Are You Losing Interest In Madden More And More Each Year?

[statum71]

First of all...I love football. Pro AND College. They are by far my favorite sports.

But I voted yes, just based on the difference I can feel in excitement when I play my sports games.

I'm just so entertained and drawn in when I play The Show, NBA 2K11 and NHL 11.

But when I play either football game, I just feel a lot less of that. Honestly.

[grunt]

EA should be worry about this thread. Posters aren't the Madden haters or the 2k fans but football gamers that are fed up. This is my first year in close to 14 years that I didnt pick up Madden and I am not even tempted to but the game.

Madden is showing all the signs of a dying series. Just look at the poll numbers.

[LiquorLogic]

Quote: Originally Posted by SalutationsNJ

Yes only because I'm stationed in Europe and can't adjust my life to 31 other people in the States to have a great online franchise experience. Madden '11 is the 2k5 Killer, y'all just gonna have to respect those guys "hustle" and move on in my most humble opinion. Y'all take that exclusive liscense ish a little too far sometimes, it takes two to tango and I haven't read about anyone on these forums bashing/boycotting the NFL Edit: I think their headed in the right direction, yup that was me... I'll explain further if need be.

First of all, in my opinion as well as many others, M11 isn't the 2k5 killer, and if it was it would still be a shame. You know what game should have been the "2k5 killer?" Madden 06, that's the game that should have rendered 2k5 irrelevant. It was released a year later, and one of the two versions was released on superior hardware.

Secondly, the NFL hasn't been putting out sub par products for the last five years. EA admitted to lobbying for the exclusive deal for years before the NFL finally decided sign an exclusive contract;the NFL did what was best for them financially. Now I understand that this is a business, and EA, since they had exclusivity, didn't have to give us a 100% every year, but can you honestly tell me that they even gave us 50% ? Aside from the graphics, the game has not progressed at all. You still have more options on football games, published by EA, that were made half a decade ago.

Quote: Originally Posted by Stack'n Skrillaz

This is not a Madden bashing thread and my intentions are not to bash this game. These are just thoughts I have about where this game is headed. I am 27 years old and have been playing this series since the 90s and I don't know if I am just growing out of it or if it's the direction where this franchise has headed but eversince the Madden 06 each year I start to lose more and more interest in this game. Don't get me wrong Madden 11 is by far the best Madden this gen but I felt it wasn't enough. I just feel that Madden needs to make some "Big Changes" and add "Big Features" to win back alot of peoples hearts. Not trying to make this another NBA 2K vs. Madden debate but if you look at Madden 06 thru Madden 11 and compare it to NBA 2K6 thru NBA 2K11. Out of this 5 year span NBA 2K has made more noticeable changes to improve their game year by year. No disrespect to the developers because I am pretty sure those guys bust their butts off overtime to make this game year in and year out and if I was in their shoes I wouldn't even have the skills to make a decent game. But hey that's why they're paid and trained to do what they do.

If you were growing out of videos games, and were truly losing interest, you wouldn't be on a forum talking about a Video game. It's the direction the series has taken. As I said earlier, video games aren't only for children.

[jeremym480]

Quote: Originally Posted by Armor & Sword

You nailed it. Gameplay is better than it has ever been in the series. It is the immersion and depth that needs to keep me playing for years.

This.

I'm a Madden supporter however, they are slowly losing me. Reason being is because the game (offline franchise cough, cough) has became so stale. They take more and more stuff out each year and expect us to get more enjoyment out of it.... I mean, no more Assistant Coaches or no more dirty uniforms in 11. Why take that out? I don't get it.

Now, I understand that their goal in 11 was to get game-play and sim stats back on track and I think they did a decent job with that. However, since they announced that there would be no improvement's to offline franchise the least I was hoping for (as far as immersion is concerned) was the QB story-lines to work as advertised. Which they do not and it doesn't look like they will be fixed via a patch either. I realize this may be a petty request to some and most people probably just skip past the intros anyway. However, I was really looking forward to seeing those. Especially since there were no other new "features" in offline franchise. The fact that they dropped the ball on that basically made me lose all interest in 11.

In closing, I think the boys at EA should look at Sony and 2K to see how an offline sports franchise should work. There's just something to be said about NBA 2K11. Basketball is basically my third or fourth favorite sport in real life yet, it is my favorite video game sport. The Association with player roles and allocating playing time just keeps me coming back for more. And yes, I realize that next year is supposed to be the year for us offline franchise guys. However, at this point my faith is no where near where it should be because EA has yet to show me any reason to truly believe in them.

