Why Is Madden Still Not Available On PC At This Point?

[bucky60]

Re: Why Is Madden Still Not Available On PC At This Point?

The bold is what confuses me and hope people that understand software development might can speculate about and expound on. If developing for the current consoles is so much like high end PCs like so many developers claimed, then it seems that porting Madden over to PC now would be as cost effective as ever. Also, in the other threads on this topic of Madden on PC, I don't recall anyone posting a huge sales drop for Madden 2008 from Madden 2007, the last two years it was available on PC.

Big, whatever high end language they are using, tools could be built to be able to port the high end language code (compilers, linkers). If the CPU architecture is the same as PC's, then the Machine language should be portable. The one are I see that would not be directly portable is if they are doing code instructions straight to the video card and not through some library. PC's would have different video cards, and that code would have to be redone.

So if
The game is written mainly in a high level language, compilers, linkers would make that part of the code portable.
The CPU machine code is the same (same CPU as PC) the machine code would be portable.
The video coding is done through a library and not straight to the video card, this would also be portable.

[Big FN Deal]

Re: Why Is Madden Still Not Available On PC At This Point?

I don't really care how many people like me are out there. The fact is that there is a market for EA to tap into that they are not tapping into. I have NBA 2K on the PC, and it is pretty sweet, and as a result, they will continue to get my $30 every year. I just don't like it when EA takes things away from you that used to be standard, that's all. If EA made Madden available on more platforms, they would increase their sales. Sure, maybe they won't increase the margin much, but at least you would gain some people back who would continue to buy year after year.

This is my line of thought and why imo, EA winning that "worst company in America" online vote has merit. They come across as caring far more about profit than their brand image, when the two should or at least could be synonymous. Even if Madden on PC was a break even proposition, it would be good for the brand image to provide it for consumers, at no cost to the company.

I'm sure my bias against EA is showing but that bias is based on my interpretation of their business practices, which I believe are often out to exploit the consumer versus providing a quality good or service for profit. That ties into the thread topic because I speculate that's a core reason Madden is still not available on PC, even though it could presumably be offered to the "circles" that want it, at no cost to EA and help the brand image.

[NicVirtue]

Re: Why Is Madden Still Not Available On PC At This Point?

To be entirely honest, I highly doubt EA wants the modding community to do things better than they ever could.

[testudoaubreii]

Re: Why Is Madden Still Not Available On PC At This Point?

I don't know if this was touched on yet...modding. I also believe what many here have already written. I think that they are afraid that customers will not by Madden every year. What I mean is, EA expects $60 per game/customer every single year, even if it is just a glorified roster update.

Imagine how much money they could potentially lose if it were to be released for PC? All modders would have to do is provide rosters updates to the game and no one would buy a Madden game until they provide significant changes in the game, something that would justify spending $60 on it year in and year out. EA figured that out on 2008 and here we are today.

Actually, that would actually serve as sort of a competition factor for EA. Imagine not only having to compete with rival developers, but with scores and scores of very talented modders.

[Big FN Deal]

Re: Why Is Madden Still Not Available On PC At This Point?

To be entirely honest, I highly doubt EA wants the modding community to do things better than they ever could.

I've expressed this same sentiment ITT but I have to ask myself why don't they care about that with FIFA? Are there currently a lot of FIFA mods out there or is that game so solid they aren't worried about that?

I just wish the NFL brand had never got wrapped in the Scooby Doo mysteries of EA business practices, lol. It is what it is though.

[bucky60]

Re: Why Is Madden Still Not Available On PC At This Point?

I think the biggest obstacle about getting Madden on PC, is PCs themselves. When developing for the PS4/PS3/XboxOne/Xbox360, the developer is providing a game to a console with a fixed set of system details, with PCs one PC is unlikely to be the same as the next.

The only significant difference between PC's architecture is the video card when it comes to gaming software. Compilers, linkers handle creating machine code. Any inline machine code should be very similar or identical because the CPU architecture is very similar or identical on PC's. The only real difference is accessing the video card, and that is only if code is sending commands straight to the video card and not going through a intermediate library.

Now there would be significant differences between PC and MACS.

[Cusefan]

Why Is Madden Still Not Available On PC At This Point?

This is my line of thought and why imo, EA winning that "worst company in America" online vote has merit. They come across as caring far more about profit than their brand image, when the two should or at least could be synonymous. Even if Madden on PC was a break even proposition, it would be good for the brand image to provide it for consumers, at no cost to the company.



I'm sure my bias against EA is showing but that bias is based on my interpretation of their business practices, which I believe are often out to exploit the consumer versus providing a quality good or service for profit. That ties into the thread topic because I speculate that's a core reason Madden is still not available on PC, even though it could presumably be offered to the "circles" that want it, at no cost to EA and help the brand image.

EA being branded the worst company will never have any merit, anyone who thinks this has a very limited understanding of corporations in America.

Last I checked when EA cuts corners their games are buggy, when a auto company cuts corners people die. It amazes me that people would even lump any entertainment company in with the real bad companies in our society.

