Madden Sales ...slow

[sroz39]

Quote: Originally Posted by tazdevil20

Just to let you know, EA paid NFL Players, Inc, a billion dollars for that license. It was 250 million per year for 4 years. The renewal price was not disclosed this most recent time.

That's just insane..who up at EA can spin the numbers to show Madden making a HEALTHY profit when, before they've even sold one game, $250 million has already been spent. Without factoring in devs wages or marketing budget.

Unbelievable..

[Exonerated]

Yay. Less Madden sales. Means less money for madden. Means a bad madden. Means 2k never has a shot at the license.

[Echopax]

Like I've been saying for the past four months.

2K will always be the king of football. Their staff just knows what football is. It's not Madden. I am enjoying Madden NFL 10, but I would pay $100 for ESPN NFL 2K11. That's a fact.

Not bashing Madden, not putting Madden down. But, they will never be the kings of football. To be the king, you have to prove yourself to be the king among others. EA just can't do it.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 = amazing.
NHL 09 = amazing.
Madden NFL 10 = mediocre. Tiring. Not exciting. Unrealistic. Repetitive. "Wait until next year".

I agree about the "fatigued" idea. Gamers are tired of Madden. We need some variety, and I think everyone knows what that means.

We need us some 2K.

[GiantBlue76]

Everyone calling for them to rewrite their engine is living in a dream world. While that sounds like a great idea, they already did that. That's what happened when they moved to the next generation consoles. All it did was make more of a mess. The game is fundamentally flawed, and its not going to be fixed in any patches, new releases or anything else.

You will continue to see some fixes here (like the sideline catches????) that some view as half assed, but really are because their devs are at a loss. I'm a software engineer and rewriting things is just not something companies are willing to do. It's expensive, time consuming and high risk. There's lots of times where I wish this could happen, but it can't. That's why it's important to have good developers that know how to properly build infrastructure that can be easily extended. Sounds to me like their code is a mess and by the looks of their games, how can anyone disagree? The artists for the game deserve a raise, the gameplay engineers should probably choose a different career. The production team (Ian and crew), good ideas, good vision, not much innovation, but nonetheless, they don't write the code.

In the 90s a once popular web browser company tried to re-write their product from scratch because the code was a mess. That company ended up disappearing...

As much as I would like to see the game rise to the occasion and give me my love of video game football back to 2004 levels, it isn't going to happen. Until another game company can push EA, and EA decides that changes (and I mean real changes, not band aids) are needed, you will see the same pattern. It's been 5 iterations now, same stuff. Loads of bugs, incomplete features, bad AI. Did Ian and his team try hard? Of course, can't knock them. The blogs were all awesome! I was duped. Then when you play the game you see very few things show up. All the same bugs, some improvements, lots of errors and sub par gameplay. It's just not a 60 dollar game and compared to other sports genres on these consoles, it rates very low. All of the reviews it got were ridiculous, even the 7.5 it got from Gamespot was kind.

At the end of the day, we will never really know what goes on at Tiburon and EA when it comes to football. It's obvious that whatever it is, it isn't working. I started compiling a list of all of the things that are in Madden 10 and Madden 09 that were touted as new features and gameplay enhancements. I couldn't find one thing that had not been in a previous Madden or 2k football game. In fact, I found more things that were in Madden 2005 and 2k4 and 2k5 than I see in Madden 10.

I feel bad for the production team, because I know they try, but I really feel bad for people who love football, because it's horrid right now.

[Crimsontide27]

Actually I am one to believe that EA WILL give up the exclusive deal sooner or later. The devs dont make the decsion, the suits in upper management do. At the end of the day, its all about the money and I think we can all agree on that.

If you look at this from an economic view, it no longer stands to reason that Madden is anywhere near as remotely profitable as it used to be.

Buying the liscense was meant to be a way to encourage more sales, not less. The idea behind it is that if anyone wanted an NFL game, they would only have EA to go to and not lose any money to its competitors. This backfired because the competition is what pushed Madden to improve instead of regressing. As Madden improved, so did sales.

At the time this deal was made, it made economic sense. Sales were up each year, next gen was coming out and EA tried to capitalize on that market and crush it. Had sales projections work as predicted, EA stood to make good money and get 100% market share to boot.

However, since 2005 sales had not only NOT increased, they have decreased significantly. Factor in that the % of households that have video game systems has also increased signifcantly. This means that EA has MORE opportunities to cash in on its games and not less. Suits see this data and they have to be questioning themselves.

At this point and time, there is NO data whatsoever to back up the exclusive deal being worth what they paid for it. Businessmen can see this.

I could spent hours doing flowcharts and cost analysis for this scenario and there would not be one instance where a suit could challenge the data and show its within the companies best interest to keep the exclusive deal.

