Why can’t Madden make a game like NBA 2k

[slo0tpatrol]

Economically speaking it really doesn't make much sense. NHL continues to improve and it is the sole hockey game on the market. FIFA dominates the soccer world even with PES. NBA Live tries and does some things well, but really they're no competition to 2K... And that leaves Madden; a game that has never really had an overhaul and has zero competition on the market.

What it all boils down to is the laziness of the development team. They hide behind the Shield and claim the NFL won't allow this and that, but does anyone believe the NFL is putting their foot down on Career Stats in Franchise with team names for each year, realistic contract negotiations, Franchise history, and having a coaching carousal with generic, editable coaches? Coaching hires and fires are a huge part of the NFL, yet get no representation. EA has the infrastructure, EA has done it before in the past, it's an easy addition.

NCAA Football 14 to this day has more features than Madden NFL 20 despite being 6 years later. Granted NCAA has always been the better of the two, one would hope EA would then be able to pool the resources of the NCAA development team onto Madden and make Madden a juggernaut, but instead they release the game with better lighting, reintegrate features they've taken away, and add a new facemask. People complained Madden didn't have a new scoreboard for 3 years, that's just plain laziness.

[Black Bruce Wayne]

All Madden has to do for me is copy things from MyLeague and that would be great. Let me edit everything. Let me customize the whole thing. Also, hopefully one these years we will get historic stats. Franchise mode is still very lonely, for lack of a better word. At least with MyLeague it feels somewhat alive.

[canes21]

Each game/company has different priorities. It is as simple as that. Madden could have a franchise mode as deep and detailed as 2k's if they were give the greenlight to do so by the higher ups. Unfortunately that is not what happens, obviously.

2k simply puts the offline modes higher up on their priority list. It has nothing to do with talent, laziness, etc. One company puts the resources into franchise-like modes, the other does not put near as many.

[DatsunDimer]

I tend to believe this is a management issue at EA. I just cannot understand how unwavering they are whilst 2K outsells them. An NFL game should outsell a NBA game, and I think that says a lot about their strategy.

Some of this could be the fact that 2K has Live (for now), but EA Tiburon does less with more. Even EA Canada at least seems to make more of an effort to cater to all modes with presumably a much lower budget.

[shockl3y]

Comparing Madden to 2k will only lead to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

And that’s where us Franchise mode guys have been for the last decade with Madden.

[madmax25]

Maybe this has already been brought up, and perhaps this won’t be well received by the community but I would bet that EA could add depth to franchise mode with premium DLC. I don’t like the idea of paying for DLC in a sports game, but if it’s truly about money, then at a bare minimum EA could do is reintroduce features like the time savers / team boosts from NCAA dynasty and then maybe allow for things like uniforms, extra relocations, etc...

For the record, I don’t like paying for DLC, but if it prompted EA to really invest in CFM as a moneymaker for them I could see it being a compromise

[UtahUtes32]

Nba 2k and Madden are on two different levels. I'm not even a nba "fan" or even a basketball fan, but I buy NBA 2K every year along with Madden.

[tril]

Its a number of things.
Personally, I believe that it is a corporate decision. I find it hard to believe that Madden game developers are not passionate about football. If they had more freedom for innovation, Im sure they would do it.

It might also be issues with hardware and software limitations. Every year they take out a certain number of things and add a number of things (even though alot of it is recycled from past versions of Madden). what ever base they are using for Madden its obviously capped out. Dont know why but they never exceed a certain threshold from year to year.

because of this certain game-play features and mechanics never really get to be improved on a year to year basis because they get removed. worked on then put back in years later. Im just making an educated guess, but I do see a pattern in Madden's game development cycle.

Im not a Madden apologist. By now we all should know what to expect with Madden, it is, what it is.