Madden's Biggest Issue: Vision and Focus

[johnprestonevans]

I also feel that the developement team that is actually making the game take pride in what they do. They are talented artists and programmers for sure. What I feel is the issue is the higher level that instructs that team what they will be focusing on each given year. Madden 10 was a nice step forward for the franchise. Going "back to basics" and delivering a solid football experience was the best thing they could have done. My concern is that this year, instead of continuing with that focus, they decided to shift to a very casual audience by taking the play-calling decisions out of that audience's hands. A fine idea, but certainly not one that is a back-of-the-box selling point for most Madden gamers. No progress in the Extra Point or camera options is inexcusable when sacrificed in favor of a marketing-driven casual playcalling system.

[tlc12576]

Quote: Originally Posted by jvaccaro

I don't view this as "the problem" at all. I'm sure the dev team takes pride in their job and gives their best effort, or else their job would be at risk. Competition wouldn't hurt, but I believe this card is waaay overplayed. I strongly disagree. Madden 10 took the largest steps in terms of becoming a "sim" game. Unless you're referring to the wii version (and I don't think so) I don't see this. For every gimmicky-type option they may introduce (gameflow/no sprint/fight for fumble) you can turn it off or back to the way it was originally. It also looks like Madden 11 is going to be even more sim now with locomotion and improved blocking logic. I'm sorry, but this sounds a little bit like a conspiracy theory to me. I'm not buying it, and I have my BS in Business Admin w/ a major in Marketing. My personal opinion is that people are still trying to look at it like we should have a game that is vastly improved every single year. But we all know that the dev team took a huge step backwards rewriting for next gen... If you based your expectations off of improvements over last year only (not where one person thinks the serious should be by now) then you'd be less disappointed. I also feel that people underestimate the challenge of coding AI for 22 players on the field at the same time. It's a challenge uniqe to football games. just my $0.02

Everybody is entitled to their own opinion but Im suprised to hear a consumer say they dont see the lack of competition "as the problem AT ALL". All this talk about Ortiz and code being bad along with it taking till Madden 10 to finally make a decent NFL game, took place under the exclusive license. If you honestly believe that these mistakes and problems, if the true cause, wouldnt have been corrected sooner with competition, I think you are sadly mistaken.

Also, even with the lack of competition, EA taking till Madden 10 to finally make a decent next-gen Madden because of code problems is unacceptable, IMO. I know Ortiz is gone but EA has been in charge the entire time. Like the OP has said, it seems obvious that the executives are the ones mounting this bull and the devs are just holding the horns. No reason for us not to believe this was the case with Madden 06 too. So getting rid of Ortiz would seem more like a scapegoat but actually had little to do with who has been accountable all along, EA.

EA has been the ONE company consistently in charge of next-gen Madden. Therefore, consumers should expect to see consistent improvement EVERY year in Madden, not everytime a new dev leader is appointed or new code has to be written. I cant go to EA and say I want to buy Madden for $10 because I got my hours cut at work. EA doesnt want to hear my excuses for not paying for their game and likewise, I dont want to hear EA's excuses for Madden not being where it should be.

EA is in business to make Madden to make money not excuses, period.

[HealyMonster]

I think this is an excellent thread.

The big issue is Vision and focus. Look at Madden 10. The game didn't do anything "great". What I mean by this is that they implemented online franchise, better presentation, pro tak, and the qb arm motion while being hit thing. Pro tak turned out to be a bit buggy, the qb arm animation was a mess, online franchise was nearly a worthless feature to people not willing to spend 40 hours a week trying to keep everything in order with a pen and a paper. The web site they gave you was pointless and didn't work properly half the time at least at first. And then to top it off they now admit that half the things they did as far as presentation "was just for the sake of doing it with no real rhyme or reason". While yes this was a lot better than 09, essentially everything they "gave us" had something wrong with it.

Im not exaggerating, and i dont think anyone can really argue with that. To some people, thats good to go. they dont need polished features. But make no mistake, Madden is seemingly the only game that gets away with being completely unpolished every year. For the most part because theres no competition, but also because the developers are still riding the coat tails of the devs that made 90-2004 when Madden made a name for itself. The truth is madden has done no innovating or been complete since 2005, they admit most of that themselves.

to boot, back to my original thought, if they had the vision to say make presentation solid and hold off on online franchise. NFL 2k5 might not of had the best gameplay, but their presentation was GREAT. MLB the show might not have the greatest presentation, but their stadiums and animations are GREAT. You see what I mean? There is nothing in Madden to say OK, that'll get fixed next year, for now though Franchise is great, or the stadiums are great, or presentation is great. They are behind the ball in every area of the game and even when they try to improve something like commentary, we are back to where we started again. Nothing I have see says its great. Its like last years commentary with a new voice. If they implemented some type of dynamic commentary, something new and innovative then that is something we could cling to like ok, they are moving in the right direction. that commentary is great. But its not, its the same commentary with a new guy doing it which essentially removes the possibility that we will have Madden commentary rival what nba 2k is doing. I say this because I doubt they are going to redo commentary 2 years in a row so next year will essentially be the same as this year. And thats a shame. they went through 3 types of commentary and still have not taken a step forward. That in itself is the soul of this thread.