At the end of the day, I really do care about where video game football is at because its my hobby.

At this point, Madden will be VERY hard pressed to ever capture the sales it once did, even though its the only game on the market.

Bringing back competition and having the desire to make a quality product that stands out in todays games standards is the only thing that will increase sales. Same madden engine, same scripting, same AI logic...no matter how many coats of paint you put on it, its still that broken down engine under the hood.

[Echopax]

Quote: Originally Posted by Crimsontide27

Actually I am one to believe that EA WILL give up the exclusive deal sooner or later. The devs dont make the decsion, the suits in upper management do. At the end of the day, its all about the money and I think we can all agree on that. If you look at this from an economic view, it no longer stands to reason that Madden is anywhere near as remotely profitable as it used to be. Buying the liscense was meant to be a way to encourage more sales, not less. The idea behind it is that if anyone wanted an NFL game, they would only have EA to go to and not lose any money to its competitors. This backfired because the competition is what pushed Madden to improve instead of regressing. As Madden improved, so did sales. At the time this deal was made, it made economic sense. Sales were up each year, next gen was coming out and EA tried to capitalize on that market and crush it. Had sales projections work as predicted, EA stood to make good money and get 100% market share to boot. However, since 2005 sales had not only NOT increased, they have decreased significantly. Factor in that the % of households that have video game systems has also increased signifcantly. This means that EA has MORE opportunities to cash in on its games and not less. Suits see this data and they have to be questioning themselves. At this point and time, there is NO data whatsoever to back up the exclusive deal being worth what they paid for it. Businessmen can see this. I could spent hours doing flowcharts and cost analysis for this scenario and there would not be one instance where a suit could challenge the data and show its within the companies best interest to keep the exclusive deal. At the end of the day, I really do care about where video game football is at because its my hobby. At this point, Madden will be VERY hard pressed to ever capture the sales it once did, even though its the only game on the market. Bringing back competition and having the desire to make a quality product that stands out in todays games standards is the only thing that will increase sales. Same madden engine, same scripting, same AI logic...no matter how many coats of paint you put on it, its still that broken down engine under the hood.

EA cannot handle competition, especially from a company that has proven themselves year after year.

If 2K is able to make NFL games again, then it will eventually end in the destruction of Madden NFL football.

Which, more or less, wouldn't be a bad thing the way these next-gen games have been going.

[Exonerated]

Quote: Originally Posted by Crimsontide27

Actually I am one to believe that EA WILL give up the exclusive deal sooner or later. The devs dont make the decsion, the suits in upper management do. At the end of the day, its all about the money and I think we can all agree on that. If you look at this from an economic view, it no longer stands to reason that Madden is anywhere near as remotely profitable as it used to be. Buying the liscense was meant to be a way to encourage more sales, not less. The idea behind it is that if anyone wanted an NFL game, they would only have EA to go to and not lose any money to its competitors. This backfired because the competition is what pushed Madden to improve instead of regressing. As Madden improved, so did sales. At the time this deal was made, it made economic sense. Sales were up each year, next gen was coming out and EA tried to capitalize on that market and crush it. Had sales projections work as predicted, EA stood to make good money and get 100% market share to boot. However, since 2005 sales had not only NOT increased, they have decreased significantly. Factor in that the % of households that have video game systems has also increased signifcantly. This means that EA has MORE opportunities to cash in on its games and not less. Suits see this data and they have to be questioning themselves. At this point and time, there is NO data whatsoever to back up the exclusive deal being worth what they paid for it. Businessmen can see this. I could spent hours doing flowcharts and cost analysis for this scenario and there would not be one instance where a suit could challenge the data and show its within the companies best interest to keep the exclusive deal. At the end of the day, I really do care about where video game football is at because its my hobby. At this point, Madden will be VERY hard pressed to ever capture the sales it once did, even though its the only game on the market. Bringing back competition and having the desire to make a quality product that stands out in todays games standards is the only thing that will increase sales. Same madden engine, same scripting, same AI logic...no matter how many coats of paint you put on it, its still that broken down engine under the hood.

I agree with everything except the bold. ITs more profitable and viable to make better creative ad campaigns than a better game. THe hype of the game is far better than the product could possibly be.

ALot of people like the control madden gives.

[SomeStrangeSin]

i blame the 59.99 price tag (which is like 65$ after tax) its hard to pay that much for any game no matter how good it is with the recession and gas prices i would say lower the price for all videogames to 39.99$ that would make a huge difference for sales but i doubt the industry would do that... they can shoot themselves in the foot for being greedy when no one has the money.
theres a lot of games i would like to get (madden 10,nhl 10,nba2k10,GOW3,GT5,AC2,) but i can only choose 1 or 2 of them with my budget. if the price tag was 39.99 i might be able to get 4 or 5 of them.