[bucky60]

Re: Why Is Madden Still Not Available On PC At This Point?

Assuming the game is built on Windows, they'd have to remove any calls to XBOX One / PS4 SDK functions in the code and either wrap those functions themselves or find a similar PC SDK to build upon. I imagine that porting from the XBOX One would alleviate this somewhat, since both the XBOX One and Windows PCs can leverage DirectX for rendering-related functions, but it's still a non-trivial amount of work.

If they are using DirectX, I think it's far more trivial than you are making it out to be. Using DirectX should almost make the video code a direct port, unless they are using some special/non standard DirectX library.

[Big FN Deal]

Re: Why Is Madden Still Not Available On PC At This Point?

EA being branded the worst company will never have any merit, anyone who thinks this has a very limited understanding of corporations in America.

Last I checked when EA cuts corners their games are buggy, when a auto company cuts corners people die. It amazes me that people would even lump any entertainment company in with the real bad companies in our society.

I should of thought better of even mentioning it to avoid any misunderstandings to derail the thread but for clarification, by "merit" I meant people that voted feeling that way versus a justification why EA is unequivocally far worse than every other company in America.

[roadman]

Re: Why Is Madden Still Not Available On PC At This Point?

Yeah, Big, don't get me going on that uber-scientific worst company in the world stuff, lol.

[Haval93]

Re: Why Is Madden Still Not Available On PC At This Point?

Mods, I know this discussion has been in a thread before but not in the "new console" forum.

I just read a post from BringThePain86 in another thread mentioning the continued lack of Madden on PC, which really got me to thinking about it. With all the talk about how the development for PS4/Xbox1 was going to be closer to working with high end PCs, why is Madden still not available on PC?

Is there some potentially technical reason some of you people in the computer science field might could speculate on, is it that EA doesn't want the modding community to get their hands on Madden PC to show them up or something else entirely?

Thoughts?

I'm an indie dev and use DirectX for rendering.

Madden can very easily be released on PC. Xbox One and PS4 are both using x86 processors which is the standard for PCs. This means you can write native code for all three platforms and have it working without any changes. Games are coded on the PC and then ported onto the consoles. As for the rendering side of the game, the game is more than likely using DirectX. And with the new generation of consoles both supporting DirectX 11(PS4 uses something very similar). This allows programmers to write the same DirectX code on consoles as well as PC which saves a lot of time. This allows consoles developers to scale accordingly to the power of the consoles. So without going into the depths of programming, the simple answer is yes Madden can easily be released on PC, it's just a decision made by EA to not do so. Whether those be business reasons, developer allocation, or piracy concerns.

[wordtobigbird]

Re: Why Is Madden Still Not Available On PC At This Point?

I've expressed this same sentiment ITT but I have to ask myself why don't they care about that with FIFA? Are there currently a lot of FIFA mods out there or is that game so solid they aren't worried about that?

I just wish the NFL brand had never got wrapped in the Scooby Doo mysteries of EA business practices, lol. It is what it is though.

Not that I know a lot about soccer but FIFA seems to be light years ahead of Madden. FIFA has better and more in depth features and game modes. Graphic wise Madden just caught up with player models, but animations in FIFA are so much better. So FIFA is definitely much more solid than Madden but I don't know how much modders do gameplay wise. I've used lots of mods on PC games and they are usually just graphical. The graphics on every PC game get improved and optimized with mods. On Skyrim they change the UI and menus. Can't think of any that change gameplay.

[bucky60]

Re: Why Is Madden Still Not Available On PC At This Point?

Not that I know a lot about soccer but FIFA seems to be light years ahead of Madden. FIFA has better and more in depth features and game modes. Graphic wise Madden just caught up with player models, but animations in FIFA are so much better. So FIFA is definitely much more solid than Madden but I don't know how much modders do gameplay wise. I've used lots of mods on PC games and they are usually just graphical. The graphics on every PC game get improved and optimized with mods. On Skyrim they change the UI and menus. Can't think of any that change gameplay.

Lots of mods for the PC version of Bethesda games. I have a ton of mods that change Skyrim gameplay, oblivion, fallout, fallout new vegas. Mods for PC games go far beyond graphics, UI and menus. The nexus site has thousands of mods. Can I mention another site like nexus with the OS TOS? If not OS mods, feel free to delete.

[KBLover]

Re: Why Is Madden Still Not Available On PC At This Point?

If you buy a game that can be modded on the PC would you ever need to buy the game again?

The same reason people buy OOTP year after year when it's basically a baseball mod kit?

I mean, why buy OOTP15 when you can do it on OOPT14 as well? Yet, people buy OOTP15.

[Hooe]

Re: Why Is Madden Still Not Available On PC At This Point?

If they are using DirectX, I think it's far more trivial than you are making it out to be. Using DirectX should almost make the video code a direct port, unless they are using some special/non standard DirectX library.

I don't doubt that. I just don't know the particulars of developing for XBOX One (I've not touched an XBOX One dev kit), which is why I hedged my bet some.