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

[KBLover]

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

EA doesn't want your $30, they want your $60. I really think people are over thinking this; EA used to make madden for PC so they know what to expect for revenue. Since they stopped the PC version that probably means it's not a worthwhile venture.

I guess it won't be if you treat it like second-class citizen.

Console versions kept getting better. PC was almost a cloned port year-over-year.

Yeah, I guess that wouldn't sell well.

If the PC version was constantly improving, the story might be different. People will say "no it won't" but it can't be proven either way.

Also, for the piracy thing - they could release on Steam or something. Or be like Blizzard and come up with their own system (SC2 isn't on Steam, but I doubt they are saying "who cares about pirates").

[Hooe]

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

I guess it won't be if you treat it like second-class citizen.

Console versions kept getting better. PC was almost a cloned port year-over-year.

Yeah, I guess that wouldn't sell well.

If the PC version was constantly improving, the story might be different. People will say "no it won't" but it can't be proven either way.

Also, for the piracy thing - they could release on Steam or something. Or be like Blizzard and come up with their own system (SC2 isn't on Steam, but I doubt they are saying "who cares about pirates").

Agreed that Madden PC could have been much better if it was treated properly when it existed. It did have far better custom team support than any of the console games, though, so at least there's that.

I imagine a hypothetical Madden 15 PC SKU would most likely be an EA Origin exclusive (Origin is EA's PC DRM / content distribution platform / Steam clone). Which stinks because I've heard nothing but bad about Origin, but I'd still abandon consoles readily for a PC Madden; sports games are the only thing really tying me to consoles at this point.

[bucky60]

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

sports games are the only thing really tying me to consoles at this point.

Me too. If I can get a game on the PC I do. So many games have such great mods on the PC.

[Phobia]

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

I didn't read it all................Just wanted to say

EA BRING ALL YOUR SPORTS GAMES TO PC!!!!!!!!!!!!

Spoiler

Then I could finally sell my PS4 and just stick with PC only

[kehlis]

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

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.

That's not the question I asked though, I said "would" you need to, not will you.

If Madden isn't confident enough in their product it's quite conceivable that they would be worried about repeat sales.


I'm not saying there people who wouldn't.

[hanzsomehanz]

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

FIFA15 will be featured on PC

The PC Market is growing but I am not optimistic that it would be worthwhile at this time for EA Sports to return Madden to PC.

The Soccor universe is so much larger than American Football - EA Sports can afford to market their FIFA brand there because of the vast target audience that is present there, in house and especially offshore.


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[KBLover]

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

That's not the question I asked though, I said "would" you need to, not will you.

If Madden isn't confident enough in their product it's quite conceivable that they would be worried about repeat sales.


I'm not saying there people who wouldn't.

There's always things that only the actual coders can change. Also, even if a mod is awesome - those who don't play mods or play online would need/want that incorporated into the vanilla game.

So, if I was an online player of Madden and I had Madden 15 on PC and someone made a mod that put the 2015 draft class in, I couldn't play that online. Ranked play would (and should) be vanilla only, and online play could have the same requirement.

So, yeah, I would (as in, be required to) get next year's game if I wanted to keep playing online game modes - ladder games or otherwise.

Even franchise mode - there could be something that only Tiburon could put in the game, like fixing the GM logic, or adding in a new feature (say practice squads and scout teams) that would require altering the code within either the .exe or some datafile that would very hard for even a good modder to make work (and then it goes back to the universal nature - if you're in an online CCM, everyone would probably need the same version, or, again, allow only vanilla).

What it would also require, though, is improvement in games that a modder could not match. In that sense, yeah, I imagine they'd be worried about repeat sales (of course, that could also drive them to make sure that level of improvement is in - improving both the console offering and the PC offering if they do it right -- yeah, I know).

However, for online play, they can just have the server check the version. If you're not at Madden 16 - no servers for you. Offline franchises and local multiplayer may be a tougher sell, but that might not be a whole lot different than consoles.

[DCEBB2001]

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

EA doesn't want your $30, they want your $60. I really think people are over thinking this; EA used to make madden for PC so they know what to expect for revenue. Since they stopped the PC version that probably means it's not a worthwhile venture.

I have a very powerful PC and I still would buy madden for my xbox since that is where my friends play.

And yet, I also said that for Madden on the PC, I would pay $100 or more for it. Why? Because my PC is a gaming machine that can outdo the PS4 or Xbox One. So, if EA's opinion is that they will only sell me a crappy, bug-filled, unrealistic video game for $60 or give me nothing at all, well, then I guess I will stick to NBA 2K for the PC.

EA doesn't want to give me what I want for $100, and I don't want what they have to offer for $60.

[Nza]

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

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.

"Games are coded on the PC" is a bit of a misleading statement. Games are coded in source code. Whether you do that on Mac, Windows or Linux, and x86, PPC or ARM doesn't really matter. Source code doesn't do anything by itself - it needs an interpreter or a compiler, and these are either themselves compiled to an arch/platform, or compile to an arch/platform. Part of any medium plus sized software development team these days is a remote build process that normalizes build environments between developers, so the development machines themselves don't matter.

The fact the compiler for XBOne and PC may very well be similar isn't really the point. It is far more important that the OS and hardware APIs used in the code are as close as possible. Now, I don't know how close PS4 and XBOne is in this regard, but I'm guessing they are fairly different. So XBOne and PC, both being Microsoft, would probably be much closer, but keep in mind that most MS Windows PCs out there today would be running a version of Windows developed well before the XBOne, and there are a a whole host of other issues to consider as well.

tl;dr - I think people make too much of the arch similarities between the new consoles and PC, when using the argument that it should mean more games for PC. Madden used to be ported from PS2 to PC on the cheap by a 3rd party company for EASports (HeadGate Studios). That's about as different as you can get, but it was still just a matter of rewriting all the API calls and compiling to x86, which is pretty much exactly the same process now days.

