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

[T4VERTS]

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

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.

Right, and this is the thing I wish people would separate out when talking about the game. You can hate the business model, and the lack of franchise, but appreciate that many people play it differently and at different levels of investment, and to many of them it is good. Instead what we get is people lashing out because their way of gaming isn't catered to and therefor the product as a whole must stink.

The just said The Yard had 17 Million games played this week, that is insane. I played a couple and it is fun, but I am still a hardcore franchise guy. In the end, I just can separate my personal feelings about the way I game from the total picture of the game.

[SolidSquid]

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

Congrats to EA. Gonna be interesting to see the landscape once other NFL games start getting released.

[Aestis]

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

Is this the thread where I get to say M21 is the best gameplay I've experienced in the series to date? Not sure if that's allowed yet.

[YabaDaba]

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

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.

The missing piece to that puzzle is that “sell-through” is copies sold relative to copies shipped. Between the pandemic and half of launch sales last year being digital, did EA ship less physical copies this year, and if so, by how much? We don’t know. Which makes that “20% increase in sell-through” pretty vague.

FWIW, EA isn’t claiming any sales records yet, whereas last year for launch week they claimed record amounts of digital copies sold and pre-sales.

I’d also be curious how many franchise games have been played vs The Yard games...

[RogerDodger]

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

The missing piece to that puzzle is that “sell-through” is copies sold relative to copies shipped. Between the pandemic and half of launch sales last year being digital, did EA ship less physical copies this year, and if so, by how much? We don’t know. Which makes that “20% increase in sell-through” pretty vague.

FWIW, EA isn’t claiming any sales records yet, whereas last year for launch week they claimed record amounts of digital copies sold and pre-sales.

I’d also be curious how many franchise games have been played vs The Yard games...

Exactly, their sell-through claim is bogus because they’ve offered no figures on how many physical copies were available to buy. It’s entirely likely that they sent less to retailers because of the virus and the likelihood that fewer people are entering stores and online sales of everything have soared. Striking how many of those who like to talk on social media about how great EA are jumped all over it and failed to spot the significance of inserting that word.

[oneamongthefence]

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

Gamestop was telling folks to preorder since there were less physical copies all around to be shipped. Which is not a reputable source at all. But it may have brought in more preorders to sell which could contribute to higher physical copies.

#fixmaddenfranchise

[T4VERTS]

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

I’d also be curious how many franchise games have been played vs The Yard games...

Someone mentioned there were currently 1 Million cloud franchises made, now we know a lot are test leagues, but we also know a lot still don't go cloud, so that would be a really interesting stat...one I may see if I can dig up.

[CujoMatty]

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

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.

You also have to remember that in other countries, like here in Canada, most stores dont get direct from EA. We have middle men 3rd party distributors. They have a crap ton sitting in a warehouse somewhere that are still considered sales.

[canes21]

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

It would be interesting to see what the true sales look like compared to last year. I would expect them to be the same or more since Covid has had a positive impact on the gaming inudstry. Before Madden came out, I know the likes of EA< Take-Two, Blizzard, Activision, and others had seen revenues up 40-50% thanks to the pandemic.

It's already been noted that this press release isn't saying what many think it is, but I don't doubt the game has sold well given the NFL shield and Covid leading to record game sales.

[TheRandomOne]

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

Congratulations

Nothing will change

Anyone that is complaining about it that purchased it stop bitching about this game now. Nothing will change this or next year

[kjcheezhead]

Re: Madden NFL 21 Sales Improve 20 Percent Year-Over-Year in its First Week, More Tha

Something is off about this whole thing. EA releasing a statement about “sell through” units instead of just sales. They say games played is up 50% but don’t say what mode.

The yard is a new mode and it’s pick up and play right? 3 drives per team and you’re done? Of course that mode is going to get tried out and it’s design makes it easy to play a lot more games in less time online.

They were quick to throw free codes out all over the place which isn’t something a company does if their sales are up 20% from the year before no matter how much noise is being made on twitter.

I have no doubt Madden is still a top seller and millions of games are being played but this sounds like more damage control and I don’t believe the sales are as good as EA would like the world to believe


Sent from my iPhone using Operation Sports

[ShadyFan25]

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

Congratulations

Nothing will change

Anyone that is complaining about it that purchased it stop bitching about this game now. Nothing will change this or next year

I think it's fair to say things already have changed. Stuff we've been begging for for years like coaching staffs, scouting changes, and other additions are coming in M22. Along with quality of life updates for this year's game. I think EA now understands how important Franchise mode is and I think they'll hesitate to completely ignore it again.

Complaining works, we forced change. I don't see any reason to boycott Madden 21 anymore. I'm having ton of fun with it.

[Hooe]

Re: Madden NFL 21 Sales Improve 20 Percent Year-Over-Year in its First Week, More Tha

They were quick to throw free codes out all over the place which isn’t something a company does if their sales are up 20% from the year before no matter how much noise is being made on twitter.

It absolutely is something a live service video game company does, and Madden is a live service video game.

It is more important that you get players into your game's ecosystem to provide opponents for other players (literally every game mode in Madden is online head-to-head), to add content to the various services the game provides for other players to consume (notably Madden Share, the MUT Auction House, and Franchise cloud leagues), and to get players into the game's economies so they start spending money (MUT and The Yard). None of those things function without players themselves organically making them work.

We know very well that EA makes more money from post-launch revenue than unit sales these days, they've said so in many previous earnings reports. To that end, just getting people into the game to start creating that revenue is more important to them than selling the game upfront.

Agnostic of how live service video games are actually monetized, I can't remember the last time EA didn't drop a ton of Madden NFL codes on Twitter and other social media outlets during the game's immediate launch window. Especially in recent years that's business as usual for them, for the reasons I mentioned above.

[SolidSquid]

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

I think it's fair to say things already have changed. Stuff we've been begging for for years like coaching staffs, scouting changes, and other additions are coming in M22. Along with quality of life updates for this year's game. I think EA now understands how important Franchise mode is and I think they'll hesitate to completely ignore it again.

Complaining works, we forced change. I don't see any reason to boycott Madden 21 anymore. I'm having ton of fun with it.

The list of features they put out are things they WANT in franchise mode not things that will definitely be in 22.

[misterkrabz2]

Re: Madden NFL 21 Sales Improve 20 Percent Year-Over-Year in its First Week, More Tha

You can kiss the possibility of anything changing goodbye. It's a sad day in the world of video game football.