you continue to buy this hot garbage, they'll continue to give you..... HOT GARBAGE.

lol @ EA for not having features from PS2 edition of Madden. Your fail is strong.

I've been saying this for the longest time. If everyone in this community could band together and not buy Madden for a year, as well as get as many of our friends to not buy Madden for a year, we could make a pretty damn good dent. You don't HAVE to buy Madden. Go a year with last year's game. If you want change, then FINALLY do something about it.

[apollon42]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

When 2k5 was out, most of my friends still played Madden. I feel like Madden is catering toward the casual gamer crowd. People like my brother who will buy Madden but only play head to head with their buddies while drinking beers. Not hardcore gamers like us. Those casual gamers think that Madden is awesome. They could care less about tattoos, presentation, running animations, ect. We are the minority. Most of my friends thought the running animations in 2k were terrible and they looked like they had a stick up their behind. They also hated All Pro 2k8 because they had "fake" teams. But my friends were casual gamers. But that's why 2k isn't making another game ... because we are the minority.

[sword1986]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

If 2K was still making football games to this day, Madden would turn out to be just like NBA Live.

[iamgramps]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

Look at 2k14, imo, 2k is catering and making a sim bball game. The stuff i use to do on the old lives running around like playing run n gun on the arcade i couldnt do. I dont see that bball game getting hated on, it gets praised for the innovation and the great graphics. The realism and how authentic the game plays with momentum and physics. You may see an odd play every so often, but you arent going to be running around with a player slicing through the defense and scoring 100 points, unless you are playing on low level.

I dont see why EA can't take that approach too, if they create a great simulator, people would love it and the notion that the casual gamer wont, i dont think that is true. I think they would, people like realism and the casual gamer loves graphics. I am not talking about stupid gameplay trailers with upclose shots, but great graphics on the screen when you actually play the game.

Really, either EA is catering to the casual more or they just have a horrid development team that can't get it right, either way,it is bad. My guess is, they are probably still using the same code from madden 06. Time to scrap it up and build a brand new engine. Every year, it is "we built it from the ground up", im sure nothing was built from the ground up at this point as many aspects of the game remain the same and people continue to whine about the same issues every single year.

Read the 2k forums and play online. My experience was not a sim experience at all. As far as 2k5 and Madden, 2k, IMO, was a different experience; not a better one. I enjoy the heck out of Madden, and I always will.

[iamgramps]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

I've been saying this for the longest time. If everyone in this community could band together and not buy Madden for a year, as well as get as many of our friends to not buy Madden for a year, we could make a pretty damn good dent. You don't HAVE to buy Madden. Go a year with last year's game. If you want change, then FINALLY do something about it.

Lol...I hope you know as long as Madden exist, this will never EVER happen. Madden is to good of a product, especially to the "casual" gamer like me. I don't have a lot of time to play video games these days, but when I do, my game of choice is Madden. So, why would people like me even consider your suggestion as an option.

[GiantBlue76]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

If 2K was still making football games to this day, Madden would turn out to be just like NBA Live.

In all honesty, I have found myself saying this at times (more out of frustration than anything else), but I actually don't believe this to be true. I think Madden would have turned out to be an entirely different game and instead of one really weak football product on last gen, we would have had 2 really great ones. I sat down late last night and read over a large portion of the Pecover lawsuit documents. A lot of the things I saw in there were very disheartening all around (and not all on EA's shoulders), but the biggest eye catcher was a section that talked about EA's poor quality football game by their own admission. Executives in the document testified in a court of law that they agreed that their football titles were very lacking and showed very small year over year improvement. However, this wasn't the big bomb of the section (in my mind at least). The biggest surprise was the fact that an EA Tiburon producer sent emails to EA executives urging them NOT to renew the exclusive license with the NFL because they "were at their best when they had someone to beat" and it would also be cheaper.

I was amazed that a Tiburon producer actually could see the light here, and that he realized that Tiburon had gone completely down the drain with their flagship franchise at this time. There are also direct quotes in there from Larry Probst talking about acquiring exclusives for all other football avenues to prevent any threat from take 2 whatsoever. Those of you who believe this was not a calculated move are wrong.

Also, not only eliminating football game competition, but signing the exclusive caused EA to suddenly believe their competition was no longer just football games (since there were none left). After years and years of stating their competition with Madden was only other football games and not other genres. This is probably what lead to a massive move away from simulation football and an emphasis on things like the famed "ring builder" and other ridiculous "features".

Some other notable quotes from the documents:

Brandon Justice, a former line producer
at EA, testified regarding All Pr
o 2K8 “So it's one of those things
where I think it's very unfortunate fo
r that game in particular because
it was such a good product from a
game play standpoint
that it was very unlikely it would get the expo
sure that it deserved because of the lack
of a license.” Justice Deposition, p. 66:11-15.