[GiantBlue76]

Quote: Originally Posted by jvaccaro

I don't view this as "the problem" at all. I'm sure the dev team takes pride in their job and gives their best effort, or else their job would be at risk. Competition wouldn't hurt, but I believe this card is waaay overplayed. I strongly disagree. Madden 10 took the largest steps in terms of becoming a "sim" game. Unless you're referring to the wii version (and I don't think so) I don't see this. For every gimmicky-type option they may introduce (gameflow/no sprint/fight for fumble) you can turn it off or back to the way it was originally. It also looks like Madden 11 is going to be even more sim now with locomotion and improved blocking logic. I'm sorry, but this sounds a little bit like a conspiracy theory to me. I'm not buying it, and I have my BS in Business Admin w/ a major in Marketing. My personal opinion is that people are still trying to look at it like we should have a game that is vastly improved every single year. But we all know that the dev team took a huge step backwards rewriting for next gen... If you based your expectations off of improvements over last year only (not where one person thinks the serious should be by now) then you'd be less disappointed. I also feel that people underestimate the challenge of coding AI for 22 players on the field at the same time. It's a challenge uniqe to football games. just my $0.02

I guess you didn't play many other football games on last gen. Also, no where in my post did I say the developers don't take pride in their jobs. However, if you think Madden is even remotely close to any of the other sports games or is as good as some past gen football games, I'd have to disagree with you, as would many others on this board.

Madden 11 looks to be much improved on the field, and I'm really happy to see that. However, it is still missing a lot of key elements that I think most can agree, should have been in there by now.

Also, much of the dev team working on the game now is the same dev team which worked on Madden the last 6 years. They all were responsible for the misdirection the franchise took at that time.

Also, you can think it's a conspiracy theory all you want, but I have my sources when it comes to that kind of information. The comparison was made to MLB the show. Less people bought the newest version because the previous year was so good, there was little reason to upgrade. If you don't think that is a consideration by upper management, you truly have rose colored glasses on.

[jvaccaro]

Quote: Originally Posted by tazdevil20

The problem is that there is no competition

Quote: Originally Posted by jvaccaro

I don't view this as "the problem" at all.

Quote: Originally Posted by tlc12576

Everybody is entitled to their own opinion but Im suprised to hear a consumer say they dont see the lack of competition "as the problem AT ALL".

I didn't say it wasn't any problem at all. It may be a part of a bigger issue, and I did say that competition can't hurt. However, when the exclusive license is referred to as "The problem" with EA's handling of Madden, I think that's way too big of a scape goat.

[jvaccaro]

Quote: Originally Posted by tazdevil20

if you think Madden is even remotely close to any of the other sports games or is as good as some past gen football games, I'd have to disagree with you, as would many others on this board.

just to clarify:

Madden 10 isn't even remotely close to as good as any other sports games ..?

also, Madden 10 isn't as good as some past gen football games ..?

The first part is obviously a huge exaggeration and hard to take seriously. The second part is kinda true depending how you look at it -- but all you're really saying is that this Madden isn't the best one ever. I disagree with that, but to each his own...

I freely admit that 2k5 did some things better than madden (and it would be really odd if the game had no strengths) but I'm not the one with the rose colored glasses if somebody truly thinks the last gen offerings are still truly superior video games to Madden 10.


I'm convinced that people didn't mess with any sliders or settings with this game. With a little bit of tweaking for personal taste, you can really get a good game of football.

[DaveDQ]

Quote: Originally Posted by RiderGH

to boot, back to my original thought, if they had the vision to say make presentation solid and hold off on online franchise. NFL 2k5 might not of had the best gameplay, but their presentation was GREAT. MLB the show might not have the greatest presentation, but their stadiums and animations are GREAT. You see what I mean? There is nothing in Madden to say OK, that'll get fixed next year, for now though Franchise is great, or the stadiums are great, or presentation is great. They are behind the ball in every area of the game and even when they try to improve something like commentary, we are back to where we started again. Nothing I have see says its great. Its like last years commentary with a new voice. If they implemented some type of dynamic commentary, something new and innovative then that is something we could cling to like ok, they are moving in the right direction. that commentary is great. But its not, its the same commentary with a new guy doing it which essentially removes the possibility that we will have Madden commentary rival what nba 2k is doing. I say this because I doubt they are going to redo commentary 2 years in a row so next year will essentially be the same as this year. And thats a shame. they went through 3 types of commentary and still have not taken a step forward. That in itself is the soul of this thread.

