Xbox live activity November 09

[JMD]

Quote: Originally Posted by ODogg

All I'm saying is Madden has been around forever so you can't expect it to always be at the top. It's like a faithful old friend who you turn to on occasion, it's not a wow-omg-game because most of us have been playing it for years and years. I agree that competition would be better but I'll bet even if we did have competition this year's game would smoke it badly. This year's game is a great game IMO and I think no matter what EA puts out there will always be a bunch of you guys who hate on it. It's like a hobby for some of you.

You're right Madden is not a "wow-omg-game" , but it should be. I don't want to turn this into a 2k vs EA thread but years ago when I first played a game called ESPN NFL Football 2k4 I said Wow! Then I said it again when I played ESPN NFL Football 2k5 the following year. I loved it when both EA and 2k were making official NFL football games, both were better because of it.

Also there is no way this years Madden would "smoke" the competition, if there was any, because it still is not an all around better football game then NFL 2k5 , not to mention APF 2k8, and I believe that was one of the goals. Madden still can't seem to do what 2k games can do, that is get the fundimentals of football to work as they should in a video game.

This is more a question that anything, but isn't it possible too that some of those 360 players have switched to PS3? That would also affect Xbox Live activity for the title.

[ODogg]

JMD - to each his own, I didn't think ESPN2k5 was better than the Madden it was up against that year, let alone this year's Madden.

And as dickdalewood said, everyone I know still buys Madden and only 2 out of all of those folks actually play it online. Most people play Madden in their living room with their friends, not online. You can't do that with COD games in regards to the way the game is meant to be played (with 10+ people in the same game).

Not just the number of folks but I know a lot of folks are somewhat hesitant to go into a 1 on 1 room where they directly interact with someone, like in Madden, but they don't mind the anonymity that a multiple player room such as COD offers. There is a HUGE difference in regards to social interaction and I believe that's one big reason that the FPS get a lot more online people than sports games (except maybe Fifa where it's 10 on 10).

[Valdarez]

Quote: Originally Posted by ODogg

Most people play Madden in their living room with their friends, not online. You can't do that with COD games in regards to the way the game is meant to be played (with 10+ people in the same game).

This isn't true per my experience. I had 3 friends over after MW2 dropped just last week to play MW2. There are a lot of MP modes that you can play 4 players and still have a LOT of fun. If anything, the experience is far better playing MW2 locally with 4 people than playing Madden 2 vs. 2 locally.

[ODogg]

Playing locally is always better but most folks who play FPS want to play against 16 or 32 people or whatever online and that requires playing online to do so. Most people aren't going to have 3 or 4 people over to play this sort of game locally so I think you're the exception here. Heck, alot of games don't even have the local options that you can find when you go online, i've found this out from my own terrible experiences when I have company over.

No why folks want to play with so many people at once I have no idea because I find it more fun to play like 3 vs 3 or something more intimate. IMO when you get 16 or 32 people online it's just randomness more than skill as to getting kills. And you aren't killing or getting killed by the same people so there's not that revenge factor as much.

[Valdarez]

I gotcha. I'm willing to bet that most players play Madden 10 by themselves offline and not with friends. I know that about 3 years ago, on average, only about 5 to 10% of gamers ever even played a game online (there was magazine article referenced on Relic's site when CoH was releaed), depending on the game of course. It would be interesting to hear what Madden's numbers are though.

It's an interesting dynamic. Most people play offline, but it's the online guys that are the most vocal, so while they represent the minority, many times the majority of a companies time is directed to them. It's kind of like lobbying in Washington. You don't necessarily end up with a better product overall, but you quiet all of the special interests. heh

[ODogg]

Yeah that's all 100% true. Although I think it's not necessarily true to say the online guys are most vocal. I'd say the guys who are most vocal are also the most technically advanced and thus play more online. The reason I bring this up is that it still seems to me that a lot of the times the companies treat online as a somewhat afterthought.

If you did a poll here on OS and asked how many play online i'll bet it's far higher than the general public, which as you said is 5 to 10%...so it's certainly true more online folks are here...but that doesn't mean most folks here are asking for online features, in fact i'd say that's a relatively small set of folks who are espousing those views.

[Only1LT]

Quote: Originally Posted by ODogg

alliance, you can try to convince yourself and all of us all you like that madden is sliding down a spiral and ea should be worried but i think the only one that's going to be convinced is you. the simple fact is madden is still a huge moneymaker for ea and there is no reason for them to be worried or whatever you think they should be thinking about it. it's not on it's way down no matter how much you wish it was.

I don't know how you can make the statement that Madden is a huge money maker when it is a fact that sales are declining steadily year after year and when it is a fact that no other game has the added burden of as HUGE an exclusive license deal as Madden has, and that they probably spends more money on advertising than any other game you can think of.

Forget about whether you like the game or not, Madden is in trouble, there is no denying that. I am not saying that it is in so much trouble that this will be the last Madden they ever make, but to not acknowledge the fact that when EA bought the exclusive license, they expected to be making substantially more sales than when they had competition. Why else would they lay out that kind of cash? But what has actually happened is that sales have actually declined. How could this not be perceived as a problem lol?!