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

[gr18]

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

Both would have continued if successful. Euphoria is used in huge AAA titles so they didn't really need something to pimp their middleware services, Backbreaker demonstrated why those titles licensed other engines as well though and it really should have too.

APF due to the superstar theme and poor reception just wasn't sustainable.

If both were commercially successfully we'd surely have seen more.

As for sales, I doubt we'll ever get a number if it's the expected mobile/PC. We don't even know the confirmed platforms, so setting a bar however high or low is really impossible. As APF and Backbreaker demonstrate though, 'it's not Madden' isn't the only ingredient to a successful game.

Not saying you're wrong but I'm not fully convinced.Success is hard to define.Both McDonalds and Burger King both sell the same product basically but a successful Burger King franchise would make much less than a successful McDonalds by their set standards.

Both companies had to know they wouldn't make much in their attempts due to all the restrictions.Backbreaker was a crappy product for the most part also.The mobile game was a better game just to mess around with and not expect the quality that a console game brings.They may have explored other sports but hopefully make a better representation of that sport.I don't think they wanted to do what they needed to make a much better fundamental football game.

2k didn't want to take the same legends part two and didn't want to go generic and full customization being that they didn't want to get into legal trouble or piss off the NFL.I think they only intended to make that one attempt and wait it out.I'm not certain you want to keep on putting products out that can't compete with your hands tied.I don't think they would've done it even if they made double the sales they did.

[Big FN Deal]

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

Good Lord, you are all smart dudes, but yall are not paying attention, for real.

No one is asking for the game to resemble Blitz. People are talking about the depth of production. We want the game to have an identity. The two games that didnt both failed miserably.

APF - No identity - 425,000 sales = Didn't work

Backbreaker - No identity - 235,000 = Didn't work

Blitz The League 1 - Identity, history, nice logos, good team names - 1.6 Million sales - WORKED

It would be stupid for JMF to repeat 1&2. That didn't work. I don't know why anyone would even want the game to come without an identity. This is just crazy talk, smh.

I'm not worried though. The dudes making this game are not crazy enough to release this without somethin on default, and what they release you're going to play it and have zero problems with it, and if so you can edit it. No reason to keep asking for a nothin sandwich

The first sentence is ironic, considering you invented something nobody was talking about in the bold, then ridicule it. I'm not going to bother quoting or linking past posts, anyone that chooses can go back to read them if they want, Facemask and I earlier ITT were discussing/disagreeing on the merits of the anti-NFL formula of Blitz, not this other nonsense.

[Gridiron]

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

I'm sorry, it's just not that simple. Blitz's sales weren't just because the team's had a backstory.

That's not what I said though. I'm saying it helped and it did.

Just watch the commercials. They werent showing blood splattering and bones breaking in those. What they did show was parts of the story of the game.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SRYKJ-0nzBs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The game featured exploding limbs, blood splattering on the camera, an inject the player with pain killers mini game, and a focus on the dark side of sports. That was the hook, that is what got the extra sales.

Yeah player, no one is disputing that.

The team names and logos could've been the most original and coolest designs ever and it wouldn't have made a difference without the GTA world. That is what most of us are trying to get at.

Wasn't going to hurt to have cool and original team names an logos either, and it didn't, and in this game they coulda gotten away with having bad ones more because of the other stuff you mentioned. Still they put in the effort. I want that same effort here, too. No reason not to.

JMF won't be able to lame through it. If JMF comes whack in this spot, there is going to be a lot of negative criticism just like there was when APF came whack in this spot. Nothing has changed.

There are a lot of things a start up football game needs to succeed on a console, mostly it's on the field, then with balanced online head to head play and finally a franchise mode. Unless you're going with a backstory like blitzes was it won't matter. No one cares that the Arizona Rattlers are the bottom dwellers of a fictional league for 15 years or that the New York Liberty are championship contenders every single season. Guys will pick bad teams or good teams based on if they want to build a team or contend right away in their franchise.

I don't want a nothing sandwich, I just want as many features in the franchise as they can get to (trades,draft) and screw the backstory.

