What exactly is wrong with franchise?

[St. Chaos]

Quote: Originally Posted by beastsofboston

lol you dont know what your talking about here. Madden first off is not lacking because ea is lazy, or they dont put time into it. Ok its lacking because they add big features that the average consumer will like but the hardcore will not.

And you don't know what you're talking about because you clearly have no clue how the product marketplace works and you think you know everything.

The problem isn't that they add a big feature to please the masses. Many (most) of them don't effect hardcore players one way or another. It's the lack of things that are absolutely necessary to be added (core gameplay mechanics, like the lack of double teaming big NTs in a 3-4 scheme). However, the reason that they havn't already added them is indeed laziness.

Laziness caused by a result of necessity because they have no competition. There's little need to spend the extra funds and put extra time into developing a product when you have monopolized a given industry. In fact it's bad from a business sense to do so because it is inefficient.

Do you honestly think that with all of the manpower and money EA has at their disposal that the best they can do with Madden in an ENTIRE YEAR is add 1 or 2 noteworthy features, a handful of rather insignificant ones, and fix maybe 5% of the game's issues? You couldn't possibly believe they aren't deliberately dragging their asses... And if you do, I'm definitely done talking to you.

[countryboy]

Bottom line is that nobody here knows what gets discussed behind closed doors at EA. Nor does anyone know for a fact how EA decides what to put into a game any given year. To argue, debate, speculate as if one knows for a fact what actually goes into each decision is ridiculous.

Can we please get back to discussing what we do know and stop speculating the business practices of EA or any development company? This thread was having a mature, civil discussion about the franchise mode, and now its going down this path.

Thanks...

[DrewsLions]

Quote: Originally Posted by adembroski

Yes, they used to have those, but they were all half-implemented and broken.

Yeah, but that's part of my point. Where is the progression of those features? Why take out training camp or scouting combine? It's already there. Just work on it and get it right. Year over year, there is no progress.

I have Madden '06 on my PC that I've had a franchise going (on-again off-again) for many years. Sure, I use mods and all that, but even bare-bones, it was the best Madden for Franchise, IMO. Most of it works. Progression is pretty good. The randomized draft classes work pretty well. Sim stats were just about perfect. I have a set of sliders I've been using for years that have given me as flawless results as a video game can give within the parameters. That should have been the carry-over to next gen. Instead, they were in a rush to implement and left all the progress on the cutting room floor. Oh, what could have been.....