Joe Montana Football 16 Looks to be a Mobile Game, Utilizing Unreal Engine 4

[Big FN Deal]

Re: Joe Montana Football 16 Looks to be a Mobile Game, Utilizing Unreal Engine 4

I agree with Facemask. Sim heads often make the mistake of thinking our way of seeing things is how the majority sees it, but nothing could be further from the truth. Most of what we care about is considered whining and nitpicking to the rest of the world. Most of the features and mechanics we care about aren't even touched or noticed by the majority. Most people just play these games and never think about any of it.

Yes, this game is going to need a multi-season mode, and deep customization is a want. But the game is not going to sell simply because of those things to anybody except people like us who show up here, and if you think it will you're kidding yourselves. Its graphics and "cool" features are what is going to attract the majority to buy the game. If it lacks those things, the game will fail, and I have to believe the people making this game have paid attention to what's happened with other efforts in the past decade making fatal mistakes.

Finally, I think the main point of what Facemask is saying is being misunderstood. I don't think he's saying that the game has to be over-the-top like Blitz, he's talking about production depth in terms of concept and appeal to a wide audience. What I'm hearing being proposed by others here is a clinical experience focused only on hardcore features. That's a hindenburg waiting to happen, and you better hope that's not what we get or it will be the last Joe Montana Football game ever made, lol.

Where is your real world example(s) that you base this opinion on? In my case, I can refer to plenty of games in the past, back before league licensing, that sold because the games had depth. I can even refer to NCAA titles, that legally couldn't include real NCAA players but provided User customization and file sharing, that still sold.

Also that stuff about only a minority of gamers wanting a game like that, I completely disagree with and reminds me of when EA falsely claimed nobody played Franchise modes in sports games.

I hope those behind the creation of JM16 have a vision for what's possible in the football gaming genre that goes beyond only what's been done the last 9-10 years. smh

[RyanLR101]

Re: Joe Montana Football 16 Looks to be a Mobile Game, Utilizing Unreal Engine 4

[kjcheezhead]

Re: Joe Montana Football 16 Looks to be a Mobile Game, Utilizing Unreal Engine 4

I don't necessarily need it either, but we're not the only people they have to sell the game to.

That said, PED's exist in the NFL and it's impossible to miss the stories about them every year and how players find ways to skirt around the rules, and players being caught, as does broken limbs (happens all the time every season) and injections. Thing is, all of that actually is part of the game. It's not "silly" it's real life. If that's where you draw the line for what you want in a sim experience, that's fine, but comparing it to professional wrestling as if it's not a real part of pro football is ignoring reality.

You can have those things without it being over-the-top, its all about how its approached.

Those things are overlooked in pretty much every sports game. I've never had a PED story line or player suspended for domestic violence in NBA 2k or the Show and its only brought up on sites like this so it's not a big deal to me. People want a representation of the sport or league above everything else.

I think it would've done a little better, but still bombed. I don't think it would've gotten to Blitz's sales level just for the fact that the marketing of APF sucked and Blitz's marketing was on a whole other level. Plus the fact that Blitz was an M-rated game with M-rated content.

You could actually put Montana and Rice on the same team in APF. APF gave you two gold player slots.

Depends on how you define success. I can't see that game you're mentioning reaching anything in the neighborhood of 1 Million copies. You don't have to be over-the-top like Blitz, you just can't only be a custom game with a franchise mode and some good football fundamentals and expect to succeed based just on that. That's not realistic.

I think you underestimate how difficult what these guys are attempting to do is. Those games really bombed first and foremost because most people want the NFL. APF released against madden 08 on the ps3. Madden 08 was awful. It ran at 30 frames per second, had a radio announcer for commentary, an extremely bare bones franchise and on the field it didn't allow half of the strategy we expect like oline adjustments or individual coverage adjustments. On the field, APF crushed it, not to mention madden had already released 06 and 07 on the system which were even bigger turds.

The majority still went with Madden by more than 20-1. PEDs and a great story wouldn't have changed that. Most gamers wanted a game with real teams and players.. period. Now that madden is 10x the game it was in 2008, the challenge a game like this faces is even worse. Half the people in this thread are sports fan who haven't seen a new game in 3-4 years and they are making ultimatums on what has to be included for a purchase. I don't know what these developers are going to do to sell it to casuals without the NFL. The fact is, without the league, this game is a long shot to sell a million copies no matter how deep the customization or how good the story mode is. Blitzes success is from the GTA gaming crowd, not sports fans if you ask me.

