What's up with EA Sports this year?

[Segagendude]

Hopefully I don't get in trouble, but.....

I've been reading thru the Madden, NCAA and recently NHL threads. Whether it's gameplay issues made worse by patches (NCAA), graphic issues related to PS3, (Madden), and now NHL celebrations being awful, I have to wonder what's going on with EA this year?

Is it just me, or is this the worst year yet as far as complaints are concerned, across all their platforms? (I don't know about FIFA yet)

Is it a personnel problem, as in layoffs/people leaving that hurt the product? Thinking too far ahead to next-gen platforms? Financial issues? Or is it the age-old "no competiton" arguement. Even if this is the reason, they seemed to do fine the last couple years, no?

Please, let's try to keep this civil. I'm not intending to bash EA, just wondering why this huge crop of issues are popping up seemingly all at once.

Unless it's always been like this before, and I somehow missed it.

[dickey1331]

Re: What's up with EA Sports this year?

Ive actually thought it was the opposite. I thought this has been an excellent year for EA sports. I love Madden and NCAA and look forward to playing NHL today.

Every year each game has its issues. Its just part of life. Even the Show has had its issues recently. Sports games are just hard to be perfect on a yearly release.

Its funny how we tear sports games apart but for example we play Bioware games and love them but if you go to the Bioware forum then its a totally different view. They are the ones who tear apart the games but yet for the most part we are really enjoying them.

[savoie2006]

Re: What's up with EA Sports this year?

Yeah, it's normal for sports games to have issues upon release. They have a one year cycle and immense pressure to come up with new features and fixes. Does it justify just how bad Madden and apparently NHL have been? No, but it's not suprising. Thing is, even with all the bugs and such early, EA has been pretty decent at cleaning up their games each year. Usually a couple months after release, most are happy again.

[RGiles36]

Re: What's up with EA Sports this year?

Ive actually thought it was the opposite. I thought this has been an excellent year for EA sports. I love Madden and NCAA and look forward to playing NHL today.

Every year each game has its issues. Its just part of life. Even the Show has had its issues recently. Sports games are just hard to be perfect on a yearly release.

Its funny how we tear sports games apart but for example we play Bioware games and love them but if you go to the Bioware forum then its a totally different view. They are the ones who tear apart the games but yet for the most part we are really enjoying them.

Truth, truth, and more truth.

[SPTO]

Re: What's up with EA Sports this year?

Personally I think developers for the most part are lazy across the board. The "patch" is the worst thing to come out of gaming in the last 10 years IMO.

[EnigmaNemesis]

Re: What's up with EA Sports this year?

Ive actually thought it was the opposite. I thought this has been an excellent year for EA sports. I love Madden and NCAA and look forward to playing NHL today.

Every year each game has its issues. Its just part of life. Even the Show has had its issues recently. Sports games are just hard to be perfect on a yearly release.

Its funny how we tear sports games apart but for example we play Bioware games and love them but if you go to the Bioware forum then its a totally different view. They are the ones who tear apart the games but yet for the most part we are really enjoying them.

TRUTH! As said above me.

We are overly critical of sports games I believe because we are hardcore sports gamers at heart. Where as those said game genre's hardcore tear them apart as well.

And it is tough for sports games in development every year because it is a mere 10 month cycle at best.

Having seen insight on one of the top games development, it isn't like they take "last years game" and open it up and add new features to it. It is not that easy. They actually have to go into a base set of the game, and almost "re-add" everything that is in it, PLUS add new features bit by bit making sure they are not breaking everything. It is almost like a "ground up" process every single year. And hats off to most of these sports developers who pull it off in a much shorter cycle than most of these bug laden games you use as an example that have "years".

[EnigmaNemesis]

Re: What's up with EA Sports this year?

Personally I think developers for the most part are lazy across the board. The "patch" is the worst thing to come out of gaming in the last 10 years IMO.

Seriously?

Games are no buggier now than when they were on systems before it where you could NOT get patches. PC's had the luxury for 15+ years due to the internet connectivity. Consoles you had to just deal with it.

Developers are NOT lazy... these guys sometimes LIVE, yes, LIVE in their cubicles in crunch time the last 2-3 months of development. They are pushed hard by their publishers to meet deadlines... and as more and more complex newer systems and coding gets, it is tougher. Especially in a mere 10 month development span I mentioned above.

Patches are a GREAT thing, since it allows things to be fixed that we had to "deal with" in the past generations.

[SuperBowlNachos]

Re: What's up with EA Sports this year?

Ive actually thought it was the opposite. I thought this has been an excellent year for EA sports. I love Madden and NCAA and look forward to playing NHL today.

Every year each game has its issues. Its just part of life. Even the Show has had its issues recently. Sports games are just hard to be perfect on a yearly release.

Its funny how we tear sports games apart but for example we play Bioware games and love them but if you go to the Bioware forum then its a totally different view. They are the ones who tear apart the games but yet for the most part we are really enjoying them.

We understand that. It's taking almost TWO(2) full months for a an announced patch to come out that frustrates people. With no communication or updates on when it might be coming out either.

