EA to focus on "quality games" in the future

[RayAllen20]

Quote: Originally Posted by 43Chargers4Now

More competition for ea= More sales for ea They need a reason to step up their developing of games. Competion will bring just that.

Not true at all man. You do know 2K will get a little less than half Madden's sales if this happened, right? They'd get less money, and less money to develop a better game. I don't think anybody can honestly tell me that EA didn't try their hardest in making Madden 10 great. They may have come up a little short (I'll wait for the patch to judge this, even though I play the game tons), you can bet next year there will be significant amounts of improvements also. Without the license, Madden would lose sales, development money, and crumble. A smart bussiness decision would be to keep the license. Although me and you don't like it, it's going to happen unless their sales are so bad that they give up on Madden altogether (doubt this will happen).

[DonkeyJote]

Quote: Originally Posted by NorrinRadd12

http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Madden_NFL Madden 2005 was the last year of competition (and in my opinion the best game, which is not a coincidence). If you have different numbers I'd like to see them.

I agree that Madden 2005 was probably the best game. 07 was good, but 2005 was a little more polished. And competition is good for quality, but not necessarily great for business.

After doing some research, I was wrong about this being the first year of a drop off. But I found those numbers on that wiki to be incorrect (shocking for a wiki, I know). I went to a site called VGChartz.com, and added up the sales of Xbox, PS2, PS3, and the 360. I left out Wii and portables since EA didn't have competition before that either. What I found was that sales jumped a little after the license, with Madden 06 outselling 05 by about $250,000. Not a huge difference, but significant nonetheless. Then, in 07 is jumped by almost $1M. They made $5.92M for 05, and $7.05M for 07. That's a big difference. It dropped back down close to Madden 05 levels for 08, and little further down again. So they've struggled with sales the last two years, but in 06 and 07 the license looked like a great investment. And remember, the recession we're in started in late 2007, which would help explain the decline in sales for Madden 08, 09, and 10.

My point is that I see no way EA doesn't continue to renew the license. And you have to look at the NFL. The NFL wants one developer making an NFL game. That makes it easier for the NFL to manage its image. And I don't see any developer that will outbid EA. Activision has the money, but they've never seemed interested in developing sports titles. The NFL isn't going to have multiple developers making NFL games anymore. They'll sell to the highest bidder, and if that bid is lower than what they've previously earned, they'll still make that deal because the ability to control their image is more important to the NFL than the money they'd be able to make from signing a bunch of non-exclusive deals rather than one, big exclusive deal.

I could see EA letting the NCAA license go though, and I see 2k letting the MLB license go. But EA will keep the NFL license, since it's worth more, and the NFL wants to be exclusive with someone more than any other league.

[NorrinRadd12]

Quote: Originally Posted by RayAllen20

Not true at all man. You do know 2K will get a little less than half Madden's sales if this happened, right? They'd get less money, and less money to develop a better game. I don't think anybody can honestly tell me that EA didn't try their hardest in making Madden 10 great. They may have come up a little short (I'll wait for the patch to judge this, even though I play the game tons), you can bet next year there will be significant amounts of improvements also. Without the license, Madden would lose sales, development money, and crumble. A smart bussiness decision would be to keep the license. Although me and you don't like it, it's going to happen unless their sales are so bad that they give up on Madden altogether (doubt this will happen).

I don't think they've tried their hardest since Madden 2005. And if the current team really is trying their hardest and this is the best they can do then they need to get new people.

[NorrinRadd12]

Quote: Originally Posted by DonkeyJote

I agree that Madden 2005 was probably the best game. 07 was good, but 2005 was a little more polished. And competition is good for quality, but not necessarily great for business. After doing some research, I was wrong about this being the first year of a drop off. But I found those numbers on that wiki to be incorrect (shocking for a wiki, I know). I went to a site called VGChartz.com, and added up the sales of Xbox, PS2, PS3, and the 360. I left out Wii and portables since EA didn't have competition before that either. What I found was that sales jumped a little after the license, with Madden 06 outselling 05 by about $250,000. Not a huge difference, but significant nonetheless. Then, in 07 is jumped by almost $1M. They made $5.92M for 05, and $7.05M for 07. That's a big difference. It dropped back down close to Madden 05 levels for 08, and little further down again. So they've struggled with sales the last two years, but in 06 and 07 the license looked like a great investment. And remember, the recession we're in started in late 2007, which would help explain the decline in sales for Madden 08, 09, and 10.

I looked at VGchartz and you're right there was a spike for Madden 2007. That was the first year the game was available for both the nex-gen systems and it sold 7.62M copies. Madden 08 sold 6.71M copies (down 12%). Madden 09 sold 6.3M copies (down 6%). So far Madden 10 on 4 systems (XBOX is out) has only sold 3.27M. There will be a big increase in the next month because of Christmas but it's not going save it from a significant sales decrease.

One argument is that no competion + mediocre game = better sales. Another argument is competion = better game = better sales. I bought NFL 2k5 and still bought Madden 2005, because I knew Madden 2005 was going to be a really good game, and it was. What's starting to happen now though is the NFL brand alone isn't enough to carry a mediocre game. To me Madden 10 was just a $60 patch and roster update.

[kjcheezhead]

Quote: Originally Posted by RayAllen20

Not true at all man. You do know 2K will get a little less than half Madden's sales if this happened, right? They'd get less money, and less money to develop a better game. I don't think anybody can honestly tell me that EA didn't try their hardest in making Madden 10 great. They may have come up a little short (I'll wait for the patch to judge this, even though I play the game tons), you can bet next year there will be significant amounts of improvements also. Without the license, Madden would lose sales, development money, and crumble. A smart bussiness decision would be to keep the license. Although me and you don't like it, it's going to happen unless their sales are so bad that they give up on Madden altogether (doubt this will happen).

I'd tend to disagree. Many gamers, like myself, buy everything nfl. Madden sales would go down, but not anywhere near half. I don't think 2k managed more than 35% of the market in 2005.

The money being poured into the exclusive license isn't chump change either. If they went the old route, the savings would probably make up for the loss in sales and also give the developers a bigger budget to work with for improving their game.

[jeremym480]

You guys do realize that EA makes a lot more than just sports games right? I seriously doubt that this will effect any of the sports games....
Well, except for kiddy games like Face Breaker for the Wii.

[Bellsprout]

Quote: Originally Posted by jeremym480

You guys do realize that EA makes a lot more than just sports games right? I seriously doubt that this will effect any of the sports games.... Well, except for kiddy games like Face Breaker for the Wii.

I realize that, but I think they want to kill NCAA BBall anyways. Sales suck, it's probably not worth it to them.

I would also think this kills any hope ever of a sequel to Black.

[RayAllen20]

Quote: Originally Posted by kjcheezhead

I'd tend to disagree. Many gamers, like myself, buy everything nfl. Madden sales would go down, but not anywhere near half. I don't think 2k managed more than 35% of the market in 2005. The money being poured into the exclusive license isn't chump change either. If they went the old route, the savings would probably make up for the loss in sales and also give the developers a bigger budget to work with for improving their game.

Here on OS, many gamers would buy both NFL, but not so for the casual gamer. The casual gamer goes on the Internet right before he goes to the game store, looks at reviews and gameplay videos and then decides which game to get. And I remember being pumped for Madden 05, until I saw the $20 price tag on 2K5 and immediately fell in love.

Good point on the license though, forgot about the money for that. I still think EA will keep the license tho.