And APF did allow 2 gold players, but the season mode used all pre rostered cpu teams so there was no way to have a Montana/Rice vs Aikman/Irvin situation in a season game, that's what I meant and what I would've done in my league.

[kehlis]

Re: Joe Montana Football 16 Looks to be a Mobile Game, Utilizing Unreal Engine 4

I can see an EA sports logo banner on that reliant stadium pic?!

Great catch, people have been staring at that picture for months trying (fearing) to find something like that.

Now that you point that out though, it looks like the banner in the same location on the other side of the field kind of looks eerily similar to a Madden banner.

[bringbacksimfootball]

Re: Joe Montana Football 16 Looks to be a Mobile Game, Utilizing Unreal Engine 4

Where is your real world example(s) that you base this opinion on? In my case, I can refer to plenty of games in the past, back before league licensing, that sold because the games had depth. I can even refer to NCAA titles, that legally couldn't include real NCAA players but provided User customization and file sharing, that still sold.

Also that stuff about only a minority of gamers wanting a game like that, I completely disagree with and reminds me of when EA falsely claimed nobody played Franchise modes in sports games.

I hope those behind the creation of JM16 have a vision for what's possible in the football gaming genre that goes beyond only what's been done the last 9-10 years. smh

You're making an argument against something that's already been agreed to. No one is saying that what you want isn't wanted. We all want that, but it's being said that what you want is not going to be enough to sell well, and it won't be.

The NCAA example you made is a bad example because it still had the NCAA license, the conferences and the teams, it was a licensed game. There is also a certain expectation with collegiate games that it won't have the real players so people look past that. This is totally different territory.

The games you're referring to from the bygone eras of gaming that were essentially generic come from a different time when people were far more forgiving about not having a license. What worked then won't work as well today because we got spoiled by licensed football games for decades now, and the NFL is more popular than ever. It's hard to shut that off now, and while sim gamers tend to take the narrow view that people turned away from APF just because of a lack of a franchise mode, I can say that from reading across the net from around the time it was announced and years going forward from its release, the complaints about the game were mostly about everything except franchise mode; specifically a lot about the graphics being poor, and not being able to play with NFL teams. I didn't care about the graphics or the NFL team situation myself, but I'm not going to kid myself and say I'm in the majority because I know I'm not. My brother is a hardcore football gamer, but even he left APF alone for those reasons, and the third...

A third common complaint about APF was the difficulty of making uniforms. Do I agree with that? Nope. I believe it can be tedious, but not difficult. But that perception of difficulty was there and it didn't help sales.

But let me ask you this: Can you name just one non-officially licensed football game (be it pro or college) that sold better than than the dismal 400,000 copies that All-Pro Football sold?

[Big FN Deal]

Re: Joe Montana Football 16 Looks to be a Mobile Game, Utilizing Unreal Engine 4

"..With over one million units in sales, John Madden Football '93 was a commercial success..." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Madden_Football_%2793

Which was competing against Joe Montana Football 93 that had NFL licensing, go figure.

[FaceMask]

Re: Joe Montana Football 16 Looks to be a Mobile Game, Utilizing Unreal Engine 4

Those things are overlooked in pretty much every sports game. I've never had a PED story line or player suspended for domestic violence in NBA 2k or the Show and its only brought up on sites like this so it's not a big deal to me. People want a representation of the sport or league above everything else.

Of course the NBA, MLB, and NHL are not going to allow that in their games just like the NFL wouldn't. Major sports leagues are vehemently against this sort of thing and don't want to have a product reflecting that since it would look as if they're promoting or condoning it somehow.

But this is more than likely not an NFL game. Again, I'm not saying it's a big deal to me either, but I'm saying that there is an appeal for this sort of thing, and as I've said it is part of the real sports world and a regular subject in the sports conversation.

I think you underestimate how difficult what these guys are attempting to do is. Those games really bombed first and foremost because most people want the NFL.

On the contrary, I think you're underestimating what they're up against entirely if you believe that a franchise mode, strong X's and O's, and file sharing is going to be enough to equal sales success for an non-licensed football game. Not realizing that this isn't enough is a total underestimation of what they're up against.

APF released against madden 08 on the ps3. Madden 08 was awful. It ran at 30 frames per second, had a radio announcer for commentary, an extremely bare bones franchise and on the field it didn't allow half of the strategy we expect like oline adjustments or individual coverage adjustments. On the field, APF crushed it, not to mention madden had already released 06 and 07 on the system which were even bigger turds.

