Developer Interaction for Madden 11

[davjaffe]

So, I know the well has been poisoned (metaphorically) by some of the ill-mannered trolls who crawled out last year to attack the developers (aside: no, I'm not talking about those who respectfully made their contrasting opinions known), and I know Ian Cummings has made some statements to the effect that he won't be hanging around these parts too much in the coming months, but does anyone have any more info about how (if???) the developers plan to interact with the gaming public again for this year's iteration?

[capn_razzamataz]

I'd imagine they'll still post some official blogs and such, but I don't foresee the devs popping up in threads here to answer questions or make comments.

[Segagendude]

Ian's Twitter, I'd imagine. Stinks if true, because I'm not signing up just to read what "might" be in M11.

Or, the EA blogs, if there are any coming......

[DustinT]

Quote: Originally Posted by Segagendude

Ian's Twitter, I'd imagine. Stinks if true, because I'm not signing up just to read what "might" be in M11. Or, the EA blogs, if there are any coming......

What did Ian say that was in M10 that didn't show up?

I see Ian doing what he did last year, but honestly I'd rather him spend his time making a game not reading a forum about people complaining about how Madden sucks.

[Valdarez]

Couple of months back Ian said they were investigating other ways of community interaction (something to that effect, not the exact wording). He also said that all forums foster negative feedback (again, not exact wording) which is something that you can't really argue with, but I'm not sure what he was expecting when he started enteracting. Only thing I'm not certain he's realizes is that for all the negativity he received his input / interaction was a positive for the community and the game.

From my interaction with 2K Sports and from what I have seen with Ian and other EA reps and other companies like Relic / TimeGate that in general gaming companies don't have a clue how to interact with their customer base and they are constantly amazed that consumers (their customers) are unhappy. I posted this once, and I"ll go ahead and post it again, but the companies that have a yearly release should put up a public list of identified bugs and/or features that are being worked on based on consumer feedback. That way, when people do complain (which they will) Ian, or the company rep can point them to a link and say 'we're on it', or 'we are aware of it, but it's not yet prioritized'. That way their customer's feel like they have been heard, which is the problem right now. There's so much negativity because every gaming consumer/customer feels ignored. And the fact that EA has an exclusive license (effectively killing NFL 2K5) and their unit is headed by Peter Moore (architect of the XBox 360 failure fiasco) only adds fuel to the fire.

[IRISHFBFAN1]

Quote: Originally Posted by eckoefx

What did Ian say that was in M10 that didn't show up? I see Ian doing what he did last year, but honestly I'd rather him spend his time making a game not reading a forum about people complaining about how Madden sucks.

One of the best posts to date! I have never seen a forum filled with so many dry babies about MADDEN AND NCAA LOL UNBELIEVABLE!

[Valdarez]

Quote: Originally Posted by IRISHFBFAN1

One of the best posts to date! I have never seen a forum filled with so many dry babies about MADDEN AND NCAA LOL UNBELIEVABLE!

You don't visit too many forums then. Game forums are primarily dedicated to people complaining about a given game. That's true for pretty much any game for any genre.

[Hova57]

the problem is that people was insulting him as a person and his integrity which wasn't cool. people just need to keep the comment to the game insulting him and his work ethic not necessary you wouldn't want someone who really don't have a clear thought of everything you do just to tell you . you have no clue what or how to do your job. it really unfornate because he did give great info . i believe it will be like russ is doing for ncaa he does a video and then asks for suggestions on the ea site and he'll go and have a chat session