Originally EA Did Not Intend For Madden To Be A NFL Game Sim

[lordnate]

Why would EA want to make an arcade game in a sim market? I think that's the problem with the theory. Where is the incentive? It would be much more profitable to appeal to the market.

I think it does have to do a lot with the game engine. Sure, 2k did somethings better than Madden, but did they do it with Madden's game engine? No. The problem with Madden is that their game engine relies solely on canned animations and every animation is on a short cycle so they can't make the game look/play fluid.

The OP appears to be one of the those that puts 2k5 on par with the holy grail, though without saying it directly. Look, 2k5 had some issues. One, the use of long, instead of short animations, took a lot of user control out. You could get a great looking speed rush but the defender often times would miss the ball carrier because he was stuck in his animation. The whole charge up thing to do a move was also very arcadish. 2k8 was much worse however. To throw the ball to the left side of the field, your QB had to do a spin move unless he was left handed. You either had to have all your defenders shade the inside in coverage or all of them shade the outside and you could see it presnap. So, before the play you knew whether to throw the out route or the post, and one or the other was almost always open. I do think however, 2k had less glitching and it looked at lot better than Madden. Game play didn't quite live up to the look however.

[mrprice33]

Quote: Originally Posted by Yankees_CT

I think this is where things turned to be honest. Once the players and fields started looking "real" that is when the gamers wanted it to play real. Before that no one really cared about football players skating around the field. Everyone just had fun throwing 70 yard bombs and watching players on the field be taken out by ambulances.

agree 100%. it's the uncanny valley for sports games. graphically they so closely resemble the sport, that anything that looks slightly off becomes amplified 100%.

[MJenness]

Quote: Originally Posted by Exonerated

Originally, I did not intend to be a lawyer that helps criminals and make lots of money, but here I am. If Madden makes the most money in its current state, then what's it to anyone? What would happen to Madden if they invested another 1 million in development team. (Although Ian has said 'too many cooks spoil the broth'). Would it be better? Or is it improving at optimum and efficient rate?

Originally, I didn't intend to be president, either, but.........

Always find it entertaining how easily some people find ways to make ridiculous statements like this.

[adembroski]

I think the origin of Madden was to make a sim game for its time, and it absolute WAS a sim game for its time.

However, the designers steering the boat from circa 2005 to Madden 09 did not intend a sim game. When the tournament scene popped up in the mid PS2 era, that became their focus.

The current team (who took over the Madden franchise very late in the '09 cycle, so '10 was their first product... their first attempt to right the ship), however, does intend a sim game... but 2 generations of mismanagement leaves a lot of mess to clean up. It's a multi-year project. I think (and think they agree) that last year, they simply bit off too much at once and left most of it unfinished. This year, they seem to be taking a more focused approach and fixing a few areas (locomotion, run blocking, for instance) right, and will move on to other areas in the future.

Like it or not, it's going to take multiple years to fix the broken state that Madden has been lead too since NextGen launched. What we can hope for is a steadily improving game. I don't think we can expect the 2k5 killer in 1 or 2 years.

[mdgoalie37]

I think that the big difference is that the average sports gamer has gotten quite a bit older and wants a more realistic approach to sports games. Back in the 1980's the games were generally geared towards kids and many of those kids are here on OS.

I'm 37. When I was 15 I didn't care if Bo Jackson could literally run around or over an entire team, on every play. Today, I wouldn't even touch a game like that other than maybe for 10 minutes of nostalgia.

[Yankees_CT]

Quote: Originally Posted by mdgoalie37

I think that the big difference is that the average sports gamer has gotten quite a bit older and wants a more realistic approach to sports games. Back in the 1980's the games were generally geared towards kids and many of those kids are here on OS. I'm 37. When I was 15 I didn't care if Bo Jackson could literally run around or over an entire team, on every play. Today, I wouldn't even touch a game like that other than maybe for 10 minutes of nostalgia.