The majority still went with Madden by more than 20-1.PEDs and a great story wouldn't have changed that.

And the one thing Madden 08 had was the NFL license and real teams and players. That's the point.

You're getting sidetracked by the PED thing... but of course APF wouldn't done much better because of PED's, but it would've done better had it:

1. Been marketed better

2. Had an actual league concept and not just the empty shell with no identity it shipped with.

3. Had better graphics

4. A story

5. A franchise mode

6. Deeper customization and an easier way to share teams

And even then, it still wouldn't have done wildly better. Why? No NFL license. You said it yourself.

Most gamers wanted a game with real teams and players.. period. Now that madden is 10x the game it was in 2008, the challenge a game like this faces is even worse. Half the people in this thread are sports fan who haven't seen a new game in 3-4 years and they are making ultimatums on what has to be included for a purchase. I don't know what these developers are going to do to sell it to casuals without the NFL. The fact is, without the league, this game is a long shot to sell a million copies no matter how deep the customization or how good the story mode is. Blitzes success is from the GTA gaming crowd, not sports fans if you ask me.

You're misunderstanding the points being made about what Blitz offered.

What BTL did are things that should be expected from any non-NFL licensed football game:

- Customization (even as limited as it was)

- Great team names

- Great logos

- A great storyline

- Weekly depth in a season mode (training, etc.)

- Ability to see and do things that happen in the NFL but the NFL won't allow in a video game

Explain to me how having any of that will hurt an unlicensed football game?

To me, those are just minimum standards, yet BTL met them, the other 2 games didn't do much of it, and you would've thought APF would've had more of it considering it was a sim football game and BTL was arcade.

And APF did allow 2 gold players, but the season mode used all pre rostered cpu teams so there was no way to have a Montana/Rice vs Aikman/Irvin situation in a season game, that's what I meant and what I would've done in my league.

They screwed up. That's yet another one of 100 reasons why the game only sold 410,000 copies.

[FaceMask]

Re: Joe Montana Football 16 Looks to be a Mobile Game, Utilizing Unreal Engine 4

"..With over one million units in sales, John Madden Football '93 was a commercial success..." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Madden_Football_%2793

Which was competing against Joe Montana Football 93 that had NFL licensing, go figure.

Different era though. As he explained before, gamers had a different view of that than they do today. Back then, we were used to not having an NFL license.

That said, the Madden name had become a big deal, so it's not much of a surprise. Even today, the game still might snag a million sales without an NFL license just because of the Madden name, but what other property could do that in the football space?

[FaceMask]

Re: Joe Montana Football 16 Looks to be a Mobile Game, Utilizing Unreal Engine 4

@Facemask, it's illogical to act as if APF and BB are examples of why a game like I am suggesting wouldn't sell, when neither of those games had what I'm suggesting.

Besides a franchise mode and file sharing, I don't feel what you're suggesting is so totally different from what those games offered or at least attempted to offer and came up short. I mean, if you feel that makes it totally different, I understand the idea, I just don't believe that the public at-large will see it that way.

Further more, it's far more logical for me to argue that Blitz supports my point, since that game had some of the depth I'm referring to minus the User customization to recreate the NFL. So to try to put this another way, a generic game like the Blitz but capable of being User customized to recreate the NFL would sell.

That I could see happening. But to be clear, I don't think it has to be over-the-top like Blitz and I don't want that from a sim game, it just needs to have that level of production depth.

It's like, when you played APF, you DREADED playing against the CPU teams because the name and uniforms were garbage. It took you out of the total experience, the experience where you wanted to feel like you were apart of something believable.

Blitz did the opposite. The build-up before games during the week, the trash talk between teams in the media, logos, the team names, it all felt believable. I want that immersion from a sim game. Knowing that Midway put that much effort into that aspect of this arcade game really made me upset with what APF was as a final product. It was just a shell of what it could've been.

On the topic of the EA logo, since EA and the NFL are partners, is it possible that it's actually a part of the real Reliant Stadium, if that is in fact an EA Sports logo?

