Madden NFL 19: The Full Interview With Producer Ben Haumiller

[frostbyt]

Quote: Originally Posted by Kingd803

Hit the nail on the head. I wish we could convey this to EA some how. I mean how can they honestly look at NFL2k5 or see what nba 2k does and really, honestly think what they do even sniffs that. I would be embarrassed. I follow basketball pretty casually. I do not know the x’s and o’s Of basketball at all. But I love nba 2k. I don’t even a quarter of the controls or special moves. But I really don’t care. I love football with a passion. I’m not a football genius but I do know a bit. And I don’t buy madden. Even when it’s like $12 it don’t even interest me. I like the game of football more than I like the NFL.

He claims they come here all the time and read. All they need to do is read the comments here and see the over whelming amount of people who disagree with their current approach to presentation. But i'm sure they never come here either

[Charvalos]

Quote: Originally Posted by tyberious4now

Be like me lower your expectations and you want be disappointed every year.. Try it it works and it will also save you from a ton of headaches. ..

It's hard to lower our expectations when the other sport games (MLB The Show, NBA 2K, F1, etc) are improving years after years in term of gameplay / presentation / etc. while Madden hasn't improved since countless years.

I can take the videos of Madden 19 and put them beside videos of Madden 18, Madden 17 and Madden 16 that you barely see some differences : same scoreboard, same presentation, etc.

[frostbyt]

Quote: Originally Posted by CM Hooe

Oh come on, let's be honest with ourselves. No one on this forum would be happy with a weekly wrap-up show without out-of-town highlights, especially single-team franchise users. It is simply not true that anything at all is better than nothing.

I absolutely would like something to add to the immersion. Did I think Extra Point was good...no far from it. Especially since I was still irritated by the NFL/EA deal 5 years later. But now....nothing....for years and no intention of giving the fans what they want.

The idea for why they would not do it was just silly. Shots to close that you can't tell the stadium, pre-canned clips, etc.

I do appreciate that he knows their programmers and creative people do not have the skills to get it done.

[frostbyt]

Quote: Originally Posted by Charvalos

I can take the videos of Madden 19 and put them beside videos of Madden 18, Madden 17 and Madden 16 that you barely see some differences : same scoreboard, same presentation, etc.

Yeah when I heard about this my enthusiasm sank once more. How can you have "Next Level Presentation" using the same generic scoreboard as M17? I mean I enjoy it when I see what new rookies joined the team in Week 1 game(if I don't accidentally skip it all the time) I like seeing how my QB performed the week before(When they introduced in M!6, broken, fixed in M17) I like knowing what the season standings are, in game as if I am really playing in the alternate NFL that myself and friends engage in week in and week out.

Is it too much to get the presentation needed to keep us fully immersed? I mean come on we don't even have tracked playoff stats for players over their career. We don't even have records for yardage, TDs, INTs, for individual teams(NCAA has been doing this for ages and they had 117+ teams to track!)

The only thing that is even keeping me interested is the PC version in hopes of MODs....which I am sure will be so limited.

WHY DID THEY TALK ABOUT NEXT LEVEL PRESENTATION AS A TALKING POINT....WHY...WHY!

Oh Wait they talked about Team Captains as a new feature.....that are aesthetics only....that "could" have impacts in the future, then guess what. Talk about Team Captains then...when it matters. OR should probably just be a footnote the week before the game comes out.

I would love to see the OP faces when some of these answers came out.

[Therebelyell626]

Quote: Originally Posted by CM Hooe

A full-fledged weekly recap show with (in a single-player context) dynamically generated highlights from out-of-town games is "basics"? Seriously? You work in software engineering too, I can't possibly believe you don't understand and appreciate all the technical challenges of something like that, particularly in the modern age of AAA gaming where graphical fidelity is paramount. How that feature was built in 2004 doesn't work in 2018 for a litany of reasons, that was literally Ben's entire point. And he's right.

Ben, is that you?

[Therebelyell626]

Ben is a company man. I think he gives answers like we couldn't, or it wasn't technically possible because he can't throw the publisher under the bus. I think the truth is EA does not want to allocate anymore than the bare minimum resources.

