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Madden's Biggest Issue: Vision and Focus

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Old 07-28-2010, 03:32 PM   #41
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Re: Madden's Biggest Issue: Vision and Focus

Perhaps its the execs and marketing people pushing Madden to what it is becoming. Marketing needs something new to market about the game every year and the execs think they need to attack the casual gaming audience to truly capitalize on EA's exclusive license and the NFL's booming popularity.

What they don't understand is that if people like watching football, and they like video games, there is a great chance that they will buy Madden. They wont buy madden because of game flow, nor will they buy madden for being able to play the game on their level all the time. They will buy the game because they want to throw cool passes, score touchdowns, blow up someone on defense.. all of that.

The casual gamers that they are looking for are not going to be attracted to Madden because of the gadgetry and new features. Heck, they wont even know what those features are or what they truly mean except for a TV commercial blurb or a bullet point on the box. Meanwhile thee people that buy the game every year get irked by this clutter that you call features.


Focus on game play, creating an authentic experience. Make your game so authentic that that 3-4 nose tackle is a fish out of water in a 4-3. Make it so that a big wide receiver that relies on body position is effective in a west coast offense but struggles in a Playaction pass/deep passing game. Make changing your playbook mean something; so that that quick pulling offensive lineman is needed in Mike Shanahan's offense, but is not effective in the cowboy's offense that depends on powerful drive blockers.

Do that stuff.. don't dumb it down... Chasing both audiences will not work.

Instead, why not be more innovative in your business practices? Keep the Madden IP and make it more casual. But create a Madden Maximum or something that has all the hard core authentic game play you could ever want. That way you could get what you want, casual and hard core, both happy, and maximizing the Madden IP name recognition/NFL exclusive license.

Last edited by pinolian; 07-28-2010 at 03:44 PM. Reason: Backyard football is by Atari
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Old 07-28-2010, 03:34 PM   #42
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Re: Madden's Biggest Issue: Vision and Focus

THIS => The casual gamers that they are looking for are not going to be attracted to Madden because of the gadgetry and new features. Heck, they wont even know what those features are or what they truly mean except for a TV commercial blurb or a bullet point on the box. Meanwhile thee people that buy the game every year get irked by this clutter that you call features.

Brilliant IMO...just brilliant...hope Ian reads it.
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Old 07-28-2010, 03:35 PM   #43
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Re: Madden's Biggest Issue: Vision and Focus

I think what's truly needed for focus and vision is longevity. Remember brinkman's 3 year plan with MVP? Most people liked it. He stopped after 2 years with Mlb 2k7, and 2k9 suffered a lot.

This is different in EA's case, because it's still EA, but, this is Ian's 2nd full cycle. It feels like we've been waiting til next year forever, but 06,07,08 were misguided, and I think that's what led to a change in lead designers, regardless of what people say.

10 was fun for me, I think 11 will be too. We'll see, but the WORST thing EA could do is try to add every "little thing" people want in a hodge-podge fashion. I feel Madden is like a college team trying to rebuild...it may still be "finding it's identity" so to speak.
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Old 07-28-2010, 05:32 PM   #44
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Re: Madden's Biggest Issue: Vision and Focus

Quote:
Originally Posted by ODogg
THIS => The casual gamers that they are looking for are not going to be attracted to Madden because of the gadgetry and new features. Heck, they wont even know what those features are or what they truly mean except for a TV commercial blurb or a bullet point on the box. Meanwhile thee people that buy the game every year get irked by this clutter that you call features.

Brilliant IMO...just brilliant...hope Ian reads it.
I agree that this is brillant but I dont see how Ian can help. Madden is a victim of its' own success, IMO. NHL, FIFA, NBA Live/Elite and other EA sports games are just games to EA. They want them to sell but they are not the suits focal point like Madden is. Up until the exclusive NFL license Madden pretty much was innovated and updated on par with other EA sports games. After the large investments made in the exclusive licenses, NFL, ESPN and Arena football, Madden became more than just a video game juggernaut to EA. It became THE focal point product for EA suits because that's where the most investment was made. Suits can be good at making money but very seldom good at creating products. These last 6 years have the fingerprints of EA suits' micromanagement of Madden everywhere, IMO.

While I dont always agree with what little creative vision the devs are allowed to add, it's far different from my contempt for the suits profit driven features. I cant honestly believe it's Ians' idea to make some many features fee-based and noob friendly. I do hold him accountable for the implementation of most features but not for their profit driven aspects.

The end of the exclusive NFL license would not allow mean competition is back but would potentially restore order to the Madden dev cycle. With devs actually developing Madden and EA suits doing whatever the hell it is they are good at because it sure aint Madden development.
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Old 07-28-2010, 05:34 PM   #45
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Re: Madden's Biggest Issue: Vision and Focus

tlc - yeah I agree, that's what I postulated earlier in this thread, that Madden is a victim of it's own success. EA will continue to try to push it to be bigger and more accessible and until they realize it's just a football game and some people simply will never play it we will keep having our issues with the game. Not sure there is much Ian can do about that at all. It's really on someone higher up, the suits as they call them, to get a real direction of the series to be that of a football game who has it's particular audience, not a video game that they can make mainstream across all demographics if they just "tweak it enough".
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