Madden's future of CFM is alarming

[roadman]

Quote: Originally Posted by callmetaternuts

Just throwing this out there. One of the least communicative EA guys on Twitter is John White, who heads up the CFM/Franchise stuff. I don't know him, I have no beef with him personally, but maybe, just maybe, he doesn't know what goes into a good CFM/Franchise mode. I want to say he worked on Head Coach but maybe I'm wrong. Anyways, I'm not sure we've considered the fact that maybe EA with its current leadership and developers just don't know what should be in a franchise mode. Maybe their definition of Sim is different than ours. Maybe their ideas for a legitimate offline franchise mode are different than ours. I know Clint and others say that just because they don't respond doesn't mean they haven't heard us, but its hard to have an honest discussion on what we as consumers want to see when the lead franchise guy doesn't communicate. We have no idea what he is thinking. They apparently thought the draft board was a huge success. That was their direction. I guess the question is this (and maybe Rex, John or Clint are reading this), how can we have meaningful dialogue and discuss, suggest, pinpoint what we'd like to see? It's clear that the gamers (franchise guys) aren't happy and I'm sure EA is sick of our repetitive tweets that just get shuffled to the back of the line.

Even though John White is as quiet as a mouse on Twitter and not as vocal as Rex/Clint, doesn't mean he isn't suited for the position of CFM Developer.

I've seen AJ post in here(former EA employee) that John White is a pretty knowledgeable and smart person. Now, I think Michael Young developed HC and he is still with the Madden team, I think out of Austin, Tx area. I'm not sure to what extent Michael Young is with CFM anymore.

[Rebel10]

Pretty sure Michael Young moved to take over the lead director role on Longshot.

He killed it with Longshot too. While disagree with how Longshot is a telltale-style game, and I personally think that Longshot is just a cheap way to release new versions of Madden w/o changing anything related to the engine (focus on MUT), Young got a certain direction for Longshot and really did an excellent job sseeing it through. The writing, mo-capping, voice acting, music, and ambiance was much better than anything that I thought EA was capable of producing, and he did an excellent job directing all of that. Longshot just isn't a football game, it's a point-and-click adventure game packaged up in Madden, but I don't think that's his decision -- that would be someone higher than him.

[Herky]

Quote: Originally Posted by Rebel10

Pretty sure Michael Young moved to take over the lead director role on Longshot. He killed it with Longshot too. While disagree with how Longshot is a telltale-style game, and I personally think that Longshot is just a cheap way to release new versions of Madden w/o changing anything related to the engine (focus on MUT), Young got a certain direction for Longshot and really did an excellent job sseeing it through. The writing, mo-capping, voice acting, music, and ambiance was much better than anything that I thought EA was capable of producing, and he did an excellent job directing all of that. Longshot just isn't a football game, it's a point-and-click adventure game packaged up in Madden, but I don't think that's his decision -- that would be someone higher than him.

Longshot was excellent especially for the first time being implemented. Whomever was on that lead nailed it.

The Head Coach team had something. CFM should have followed their lead and could really be something special by now had they done that years back. I'm don't like to sim games but I had a blast with HC even though it wasn't perfect. The foundation was in place for an amazing franchise experience.

[CM Hooe]

Quote: Originally Posted by timhere1970

Excellent post. Innovation is lacking in all gaming. We have gone from game makers not being able to keep up with our imaginations due to technical advances to game makers not keeping up with our imaginations due to an unwillingness to do the hard work. Madden leads the pack in this regard.

The idea that game developers are unwilling to do hard work is absolute utter horse****. Across the board they voluntarily choose to take less money in exchange to do more and harder work than the average professional with the same title.

In this industry, even the greatest ideas are completely worthless without the ability and resources available to execute. Execution requires talent, money, and time. Unlike many armchair quarterbacks who berate those who produce games, AAA game companies have all three, and indies willingly make sacrifices in their personal lives to ensure they have at least two of the three - talent and time. AAA game devs across the board tend to gravitate towards proven ideas, sure, but there's plenty of indies out there pushing the envelope with respect to mechanics, narrative, and aesthetic. Dig a little bit deeper than the front page on Steam and you'll find them.