This is a strange one. I'm just playing it safe right now and thinking it's just a work sample somehow, HOPING it's just a work sample somehow, because I do NOT want EA involved in this

[Gridiron]

Re: Joe Montana Football 16 Looks to be a Mobile Game, Utilizing Unreal Engine 4

I realize they still workin on the game, but am I the only one a little worried about the player models? I mean, what I see on the wall, the helmets too, it just doesn't have the same dope proportions that the promo pic had:



Am I trippin here? I dunno.

[MajorSupreme]

Re: Joe Montana Football 16 Looks to be a Mobile Game, Utilizing Unreal Engine 4

I realize they still workin on the game, but am I the only one a little worried about the player models? I mean, what I see on the wall, the helmets too, it just doesn't have the same dope proportions that the promo pic had:



Am I trippin here? I dunno.

I haven't associated the promo pic with the models. I've been on the rationality that the promo pic is CGI. And plus those look more like pre-applied renditions on the wall.

[Gridiron]

Re: Joe Montana Football 16 Looks to be a Mobile Game, Utilizing Unreal Engine 4

I haven't associated the promo pic with the models. I've been on the rationality that the promo pic is CGI. And plus those look more like pre-applied renditions on the wall.

Yeah, you are prolly right, cause that promo pic is too wild to expect the game to look like that.

But then I got worried about the helmets in some of the devs pic they put up:



There is a side pic of that, and its like the crown of the helmet is not high enough and the facemasks are too tight and close to the face.

[kjcheezhead]

Re: Joe Montana Football 16 Looks to be a Mobile Game, Utilizing Unreal Engine 4

Of course the NBA, MLB, and NHL are not going to allow that in their games just like the NFL wouldn't. Major sports leagues are vehemently against this sort of thing and don't want to have a product reflecting that since it would look as if they're promoting or condoning it somehow.

But this is more than likely not an NFL game. Again, I'm not saying it's a big deal to me either, but I'm saying that there is an appeal for this sort of thing, and as I've said it is part of the real sports world and a regular subject in the sports conversation.

I don't know. There may be an appeal there but I still think it can backfire too. When you start going that route, it's a fine line before people start to find it arcadey and gimmicky and get turned off. I think big hits, helmets flying off, crotch grab celebrations and other stuff would be awesome tho. For the record, I loved APF and found Blitz ridiculous so I'm biased. Not to mention I'm a 40 year old gamer so the Legends being players of my childhood trumped PED silliness.

On the contrary, I think you're underestimating what they're up against entirely if you believe that a franchise mode, strong X's and O's, and file sharing is going to be enough to equal sales success for an non-licensed football game. Not realizing that this isn't enough is a total underestimation of what they're up against.

I'm praying that Texans stadium shot is real because I believe the NFL and releasing on cpu are the only hope this game has in this market. So than any it comes down to what game I'd rather play. Personally, I hope they go NHL 15 route. Focus on x' s and o' s and fun factor in game with as much customization as possible. This is a start up company most likely working on a smaller budget, so I don't expect a deep game. Just get the foundation right and hope it does well enough to build on it year after year.

And the one thing Madden 08 had was the NFL license and real teams and players. That's the point.

You're getting sidetracked by the PED thing... but of course APF wouldn't done much better because of PED's, but it would've done better had it:

1. Been marketed better

2. Had an actual league concept and not just the empty shell with no identity it shipped with.

3. Had better graphics

4. A story

5. A franchise mode

6. Deeper customization and an easier way to share dreams

And even then, it still wouldn't have done wildly better. Why? No NFL license. You said it yourself.

I don't disagree, but all those things take money and and time to develop. This appears to be a small team with more limited resources so if I'm making the tough decisions I'm choosing 3,5 and 6 first.

If I'm choosing, I'd take and bunch of mini games similar to the ps2 Madden games over a story mode anyways. But again, I'm expecting a small budget game so anything more than a franchise mode is a pleasant surprise for me.

[bringbacksimfootball]

Re: Joe Montana Football 16 Looks to be a Mobile Game, Utilizing Unreal Engine 4

Yeah, you are prolly right, cause that promo pic is too wild to expect the game to look like that.

But then I got worried about the helmets in some of the devs pic they put up:



There is a side pic of that, and its like the crown of the helmet is not high enough and the facemasks are too tight and close to the face.

That helmet and facemask does look mighty tight on his head, lol.

[bringbacksimfootball]

Re: Joe Montana Football 16 Looks to be a Mobile Game, Utilizing Unreal Engine 4

But then you've got this video where they're showing a model and it looks a lot better with proportions, so maybe they've done some improving sense that early prototype pic:

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