Madden NFL 21 Sales Improve 20 Percent Year-Over-Year in its First Week, More Than 17 Million Games Played in The Yard

[Sparkles]

Re: Week One Madden Sales up 20% vs. Last Year.

Not really encouraging. In EA’s eyes, this was a successful release

[Kanobi]

Re: Week One Madden Sales up 20% vs. Last Year.

Another by-product of COVID is schools are closed. A lot of kids/teens home all day with parents who are probably on the brink of insanity in some cases. No doubt Madden is a great way to preoccupy the kids while the parents get some peace.

[roadman]

Re: Week One Madden Sales up 20% vs. Last Year.

The ying and yang of Madden hearkens back to the ole taste great, less filling days.

September at OS.

PS- Glad our kids are in college and out of house. It would be difficult being a parent in this time period, but I know our kids wouldn't be playing video games, but each parent is different. We'd have them outside taking recess or watching the dog channel. lol j/k.

I wouldn't want to be a parent w/K-12 children at home.

[TarHeelPhenom]

Re: Week One Madden Sales up 20% vs. Last Year.

The ying and yang of Madden hearkens back to the ole taste great, less filling days.

September at OS.

PS- Glad our kids are in college and out of house. It would be difficult being a parent in this time period, but I know our kids wouldn't be playing video games, but each parent is different. We'd have them outside taking recess or watching the dog channel. lol j/k.

I wouldn't want to be a parent w/K-12 children at home.

We homeschool our son, so what's going on now hasn't affected us much at all. And he only gets 30 min to an hour to play a video game with me every other day. His go to is WWE 2k20.

[DatsunDimer]

Re: Week One Madden Sales up 20% vs. Last Year.

I keep harping that people think it is money that is holding franchise back but it has been horrible engagement numbers actually doing that from what I have heard. If engagement is up this year it will help reaffirm their position in investing in the mode going forward.

This feels a little like chicken and egg stuff. How can people be engaged in a mode the remains largely unchanged and shallow year after year. Agree that engagement is good but EA blaming lack of engagement seems like a cop out. It hasn't stopped them from investing in modes that didn't even exist with no guarantee of engagement.

[boxboy99]

Re: Madden NFL 21 Sees Strong First Week Unit Sales up Nearly 20 Percent Year-Over-Ye

It’s a press release from EA. Numbers lie, this could be creative marketing spin.

Game play is pretty good but needs some tweaks. However, EA deserves every bit of back lash they receive. Ignoring franchise and their original fan base. Blatant lies over the year. Jaded devs making snarky comments on social media.

We need competition to drive up quality and innovation outside of MUT. Look, they already threw in a new mode to compete with 2K.

I would love to see how the contract defines simulation football.


Sent from my iPhone using Operation Sports

[NYJin2011tm]

Re: Madden NFL 21 Sees Strong First Week Unit Sales up Nearly 20 Percent Year-Over-Ye

Didn’t video games in general just have it’s best quarter ever shortly after COVID?

[T4VERTS]

Re: Week One Madden Sales up 20% vs. Last Year.

This feels a little like chicken and egg stuff. How can people be engaged in a mode the remains largely unchanged and shallow year after year. Agree that engagement is good but EA blaming lack of engagement seems like a cop out. It hasn't stopped them from investing in modes that didn't even exist with no guarantee of engagement.

Actually, investing in modes that didn't exist came from focus groups and market testing which have all been proven right. These are appealing to again that MUCH larger non-hardcore group that is most of the Madden user base. The general gaming industry is shifting towards quicker onboarding and faster gameplay that people don't need to be as invested in.

[ForUntoOblivionSoar∞]

Re: Week One Madden Sales up 20% vs. Last Year.

Well, congratulations to the executives who are gonna get a bonus check.

Edit: EA is great at PR. They are touting a 20% increase in “sell-through”, meaning retail copies sold as a ratio of what was shipped to retailers.

Last year, EA touted that more than half of first week sales were digital. Digital sales don’t apply to the retail sell-through counts. Between the pandemic and general user trend toward digital, the question is did EA ship as many copies as they normally do, and how does that factor into their formulas.

Either way, sales being up 20% year over year isn’t actually what they are claiming.

Care to elaborate for the economically illiterate?

[Kanobi]

Re: Week One Madden Sales up 20% vs. Last Year.

PS- Glad our kids are in college and out of house. It would be difficult being a parent in this time period, but I know our kids wouldn't be playing video games, but each parent is different. We'd have them outside taking recess or watching the dog channel. lol j/k.