I agree with this for the most part but I still think it has a lot to do with the realistic graphics nowadays. You're right when I was playing Tecmo Bowl, as I assume thats what you were referring to, Bo Jackson ran over, through and past everyone and I loved every minute of it then because we were staring at a video game (sprites, pixels whatever you want to call it) and we were literally playing for the fun of it. But I have a 16 year old cousin who complains about Madden not being realistic enough too and we wouldn't have made comments like that back in the Tecmo days. Which makes me think that the main reason we expect it to play real is because over the last 5 or 6 years the games look real so it now looks ridiculous when a guy dives forward for a 10 yard gain.
Where in the past we were immersed in fun, now we are immersed in a virtual reality and if the game fails to achieve that well....we lodge our complaints here at OS.

[tlc12576]

Quote: Originally Posted by lordnate

Why would EA want to make an arcade game in a sim market? I think that's the problem with the theory. Where is the incentive? It would be much more profitable to appeal to the market. I think it does have to do a lot with the game engine. Sure, 2k did somethings better than Madden, but did they do it with Madden's game engine? No. The problem with Madden is that their game engine relies solely on canned animations and every animation is on a short cycle so they can't make the game look/play fluid.

The market was arcade leaning when games like 2k,Gameday and NFL Fever began making sim leaning games.Those games were leaning sim in an attempt to stand out from Madden.Those games continued to become more sim yearly while Madden stayed the course but continued to dominate.EA saw no reason to change Madden then because even if consumers did try the sim leaning games,they still bought Madden every year.By the time sim leaning games began to make a strong niche in the market and affect Maddens' sales,EA was years behind other companies in sim.They had been trying to get an exclusive NFL license for years to counter this but finally got it in 2004.

Quote: Originally Posted by lordnate

The OP appears to be one of the those that puts 2k5 on par with the holy grail, though without saying it directly. Look, 2k5 had some issues. One, the use of long, instead of short animations, took a lot of user control out. You could get a great looking speed rush but the defender often times would miss the ball carrier because he was stuck in his animation. The whole charge up thing to do a move was also very arcadish. 2k8 was much worse however. To throw the ball to the left side of the field, your QB had to do a spin move unless he was left handed. You either had to have all your defenders shade the inside in coverage or all of them shade the outside and you could see it presnap. So, before the play you knew whether to throw the out route or the post, and one or the other was almost always open. I do think however, 2k had less glitching and it looked at lot better than Madden. Game play didn't quite live up to the look however.

LOL!
Even though I am a personally partial to 2k sports,I do not put 2k5 on par with the holy grail and agree that it has its own flaws.I dont see where I appeared to be suggesting something different when I posted;

Meanwhile,games like NFL Fever and NFL 2k continued to focus on NFL game simulation and were noticably better than Madden in this area.

In contrast,NFL 2k5 was now heavily tilted towards NFL game simulation and had few if any of the same core problems as Madden.NFL 2k5 also had the advantages of having ESPN presentation and a $20 price tag.

[tlc12576]

Quote: Originally Posted by adembroski

I think the origin of Madden was to make a sim game for its time, and it absolute WAS a sim game for its time. However, the designers steering the boat from circa 2005 to Madden 09 did not intend a sim game. When the tournament scene popped up in the mid PS2 era, that became their focus. The current team (who took over the Madden franchise very late in the '09 cycle, so '10 was their first product... their first attempt to right the ship), however, does intend a sim game... but 2 generations of mismanagement leaves a lot of mess to clean up. It's a multi-year project. I think (and think they agree) that last year, they simply bit off too much at once and left most of it unfinished. This year, they seem to be taking a more focused approach and fixing a few areas (locomotion, run blocking, for instance) right, and will move on to other areas in the future. Like it or not, it's going to take multiple years to fix the broken state that Madden has been lead too since NextGen launched. What we can hope for is a steadily improving game. I don't think we can expect the 2k5 killer in 1 or 2 years.

Sim?Sim?I knew early Madden sir,we grew up together and sim is was not!LOL

Most footbal games in Maddens' earliest years were arcade games not sim.The NFL has changed alot over the years but I dont think you can honestly call early Madden anything close to simulating it.

Just to give you an example of what I mean,look up a game called TV Sports Football by Cinemaware.This game was released in the late 80s and clearly shows the difference between a game being sim or arcade.