Current thinking for countering Sega's $19.99 price and earlier ship date - buy 2 EA SPORTS, get 1 free. [break] Jeff came up with this 2 for 1 program,
. I
like it, because at least we're doing something to go after
them. However, I'd like us to be even more aggressive.
[break] I worry that we're not taking this threat as seriously
as it is, and that it will be too late once we realize they
are stealing market share for us.” 31 August 2004, Subjec
t: RE: 2 for 1 Marketing Plans Draft- please review before
9am. Thanks, EA00067807 - EA00067809 at 7807.

In an email discussing a Take-Two earnings call in September 2004, Frank Gibeau, EA’s General Manager
of North American Publishing, wrote, “They said $19 for this Gen could mean this Gen of hardware and
we see $19 again next year. My guess is they grind us for two years at $19 until they buy VC and the PS3
hits. Even then I would be surprised if they move the price unless the leagues do something. They are in
this long term. We need to crush them at the transition and get out of this product parity bull****. We can
hold a premium price if we are vastly superior to their products on the next gen of hardware.”

[bullet] Price vs quality are tough to correlate. I don’t know that we will ever see another 90 rated Madden
game. Our quality issues are 100% on our shoulders as a st
udio. The business decision around pricing is an attempt
to re-coup the massive costs, but they are disjointed decisions.” Chiang, Steve, 29 August 2006, RE: Preston Petty
Pester #7: EA’s Public Face, or lack therof, EA00368834 - EA00368837 at 8836.

My personal opinion is that we should not put out a Collector’s Edition this year. Coming off a lack luster
version last year and an equally weak o
ffering this year, I believe we will be eroding the faith of our core consumers
in this type of product. In a year
in which we face category competition for th
e first time since 2004, we need to be
doing things that engage and excite our core. I am afraid a SKU like this will put us in a negative light and bring
back some of the issues we faced last
year around DLC. With such low reve
nue numbers on the line for this SKU I
do not feel like the reward outweighs the risk.” Erb, Christopher, 15 April 2007, Madden Collector’s Edition,
EA00254320 - EA00254321 at 4321

Brandon Justice testified “I would sa
y that the overall quality of football
products in the marketplace suffered
significantly due to a lack of competition based on the quality of the product that -- based on Madden, I should say,
being the only product in the market. I mean, there's an
y number of factors that could contribute to Madden not
pushing itself forward, but at the end of the day, the easiest way to do it, when last generation, was look at other
games, figure out where you could improve, and then push towards that. And they don't have that measuring stick
anymore. A lot more difficult to be self-motivated than it is to be pushed by other people.”

A very unfortunate thing, and it really didn't pan out well for anyone long term except the NFL.

[hanzsomehanz]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

Read the 2k forums and play online. My experience was not a sim experience at all. As far as 2k5 and Madden, 2k, IMO, was a different experience; not a better one. I enjoy the heck out of Madden, and I always will.

Yep, the hardcore community will reveal how sim or not sim a product is.

I thoroughly enjoyed NBA 2K11 and rate it the best Basketball title in history. I hesitated to buy 2K12 and caved but have yet to buy again since and do not plan to.

Meanwhile, more casuals are picking up the game and touting it as so realistic (lol) - different eyes make different observations.

I am now all over NHL15 and start reading the forums and YouTube feedback only to hear how hesitant and underwhelmed some are regarding this title's potential lol.

This seasoned crowd identifies things I do not see in a negative light or see at all lol - it is coinciddntly the same with Madden titles lol.

I believe EA NHL is like Madden in that it has no NHL competition for market share. I frankly thought the game "looked" real lol only to hear of the same complaints we hear here: suctioning, lack of penalties accurately represented, and poor AI - I did not identify this in the trailers.

I am already being sucked in, like a Madden casual who is drawn to a trailer and is amazed by how real the game "looks" lol .

In fairness, I am particularly drawn to the introduction of full 12 on 12 player physics including the puck having its own independent physics -- something I hope for Madden to introduce.

The point is: casuals are a dime a dozen and can be lured in by the simplist of bait tactics especially when the sports title has no direct competitor for market share.

We need the 20% of the Community that is Sim minded to speak on the Simulation or lack therof that is represented or missing in the game and hopefully our education will benefit the minds of the casuals in that they will make better consumer choices and moreover - adopt a Sim perspective they can relate and appreciate.

Sim Extremists are the hardest to please and realistically so albeit we should settle on a reasonable grounds for Simulation that still permits accessibilty to some tempered casual features.

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