That said, if you still think that game developers can't keep up with your imagination, you are more than welcome to execute on your ideas yourself. If your ideas are as good as you think they are, it's plenty worth the time and resource investment on your part.

[howboutdat]

Quote: Originally Posted by CM Hooe

In this industry, even the greatest ideas are completely worthless without the ability and resources available to execute. Execution requires talent, money, and time. Unlike many armchair quarterbacks who berate those who produce games, AAA game companies have all three

Id like to just stop right there for a second. You see this is the exact problem people have with ea and madden. Im not one to say devs dont work hard on it. But the issue is ,EA has over and above the resources readily available to them, they have the talent, and have had the time ( how old is madden now?) . Yet they dont produce what they should given they have all that.

I would agree with you, eventhough im clearly not a game dev , i think the smaller companies , guys have to take lower pay , but in hopes they have less restrictions on them and let their actual talent shine and maybe one day that pays off big for them. I look no farther than the 16 people who made No Mans Sky , while at launch took alot of flack. Those guys didnt just fold, they kept working hard all year to improve game and it is a very fun game , that they are not done improving. I believe they got a good payday for it as well. But im sure they had to sacrafice alot ( especially since their studio was flooded mid dev).Rocket League is another one that comes to my mind right off.Great game, small company, very inventive imo.

The problem lies to most it seems, that EA has the talent and the money and has had the time, but yet keeps just repeating things over and over instead of learning from them and doing more for a game that has an entire large market cornered.

[RogerDodger]

Quote: Originally Posted by CM Hooe

The idea that game developers are unwilling to do hard work is absolute utter horse****. Across the board they voluntarily choose to take less money in exchange to do more and harder work than the average professional with the same title. In this industry, even the greatest ideas are completely worthless without the ability and resources available to execute. Execution requires talent, money, and time. Unlike many armchair quarterbacks who berate those who produce games, AAA game companies have all three, and indies willingly make sacrifices in their personal lives to ensure they have at least two of the three - talent and time. AAA game devs across the board tend to gravitate towards proven ideas, sure, but there's plenty of indies out there pushing the envelope with respect to mechanics, narrative, and aesthetic. Dig a little bit deeper than the front page on Steam and you'll find them. That said, if you still think that game developers can't keep up with your imagination, you are more than welcome to execute on your ideas yourself. If your ideas are as good as you think they are, it's plenty worth the time and resource investment on your part.

I disagree with the notion that 'if you think you can do better, go ahead else pipe down' - which is paraphrasing what you are saying - because so long as we're paying 50-60 for this or any product, people have a right to complain. And when the product is updated and the complaints are potentially more widespread than before, then more power to them.

I've actually visited Tiburon albeit 8 years ago. Back then there were guys who had great ideas, passionate about their implantation who would go above and beyond to get them into the game. They'd stay back after hours, unpaid putting together their code or boards illustrating their idea and quite often they'd end up in the game. It was around that time we had the best franchise mode for that exact reason. Guys would go the extra mile because they genuinely cared very deeply about the mode they were working on.

I'm not suggesting there isn't the passion for that now but...

[T4VERTS]

Quote: Originally Posted by RogerDodger

I've actually visited Tiburon albeit 8 years ago. Back then there were guys who had great ideas, passionate about their implantation who would go above and beyond to get them into the game. They'd stay back after hours, unpaid putting together their code or boards illustrating their idea and quite often they'd end up in the game. It was around that time we had the best franchise mode for that exact reason. Guys would go the extra mile because they genuinely cared very deeply about the mode they were working on. I'm not suggesting there isn't the passion for that now but...

...yea it's all still happening now. Except for CFM it takes place in Austin TX now not Orlando.

[HeelGreenRanger]

I would assume (I do not know)

That when the meetings are held to decide what's going to be worked on on the next interation of Madden.

There are people who aren't devs, who don't actually care about football.

Making most of the decisions about what actually gets to go in the game.


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