I know sports games are some of the hardest to make because there are so many moving parts and it all has to play perfect or the entire game is ruined, but when you release a patch to fix one issue and it completely breaks something entirely unrelated and it's so OBVIOUS(referring to no huddle being completely broken in NCAA now). You have wonder what the **** people are thinking.

[SPTO]

Re: What's up with EA Sports this year?

Seriously?

Games are no buggier now than when they were on systems before it where you could NOT get patches. PC's had the luxury for 15+ years due to the internet connectivity. Consoles you had to just deal with it.

Developers are NOT lazy... these guys sometimes LIVE, yes, LIVE in their cubicles in crunch time the last 2-3 months of development. They are pushed hard by their publishers to meet deadlines... and as more and more complex newer systems and coding gets, it is tougher.

Patches are a GREAT thing, since it allows things to be fixed that we had to "deal with" in the past generations.

I was being a little hyperbolic to make a point. I do think patches serve their purpose but when you release a game that has an obvious flaw right off the bat you have to wonder what's going on with the QC.

I don't think they're "lazy" in the traditional sense but rather it seems they let things slip by that I think would be caught in an earlier era though I could be wrong on that point.

[EnigmaNemesis]

Re: What's up with EA Sports this year?

I was being a little hyperbolic to make a point. I do think patches serve their purpose but when you release a game that has an obvious flaw right off the bat you have to wonder what's going on with the QC.

I don't think they're "lazy" in the traditional sense but rather it seems they let things slip by that I think would be caught in an earlier era though I could be wrong on that point.

Trust me when I say they don't "let them slip".

They have a publishing ship date, they have to meet it. Why do you think there is usually an initial patch on release day, or soon after. They are working on a fix for some time. But could not get it fixed before ship date.

QC is definitely an area where game makers are not invested too heavily in as they can be, but you have a handful of testers, testing a game that contains so much intangibles and so many random like events... you will not get as much eyes on it, or even get a said event to pop up compared to 250K+ on day one who buy the game and are all going at it.

The laws of probability increase with the larger user-base having a hands on.

[SPTO]

Re: What's up with EA Sports this year?

Trust me when I say they don't "let them slip".

They have a publishing ship date, they have to meet it. Why do you think there is usually an initial patch on release day, or soon after. They are working on a fix for some time. But could not get it fixed before ship date.

QC is definitely an area where game makers are not invested too heavily in as they can be, but you have a handful of testers, testing a game that contains so much intangibles and so many random like events... you will not get as much eyes on it, or even get a said event to pop up compared to 250K+ on day one who buy the game and are all going at it.

The laws of probability increase with the larger user-base having a hands on.

Well you're probably right though at least we can agree that QC is an area that needs improving.

[RGiles36]

Re: What's up with EA Sports this year?

Not to mention, I think NCAA and Madden were both well received this year. Sure there has been several complaints here at OS, but overall, I think the reviews and impressions have been more glowing than they've ever been this generation.

I think what bothers people here is how some of the little things are screwed up (speaking for Madden here). With some TLC -- read addressing of franchise bugs -- that game could be a real homerun.

Some of us have lost patience, and the bugs seen this year are frustrating. But I'm hard pressed to not believe these games are legitimately on the right track.

[Marino]

Re: What's up with EA Sports this year?

It is like anything else in our nation, the positives don't get noticed because the little issues become major over time with people beating their chest, yelling and begging for change.

Then you have people who don't own the games made by EA, but have such a disdain towards that company that no matter what they do, it's in a negative light.

[Happy29]

Re: What's up with EA Sports this year?

I'm enjoying NCAA 12 this year but I usually rotate my football purchases buying NCAA one year and the Madden the next. I don't play Hockey or have any interest in it I haven't purchased an NBA Live game in probably a decade and I am glad EA got out of the NASCAR line I don't think they ever produced a good game for that franchise. I like my system I have for the football series. I do miss EA's MVP baseball line though, I thought they produced a very solid game every year.

[HealyMonster]

Re: What's up with EA Sports this year?

Not to get too deep into it, but the culture of the company is what is the problem IMHO. As an example, I worked as a manager for a swim club over the summer. For years they have had issues with getting the lifeguards to look professional at all times and really just do their job. This is because for 3 years, they had a weak manager who allowed that to become the status quo.I come in and its like no way, this is crap. Things are going to change. Really quickly people quit, and within a few weeks I have people there who want to work. Still though, they looked at doing their job as if they were "good" or doing something great, but in reality they are just doing whats expected of them. The culture of the pool made it so that a "great job" was just doing the basic job.

When you see things like the commentary in Madden 12, you cant help but wonder what type of pride the team that made the game has in themselves. The culture of EA sports is obviously "we can get to it next year". This obviously started at some point between 2003-2006, and has now grown today into the yearly cycle that we get. Im not saying the devs are lazy, or there is some conspiracy, but there is obviously a leadership problem within the organization when you have Madden 06, NBA Live 11, all of the issues in all of these games. Its a trend, its not a 1 time thing, this is something plaguing this company. Certainly they are still making their money, and there are good things they are doing, but id say the culture they work in is counter productive because its letting excuses rule the roost as opposed to quality of work.