One of my favorite discussions year in and year out, sad I missed the thread till just now...
It has a lot to do with fanbases, I think. Football in America is the popular, mainstream sport right now. With that comes a lot of middle-of-the-road, surface-level, mainstream fans. Those are the guys who will mindlessly blow their money on a mode like MUT.
I don't know a lot of NHL fans, but I'll say this about every NHL fan I know: they're hardcore. They know all the ins-and-outs of their favorite team and every single one of their friends' favorite teams. I'd be wiling to bet a HUGE chunk of their target audience are franchise guys. Unfortunately, that's not the case for Madden.
And yeah, 2k has sliders for everything. Every year it seems like we pester the devs to make trading harder or make contracts more realistic (and, to their credit, they have in 20). In 2k, not only can you change how teams value trades, you can change how they value specific types of players for trades and free agency (big name, potential, scheme fit, etc). There's a slider to regulate how players value their contracts (slider for financial vs. nonfinancial interests).
There are guys on the Madden team that really want us to have the best franchise mode possible--there have been guys that left, presumably because they were tired of fighting the suits on what they had clearance to add every year. I think the upper brass at EA are starting to give those guys a little more freedom, but there's still a long way to go.
Comment