I have been in business for 15 years and honestly what EA does is smart business. Granted, bad for the consumer but great for EA. Why allocate more resources to overcome technical/ budgetary issues when you don't have to. The game is going to make hundreds of millions of dollars profit regardless. Why shrink your already huge profit margins by allocating more resources when people are going to buy the game regardless.

I had such high hopes when madden 25 came out. Sure it was the most stripped down madden in almost 10 years, but EA kept saying they were going to keep building on it for the new generation of consoles. I can honestly say in the 5 years since that game has come out, while yes there has been progress it has been incremental.

I dunno maybe my expectations are to high. But it's hard not to feel let down when games like NBA 2k and FIFA do it so well, yet Americas biggest sport feels so far behind.

[vannwolfhawk]

Quote: Originally Posted by Therebelyell626

Ben is a company man. I think he gives answers like we couldn't, or it wasn't technically possible because he can't throw the publisher under the bus. I think the truth is EA does not want to allocate anymore than the bare minimum resources. I have been in business for 15 years and honestly what EA does is smart business. Granted, bad for the consumer but great for EA. Why allocate more resources to overcome technical/ budgetary issues when you don't have to. The game is going to make hundreds of millions of dollars profit regardless. Why shrink your already huge profit margins by allocating more resources when people are going to buy the game regardless. I had such high hopes when madden 25 came out. Sure it was the most stripped down madden in almost 10 years, but EA kept saying they were going to keep building on it for the new generation of consoles. I can honestly say in the 5 years since that game has come out, while yes there has been progress it has been incremental. I dunno maybe my expectations are to high. But it's hard not to feel let down when games like NBA 2k and FIFA do it so well, yet Americas biggest sport feels so far behind.

I agree with your points. What I have a tough time understanding is that Madden has a huge developing team compared to other games and even 2k. This year IMO is very limited in features or things that were added. I can think of 5-10. Yet 2k adds 50-100 new things every year then builds on them in the following years. But with only a few big features added does it really take all year to develop those features with the whole team? Then we get a crazy bug filled EA play (their words). I just feel like there is a lot of down time in the EA offices with a lot of beer pong and cornhole being played to kill time. With such a huge team of devs and such limited features added it’s hard to understand. Maybe after EA got sued for not paying employees overtime they eliminated overtime all together? Who knows... everything about this game year to year is underwhelming though for me compared to what other games do. Maybe 2k set my expectations too high. It’s funny every year when 2k releases their blogs how many Madden players pop in and say wow I’m jealous, EA take note, etc... maybe 1 day they do???

[Sphinx]

Quote: Originally Posted by vannwolfhawk

I agree with your points. What I have a tough time understanding is that Madden has a huge developing team compared to other games and even 2k. This year IMO is very limited in features or things that were added. I can think of 5-10. Yet 2k adds 50-100 new things every year then builds on them in the following years. But with only a few big features added does it really take all year to develop those features with the whole team? Then we get a crazy bug filled EA play (their words). I just feel like there is a lot of down time in the EA offices with a lot of beer pong and cornhole being played to kill time. With such a huge team of devs and such limited features added it’s hard to understand. Maybe after EA got sued for not paying employees overtime they eliminated overtime all together? Who knows... everything about this game year to year is underwhelming though for me compared to what other games do. Maybe 2k set my expectations too high. It’s funny every year when 2k releases their blogs how many Madden players pop in and say wow I’m jealous, EA take note, etc... maybe 1 day they do???

One thing to remember is, not all developers are equal. An example, my company will farm out work overseas to developers that literally charge pennies on the dollar to do coding. We know the quality won't be there and there will be bugs but this allows us to have a larger development team and hit our deadlines. It's a business model that I see more and more software companies use. With development windows being so short, companies have to cut corners.

I don't know if 2k uses this type of model and therefor can implement more with a smaller more efficient staff. That staff probably costs more or the same as the whole madden staff. At least that's what I would imagine a company like EA trying to do.