You say screw backstory, yet people complained about APF not having an identity, even reviewers. Youre asking for them to repeat a weak spot in a product that failed man. If anything, they need to do the opposite of everything APF did except the football on the field, because that's the ONLY thing APF got right.

[Big FN Deal]

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

..
APF - No identity - 425,000 sales = Didn't work

Backbreaker - No identity - 235,000 = Didn't work

Blitz The League 1 - Identity, history, nice logos, good team names - 1.6 Million sales - WORKED

It would be stupid for JMF to repeat 1&2. That didn't work. I don't know why anyone would even want the game to come without an identity. This is just crazy talk, smh.

I got so preoccupied with that strawman argument, I completely forgot about this other stuff. Blitz the League 2 presumably had all those same elements from Blitz 1 that you stated "worked" yet it sold only 230k copies. So going by your own argument, it would be stupid for JM16 to repeat that.

[Gridiron]

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

The first sentence is ironic, considering you invented something nobody was talking about in the bold, then ridicule it. I'm not going to bother quoting or linking past posts, anyone that chooses can go back to read them if they want, Facemask and I earlier ITT were discussing/disagreeing on the merits of the anti-NFL formula of Blitz, not this other nonsense.

Then youre not paying attention like I said, cause Giant did say that. Its in his post... and it seems like everybody for the idea of puttin out this abortion of effort with fleshing out the game is taking that same thought, like because we want a decent league with decent teams out of the box and possibly a story, that means we want Blitz.

And I read everything. The Blitz concept was brought up, but nobody ever said JMF had to be that exact kinda game or they werent buying it. Anyone who mentioned it brought up the depth of it as being the main thing. You say youre against it but nobody is explaining how its bad or how it will hurt the game to have it.

[Gridiron]

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

I got so preoccupied with that strawman argument, I completely forgot about this other stuff. Blitz the League 2 presumably had all those same elements from Blitz 1 that you stated "worked" yet it sold only 230k copies. So going by your own argument, it would be stupid for JM16 to repeat that.

If asking for a well developed product is "strawman" (a ridiculous charge by the way, lol), then railing against it is strawman too. You keep sayin you dont want it but cant explain why its bad or would hurt the game.

Also, like I said before, you're not paying attention because BringBackSimFootball fully explained why Blitz The League II had the trouble it did, not that it was like breaking news cause a lot of people already knew about Midway's ruckus but still.

[Big FN Deal]

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

Then youre not paying attention like I said, cause Giant did say that. Its in his post... and it seems like everybody for the idea of puttin out this abortion of effort with fleshing out the game is taking that same thought, like because we want a decent league with decent teams out of the box and possibly a story, that means we want Blitz.

And I read everything. The Blitz concept was brought up, but nobody ever said JMF had to be that exact kinda game or they werent buying it. Anyone who mentioned it brought up the depth of it as being the main thing. You say youre against it but nobody is explaining how its bad or how it will hurt the game to have it.

The topic of Bltiz didn't start with Giantblue's post, it goes back much further than that. Again I'm not going to quote a bunch of posts but I will link a few for context.
http://www.operationsports.com/forum...&postcount=282
http://www.operationsports.com/forum...&postcount=284
http://www.operationsports.com/forum...&postcount=286
http://www.operationsports.com/forum...&postcount=288

Even in those few exchanges between Facemask and I it's evident we are not disagreeing about depth but about the anti-NFL formula.

[kjcheezhead]

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

That's not what I said though. I'm saying it helped and it did.

Just watch the commercials. They werent showing blood splattering and bones breaking in those. What they did show was parts of the story of the game.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SRYKJ-0nzBs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

You say screw backstory, yet people complained about APF not having an identity, even reviewers. Youre asking for them to repeat a weak spot in a product that failed man. If anything, they need to do the opposite of everything APF did except the football on the field, because that's the ONLY thing APF got right.

Last time I post on this because I'm just tired of the topic. You're commercial tells zero story, no team or player names. It focuses on an anti nfl win at all costs, cheating allowed GTA world. Blitz's hook.

APF had lots of weak spots.

No franchise, no trading, no draft, cpu teams never changed personnel at all. No tracking of records. It was a play now, or 16 games and then erase results like nothing happened.