[Big T120588]

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

Fifa is bring the Ignite engine to the PC. So, I don't see why Madden couldn't be on PC either.

[roadman]

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

Fifa is bring the Ignite engine to the PC. So, I don't see why Madden couldn't be on PC either.

It was explained earlier in this very thread that FIFA sells a lot of copies internationally vs Madden isn't as popular overseas.

[Cusefan]

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

I have to believe that the reason that Madden is not on PC is because the PC modding community is very good and could keep the game fresh well into next year which would eat into their sales. Releasing games on PC is flat out cheaper just because you can go all digital and there are no royalties.

If it did release on PC though people would still complain, "ughhh why do I have to use origin"


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[Haval93]

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

"Games are coded on the PC" is a bit of a misleading statement. Games are coded in source code. Whether you do that on Mac, Windows or Linux, and x86, PPC or ARM doesn't really matter. Source code doesn't do anything by itself - it needs an interpreter or a compiler, and these are either themselves compiled to an arch/platform, or compile to an arch/platform. Part of any medium plus sized software development team these days is a remote build process that normalizes build environments between developers, so the development machines themselves don't matter.

The fact the compiler for XBOne and PC may very well be similar isn't really the point. It is far more important that the OS and hardware APIs used in the code are as close as possible. Now, I don't know how close PS4 and XBOne is in this regard, but I'm guessing they are fairly different. So XBOne and PC, both being Microsoft, would probably be much closer, but keep in mind that most MS Windows PCs out there today would be running a version of Windows developed well before the XBOne, and there are a a whole host of other issues to consider as well.

tl;dr - I think people make too much of the arch similarities between the new consoles and PC, when using the argument that it should mean more games for PC. Madden used to be ported from PS2 to PC on the cheap by a 3rd party company for EASports (HeadGate Studios). That's about as different as you can get, but it was still just a matter of rewriting all the API calls and compiling to x86, which is pretty much exactly the same process now days.

I understand what you are saying. I think there has been some words loss in translation. When I say games are coded on a PC, I mean that typical you use a PC to write your code and compile. Yes, I understand that source code needs a interpreter to actually do anything. As for coding in Windows, Linux, or iOS, there is no difference if you write non-managed code, in video game cases, that means writing C++ that doesn't rely on any specific library, run times, or frameworks that isn't included into the standard library or is cross platform available(Graphics API like OpenGL). As for the hardware side of coding, x86, Power PC, ARM, these are completely different in architecture and use a completely different instruction set.

What I was trying to say is that you can use the same API calls for DirectX on the PC and the Xbox One. Which means that you can compile and run your code without any changes if you aren't using a specific instruction set or function that isn't available to the PC. As for the PS4 it uses a similar API to DirectX 11 that also includes specific instructions and functions that let you get more low-level access and can help you reduce overhead.

As for the x86 and architecture talks and conversations, it isn't a point of everything being the same, it's more about the familiarity of the architecture and is something that is commonly used to program and compile on. I would say that anybody that has a gaming PC has a x86 processor. Rather than having to learn a whole new architecture for the new generation of consoles which takes a ton of time and resources (like the Xbox 360 which had the Power PC and the PS3 which had the Cell architecture), this new generation that went back to the standard of processors which is x86 which means they can target three audiences without investing into making huge changes. This is what most people are happy about because it means there aren't any differences architecture wise and most of the changes are API calls and functions, which means that instead of having to dedicate a whole team and a lot of time just to porting the game to PC, it can be done much easier and quicker.

Anyways, I think I just restated everything you said looking back at my post. LMAO

[bucky60]

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

"Games are coded on the PC" is a bit of a misleading statement. Games are coded in source code. Whether you do that on Mac, Windows or Linux, and x86, PPC or ARM doesn't really matter. Source code doesn't do anything by itself - it needs an interpreter or a compiler, and these are either themselves compiled to an arch/platform, or compile to an arch/platform. Part of any medium plus sized software development team these days is a remote build process that normalizes build environments between developers, so the development machines themselves don't matter.

The fact the compiler for XBOne and PC may very well be similar isn't really the point. It is far more important that the OS and hardware APIs used in the code are as close as possible. Now, I don't know how close PS4 and XBOne is in this regard, but I'm guessing they are fairly different. So XBOne and PC, both being Microsoft, would probably be much closer, but keep in mind that most MS Windows PCs out there today would be running a version of Windows developed well before the XBOne, and there are a a whole host of other issues to consider as well.

tl;dr - I think people make too much of the arch similarities between the new consoles and PC, when using the argument that it should mean more games for PC. Madden used to be ported from PS2 to PC on the cheap by a 3rd party company for EASports (HeadGate Studios). That's about as different as you can get, but it was still just a matter of rewriting all the API calls and compiling to x86, which is pretty much exactly the same process now days.

You are making an assumption that all the code is in a high level language. i would not be surprised if some of the real time code is in machine language. if it is, the same cpu arch would make a big difference.

[aholbert32]

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

Why are we still discussing this? Lol. I don't think anyone realistically thinks that the reason madden isn't on the PC is because of difficulty in porting the game to PC. It's purely financial. Sports games on PC don't sell in the us and the nfl is purely a us sport.