[Armor and Sword]

Quote: Originally Posted by kjcheezhead

This game lost me every since I made the jump to PS3. I don't understand how people can say this is the best madden ever either. Do people hate playing defense or something? I wanna be able to play off one wr on a play. I wanna be able to bump 1 wr. I wanna be able to shade wrs if the slant is my oppoenents favorite play. I used to be able to do that and more in Madden. I also just want realistic animations, something once again the ps2 madden did better. Who needs run blocking when rbs are capable of doing this... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmW5RmdFwyk Finally, this game lacks depth. Minigames like rushing attack, superstar mode, online franchise are all extremely vanilla to say the least. Once again, pop in a ps2 game and try the swat ball drill, superstar mode and see how much more engaging they are. Even online franchise was deeper on ps2 thanks to the EA lockers. No other sports game lacks so much that it once had on weaker systems and keeps its fans. That is the popularity of the NFL in America.

In that regard and no doubt Owners/Franchise Mode Madden 05 and 07 were the best. But I like the gameplay of Madden 2011 and of course the graphics much better. The running game feels great and the game feels more real to me then the previous gen versions of Madden.

I do think overall Madden 2005 is the best in the series but 2011 is right there at the top with it as far as gameplay.

I think we all agree Madden as far as features has taken 3 steps back on the new gen consoles. and it is baffling.

But when I read interviews with Ian Cummings and constantly see the old "the telemetrics tell us" line I understand what is going on.

We (offline/online franchise players) are not there target audience. We have been phased out to make room for the lobby and Ultimate Team players.

It's that's simple.

I have a glimmer of hope 2012 brings us the deepest franchsie mode ever for the series. But it is just a glimmer.

[phant030]

I would say they have one track minds and outdated stategies/plans. We should be on Hit Stick 5.0 by now.....they try to add new things, but never enhance the old stuff....we'll give em Hit stick this yr, then truck stick next yr....but Hit stick doesnt get improved any. 5 yrs later, hit stick has not improved (it is less effective good, but still should be a tackling stick not a big hit modifier)Work on online franchise, but nothing on offline...then nobody play online franchise, but they dont enhance it any, just saying not enough users are playing the mode----dont you the 1/2 of mode was the problem lol....

They want to blow out a feature every year, this strategy just doesn't work like it did back on the PS2 days. Back then, everything was innovated b/c we hadn't really saw anything yet. Now we are exposed to a lot more, that's not going to work. If they made 1 update to franchise since 06 every year we would have a decent mode....but they want it to rot in the garage then restoring it a later period.

I think , they believe the problems are balancing issues, and not the underlying technology.

[tlc12576]

Quote: Originally Posted by Winnipeg59

I will only add my 2c... Agree that this years game has some things that are quite simply, and in many cases painfully evidently, broken. For that reason alone, I've lost interest. I would encourage just getting that fixed either for a patch now OR certainly not push that out of the priorities in lieu of a "new game-selling feature" for the next go-round! With respect to the good comment about the game developers making us follow their vision instead of making the game "we want" AND the equally good counter-argument of all games essentially doing that. Both points are essentially true, but I would also add: - The "vision" this particular game develper should always strive for is there for all to see on Sundays (and Mondays, and the odd Thursday). - And of course the simple fact that "we" (every football/Madden fan) will never be fully pleased with anything and everything in the game as each player also has their vision of perfection.

This right here sums it up, IMO.

I had to say yes to the poll question and that's pretty sad coming from me. Considering I have not been of fan of Madden for a long time and have low expectations in the first place.

It bothers me when I see anyone take a simple concept and make it harder than it has to be. Programming, marketing, financing and even implementation might be hard but vision, shouldnt be. JUST COPY THE NFL!

I know Im somewhat over simplifying but still, I think people get my point. I love NFL football and would love Madden if it more closely simulated it. Before someone chimes in with "Madden does simulate NFL football for me,blah, blah, blah", SAVE IT!

Simulating NFL football is not some singular task that can be added in general. "What you see on Sundays" is different for each of us based on which of the 32 teams we are a fan of. I am a hardcore Redskins fan, what I see on Sundays is different from what a Colts or Patriots fan does. The NFL is a sum of it's unique parts, from team play styles to players personalities and all sorts of things in between. NCAA 11 began to touch on this with all of its' different offensive sets and unique pregame entrances. Madden has the Saints intro for every team and does stuff like having every receiver doing the "David Tyree"!

NFL fans will continue to have less interest in Madden until EA shows more interest in the unique NFL details.

[LiquorLogic]

Quote: Originally Posted by Armor & Sword

In that regard and no doubt Owners/Franchise Mode Madden 05 and 07 were the best. But I like the gameplay of Madden 2011 and of course the graphics much better. The running game feels great and the game feels more real to me then the previous gen versions of Madden. I do think overall Madden 2005 is the best in the series but 2011 is right there at the top with it as far as gameplay. I think we all agree Madden as far as features has taken 3 steps back on the new gen consoles. and it is baffling. But when I read interviews with Ian Cummings and constantly see the old "the telemetrics tell us" line I understand what is going on. We (offline/online franchise players) are not there target audience. We have been phased out to make room for the lobby and Ultimate Team players. It's that's simple. I have a glimmer of hope 2012 brings us the deepest franchsie mode ever for the series. But it is just a glimmer.

Don't you think there is something wrong with that statement ? M05 and M11 have six years between them.