A serious debate about Madden

[Sheba2011]

Quote: Originally Posted by howboutdat

For the record the ONLY thing fixed in online is h2h games in cfm are counting them all now, thats it .There is still alot broke in online CFM, that has not at all been fixed. For the record

For the record they also fixed online sim stats, issues with earning less XP than displayed, issues with signing players with a $0 signing bonus, adjusted the cost of some traits that were too low. For the record.

There is still some things that need to be fixed but don't be ignorant to what they already have fixed

[sbattisti]

Quote: Originally Posted by CM Hooe

Limited resources. More specifically, time. Madden releases every year at the end of August, and their "gold master" date is (probably) in late July. That's not changing, and barring absolute catastrophe the development team may not even have to power to make that change. As such, any bugs QA finds must be prioritized. This is a pretty basic project management task - limited time means one must prioritize tasks. It's not as simple as adding more people to a project to fix these bugs, either. Any new engineers have to be spun up on the code base, internal project tools, any work standards of the development team, etc. by someone who already is in the know. This also takes time, and it pulls away an already-spun-up member of the staff from the project and puts him in a teaching capacity, limiting his effectiveness in his original role until everyone is up to speed. Take it from someone who's made a few video games in a professional setting with aggressive project timelines and understands a little bit about how the process works.

Yeah, I work in software development and I totally agree with this. On top of this, as you scale up in size, risk goes up as well. When you have 1 developer fixing bugs, it's a lot less risky than when you have 50 all touching the same code. It happens all the time even in smaller shops that someone touches one area of code to fix something, and it breaks something else. You can't retest the entire game every time one bug is fixed.

I think the bugs we see are a combination of:

1. The complexity of the game
2. Prioritization of features over fixes (fixes won't sell the next version)
3. The fact that the level of bugs isn't impacting sales

We are a vocal crowd here, but the bottom line is, outside of here, this isn't viewed as a particularly problematic release in terms of stability.

[MissionMaximus]

I think the biggest or a couple of the biggest things holding Madden back
Number (1) No Competition...(see NBA Live)
Number (2) which I believe is the biggest handicap Tiburon is facing is the sheer amount of $$$ that EA is shelling out for exclusive licenses. Which in turn cuts into the budget because EA wants to make a profit on the game.

Does anyone know the exact figure that EA pays for all the exclusive contracts?

Got this off of Steet and Smiths Sports Business Journal from 2011
"EA, however, is a special case, with its iconic “Madden” video game title. The licensing deal it agreed to with the league in early 2008 is believed to be worth well into nine figures in guarantees and royalties over its original five-year term."


Also I had a problem with all the "Arnold Schwarzenegger" arms until I saw the Tiburon Face and body scan of Drew Brees. I guess they did get them right.