Pretty much zero editing. You couldn't change anything about cpu teams. User teams could have creative uniforms but only a handful of logos to choose from. You got to choose less than half the players and the rest were totally randomized generics with no way to tell if they were average or terrible.

The team names and uniforms were bad out of the box and needed to be better or at least editable.

No mini games, no 2k cribs, a bad soundtrack also could've helped.

I'd take any and all of those things over a back story and created league identity. When people say adding a back story doesn't hurt, I think they are mistaken. First year games don't come with everything you want in a sports game. There just isn't enough time or money to do it, especially with a new start up doing everything from scratch.

That's all I'm going to say. For all we know, this is a mobile game that only features play now head to head so it's a pointless argument anyways.

[Hooe]

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

My $0.02 on the whole APF vs Blitz thing:

The biggest problem APF had was, as kjcheezhead alluded to, the lack of context around and the non-persistence of anything the player did in the game. The game played great on the field, but once the user left the field there was nothing to do and the game just played meant nothing. Online leagues added a bit, sure, but the lack of player progression and team development still were giant sore spots. Backbreaker was a little better in the out-of-the-box initial customization / personalization regard I think - I wouldn't know, I never played it beyond the demo, I've at least seen the NFL mods for that - but from what I heard it had its own slew of problems which made it a difficult game to like.

Now look at Blitz. The player customizes his team in a similar manner to APF (pick your aesthetics and critical players, albeit you only got to pick a rookie and a veteran in Blitz). Once that was done, however, your team got thrown into a career mode where decisions the player made had impact. Roster players could be developed with in-game cash, which was rewarded upon winning games. The storyline, though obviously taking potshots at its real-world counterpart, provided further motivation for progressing through the campaign. At worst, games played advanced the story of the game and provided motivation for the user to continue. Top-to-bottom, I would say Blitz was actually a really well-designed game; it was a caricature of real-life football at every level of the game and all the pieces fit well together. Certainly it was a more complete package of a video game than APF.

As to how all this relates to JMF (I guess that's the acronym we're gonna use)? People just want the games they play to matter and have a reason to invest time and emotion into in the games they play. I certainly do, at least. Whether that's a multi-season franchise mode with roster development game mechanics, a narrative-driven campaign where my game results drive the prewritten story, or even a contrived meta game mechanic like a collectible card game where winning games directly yields better players, I need a reason to care about the games I play. The sport of football by itself is not enough to move the needle; no game play mechanic with no sense of long-term progression is. If JMF doesn't provide an in-game motivation to keep returning to the field, it won't hold my interest, just like APF didn't and just like Backbreaker never did.

Presumably, if JMF is indeed still a mobile game, it will have some sort of team progression mechanic in it, likely in the form of team-improving micro transactions. Not what anyone on here wants, but the proven business model for success on that platform. If it's a console game now, however, we'll wait and see; it's gotta have something, though.

[dcal]

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

I am trying not to get too excited about this but I find myself checking the thread every day for new info. If it is just a mobile game I am going to throw up.

[kcsam]

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

I am trying not to get too excited about this but I find myself checking the thread every day for new info. If it is just a mobile game I am going to throw up.

That's funny, man! I am with you. I check this thread regularly as well as Damon's Twitter feed. I am anxiously awaiting some good (hopefully) news.

[Steel4Reel]

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

I am trying not to get too excited about this but I find myself checking the thread every day for new info. If it is just a mobile game I am going to throw up.

Just dont get your hopes up.

EA taught me that.

[PVarck31]

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

Please forgive me if I've missed this, but is there any real info out there that would lead us to believe that this is anything other than a mobile game? That's what it was announced as right?

[ChirpyMango01]

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

Mr. Grow just posted a picture of NFL 2k5 on his twitter. Idk if this is important, but its nice to see that this game is (or seems to be) an influence.

[kjcheezhead]

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

Please forgive me if I've missed this, but is there any real info out there that would lead us to believe that this is anything other than a mobile game? That's what it was announced as right?

Damon Grow, the developer, tweeted this isn't pc only. That's all we know. It's all speculation based on the work samples provided.

Just a little bit ago, he tweeted an image of 2k5 and said it was a devotional image. Let the fun begin.