Good points. The commentary issue is probably one of the best examples of the game lacking a core identity. Instead of truly recreating the game's commentary, they added a new voice. They didn't however change the dynamics of the mechanism. That's what takes vision and focus. The vision would be to see a game where the commentary is more precise and specific to what is transpiring, coupled with a color commentator that compliments the happenings of the game. The focus would be to stick to your scheme and follow it through until fruition.

The game isn't entirely stale. I really like Madden's approach to pre-snap features. Everything is clean and never confusing, allowing you to adjust very quickly. that is definitely something they do well. On the other hand, the core gameplay suffers to the point that I just don't anticipate its release.

It's almost as if they plant seeds every year but never mind the garden.

[RGiles36]

Good thread...so much so that I'm not even sure what direction to go with it .

Knowing that you, Johnprestonevans, are a big presentation guy, I'll go into that topic. Many of us since playing NFL2K5 have waited for Madden to come with that AUTHENTIC broadcast presentation. We got bits and pieces last year and many of us thought it was going to set the platform to be blown out in M11. While video evidence show us that presentation is sharper and more realistic, it's still not something that mimicks TV to a tee. As a result, some of us are disappointed and continue to be underwhelmed.

As of late, I've sort of changed my tune on EA's version of football presentation. Some would deem it the waving of the white flag and I'm alright with that LOL. But to our chagrin, I just feel now that Tiburon is not out to blow us away with presentation. And if the various Madden gameplay videos that pop up (E3 vids for example) are any indication, then maybe Tiburon is not exactly at fault. How many videos have you watched when the users are button-mashing right through that stuff? The majority! Even the hardcore of the hardcore at CD were seen sometimes running right through whatever presentation was implemented at the time.

So from a 'everything you see on Sunday' and presentation standpoint, I wouldn't say that the vision has changed. EA is always attempting to adapt to today's sports gamer. And if today's sports gamer prefers to be on the field rather than sitting through fancy replays or in-depth presentational analysis, I don't know that I can really knock EA. W/out a doubt, I want NFL2K'ish presentation. But I'm starting to think that EA is not uber-concerned about delivering it and maybe with just reason.

Quote: Originally Posted by johnprestonevans

Look at what NHL is doing. They have a 3 year plan to fully implement a new physics engine. This year is about checking...next year is something else...and the year after it all comes together. Excellent. I think we can understand that it takes time to get things right. I accept that and i'm excited to see NHL continue to improved and polish its game. But Madden is more like this marketing juggernaut that does whatever it takes – makes false promises and goes casual...then hardcore...then casual...back and forth to try and get their sales up.

While I agree with you, what makes you think that Tiburon doesn't have a 2-3 year plan for Madden? You see, I sometimes think that we see what we want to see when it comes to Madden -- especially in cases when people aren't satisfied with the game. Last year, they slowed down the gameplay and removed all the superficial junk from year's past. They scaled back the ratings so that speed wasn't the only important thing any more. Fast forward to M11, now that the speed is slowed down, let's build locomotion on top of that. Let's re-work one of the foundations of football: run-blocking. Let's improve the catching so Madden receivers play more like NFL receivers. And I have no doubt that M12 will focus on another core aspect of the game. What I'm trying to say here is that Madden DOES have a X-year plan in place -- they don't have to come out and say it.

In a sense, Madden is taking the same approach that NHL is. I'm of the belief that the water has boiled over though: people could care less about who was in control 4-5 years ago (David Ortiz). All they know is that they've had poor football products the last several years. So while Madden has taken noticeable strides, people are so fed up that those strides seem insignificant IMO.

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What I do think Madden suffers from is lack of innovation. Don't get me wrong, they are taking some chances in changing the way playcalling has been handled for the last 20+ years. But where is the real innovation? Where is the knock-your-socks-off stuff?

When we think of NHL series, we now think of this new physics engine they're introducing. When we think of Backbreaker, we think of their Euphoria engine. When we think of FightNight, we think about how realistic the impact is in that game and the anticipation of a new single player mode. When we think of NBA Elite, we think of their new control scheme to change the way basketball is played (though the player movement still looks horrible lol). When we think of NBA2K (at least this year), we think of MJ on the cover and all the wow moments we're going to have. What do we think of when we think Madden? Anything really groundbreaking to get your juices flowing? Any new control scheme like NBA Elite (I'll give them the dual stick controls)? A new way to pass the ball to give us more control than ever? Nope. A new physics engine as of yet? Nope.

I just want to see Madden be at the forefront of something for sports games instead of seemingly trailing behind. That's what's missing in my opinion.