I wouldn't want to be a parent w/K-12 children at home.

Outside of their distance learning and chores, My boys (ages 9 and 11) and I workout together (Non-equipment HIIT), read, football at the park, etc. As a weekend reward we hit the beach or I will let them game (Minecraft mostly) or we'll game together, usually Borderlands 2, Left 4 Dead 2 or WWE 2k20 for a little while.

[BadAssHskr]

Re: Madden NFL 21 Sees Strong First Week Unit Sales up Nearly 20 Percent Year-Over-Ye

And there is a likely crowd buying Madden today, that used to love the game, and grew out of it. For what ever reason they are buying it today, they're noticing how much better, by leaps and bounds, the game is since they were players back in the good ole days.

[DatsunDimer]

Re: Week One Madden Sales up 20% vs. Last Year.

Actually, investing in modes that didn't exist came from focus groups and market testing which have all been proven right. These are appealing to again that MUCH larger non-hardcore group that is most of the Madden user base. The general gaming industry is shifting towards quicker onboarding and faster gameplay that people don't need to be as invested in.

All that makes sense and I appreciate the work you do. I guess for me, it just boils down to my displeasure with the current business models. Being a little older I would like to think all businesses would value the core customer base, but that world doesn't exist anymore. I just think it is difficult for a company to expand marketshare and maintain quality of product.

[Sphinx]

Re: Madden NFL 21 Sees Strong First Week Unit Sales up Nearly 20 Percent Year-Over-Ye

I'm of the mindset that this really doesn't matter, the same as negative reviews don't matter. I say that because Madden currently is the only NFL licensed game. We all might be the hardcore niche audience, but the people that the game is geared towards will still buy it simply because it's NFL.

Add in that millions of people are at home and in several states kids are learning from home and you have a perfect recipe for big sales numbers.

Sent from my HD1925 using Operation Sports mobile app

[aholbert32]

Re: Week One Madden Sales up 20% vs. Last Year.

Care to elaborate for the economically illiterate?

I'll give it a shot:

So retail sales and digital sales are obviously different, right?

When you go to a Gamestop or Best Buy, there are 100s of copies of Madden there to buy because the retailers buy the games direct from EA (at a lower wholesale price) and sell them at a higher retail price.

EA is claiming that they have a 20% increase in "sell-through" which does equate to more sales (in a way) but not necessarily more revenue for EA. Why? Because Best Buy already purchased the copy.

Its like if you sell me 5 T-shirts for 30 bucks each and I turn around and sell those shirts for $40 bucks each to other people. You can brag about how popular those shirts are based on the fact that I sold those shirts but you didnt get any of the direct revenue from my sale.

Digital sales are different because EA doesnt have to sell them to a retailer at a lower retail price. They can sell direct to the consumer for $60.

Whats strange to me is why more people are buying hard copies of a game during a pandemic? I couldnt imagine going to a Best Buy to buy a game when I could download from the safety of my home for the same price.

[CujoMatty]

Re: Week One Madden Sales up 20% vs. Last Year.

This feels a little like chicken and egg stuff. How can people be engaged in a mode the remains largely unchanged and shallow year after year. Agree that engagement is good but EA blaming lack of engagement seems like a cop out. It hasn't stopped them from investing in modes that didn't even exist with no guarantee of engagement.

Engagement is a weird one for me as well. To say no one is playing it so let's not worry about it could also mean no ones playing it because it hasn't changed in a decade so no one cares anymore. It's like the thought doesn't occur that maybe if we made it better or even just changed it up more people would play.

I remember a few years ago when the Toronto Blue Jay's had the longest no playoff streak in the MLB. Fans had enough and the ownership said "if more people came out to the ballpark, we would spend more money". That is the most backassward way to look at it. Put a good product on the field and people will come out. Ownership caved and spent money and the Jay's had top 5 attendance for 5 years in a row.

Back on this though, I'm not surprised. I get the rage, I really do. In a lot of ways I do feel like this game just should be better by now and it's hard not to feel like EA is apathetic about it all. The reality is though, this game isnt a 1 out of 10 like a lot of people are portraying it as. It's a better game than it was last year. It just truly is. Should it be better? Well ya. More than that though, it should be different or fresh and it isnt so rightfully so it's getting dinged by actual critics. The consensus I've read though and I'd have to agree, is that plays a pretty good game of football.

I also am curious to see how many people are playing after NBA 2k comes out. Madden has an amazing release window which I think contributes to the sales. People are itching for a new sports game by August.