IGN: You Can't Compete with Madden... EA and the NFL Won't Let You

[lofeazy]

I just shock that IGN had some balls to do a story like this.(But like everybody else said its nothing new.)

[DaveDQ]

IGN can do a story like this because it's safe to. They would never offer this story up around release time. While all IGN may be doing here is blogging about what we already know 1000 times over, they are safe about it and never do what so many gamers are begging for:

Hold EA Sports and Tiburon accountable. Don't allow your site to continuously give the game high 8s and 9s for a rating and then come back at the end of the season and throw a few obvious lines out.

Talk about the lack luster franchise and how it wasn't touched in the review. Mention the still broken tackling sequencing that is continuously untouched. And let such things drop the score a point or even two. Compare this title's progress to the likes of The Show and NBA 2K and truly hold EA Sports accountable.

I triple dog dare you.

[100 Proof]

Quote: Originally Posted by guaps

I agree! There isn't a perfect football game out there, but one seemed to focus on getting the fundamentals of football right, while Madden seems to focus on getting the graphical side of football right. As someone mentioned somewhere on OS: Madden looks a lot like real football until you snap the ball. The underlying problem is not that they don't care about fundamentally sound gameplay. I just think that EA top management don't see the need for proper football as long as they can satisfy many fans by doing relatively easier and cheaper yearly improvements. Kid Average isn't gonna notice that the fundamentals are flawed as long as he can throw lots of deep passes with Manning or Brady. As I've said before on this forum, I don't see Tiburon creating a fundamentally sound football video game until we get new game engines, which mostly likely will not be until we get new consoles.

I think you and St Chaos are missing the point though. Madden hasn't focused on adding all basic football fundamentals for 6 years but has still continued to add features nobody asked for. I at least want them adding requested features since it seems pretty obvious they are going to continue piecemealing real football basics every year.

The sad thing is, this IGN article could have been written every year of the exclusive NFL license and it would still apply. I really believe what we have been getting these 6 years is the new normal under lack of NFL competition. Even with Madden 10, which I actually consider the best next gen Madden, and the big leap forward that game "seemed" to take at first glance, we still got that same piecemeal approach. Not bashing or anything but can someone tell me the features in Madden 10 that were complete and worked as advertised?

Even in the franchise with the addition of player interests in Free Agent Wire, I haven't seen any noticeable affect on signing players. Defensive Assignments doesn't work properly, if you assign 1 defender to a player, you better assign ALL defenders to a player, so guys are not left wide open. Protak no, online franchise no, procedual awareness no, etc.

Typing this is kind of eye opening and helping me realize how irrational it is to expect Madden 12 to be much different. I always felt Madden 10 set the bar for these 6 years but looking back, now I feel it was really just the usual MO of piecemeal.

Unless Madden 12 actually completes features like protak, blocking AI and the Extra Point Show, I'm not buying it. Before getting wrapped up in all the "additions" like I did in Madden 10, I will judge Madden 12 by what COMPLETE features it has.gl

[BlueNGold]

Quote: Originally Posted by guaps

I agree! There isn't a perfect football game out there, but one seemed to focus on getting the fundamentals of football right, while Madden seems to focus on getting the graphical side of football right. As someone mentioned somewhere on OS: Madden looks a lot like real football until you snap the ball. The underlying problem is not that they don't care about fundamentally sound gameplay. I just think that EA top management don't see the need for proper football as long as they can satisfy many fans by doing relatively easier and cheaper yearly improvements. Kid Average isn't gonna notice that the fundamentals are flawed as long as he can throw lots of deep passes with Manning or Brady. As I've said before on this forum, I don't see Tiburon creating a fundamentally sound football video game until we get new game engines, which mostly likely will not be until we get new consoles.

I'm starting to get tired of reading this **** (also including some of the things St. Chaos has said as well).

I'm by no means a guy that's going to defend Madden at each and every opportunity. I didn't really like '11 that much and haven't played it in months with no regret, but to make ridiculous statements like this is what got rid of the devs interacting with us in the first place and why, even though things like instant bans are being handed down, the Madden forum is still filled with this garbage.

If they didn't care about "fundamentally sound gameplay", why would they scrap all of their old run blocking code and re-do it to resemble real life blocking schemes? Just to do it for fun? Come on now....

Madden is by no means perfect and still needs a lot of work (we can thank guys like David Ortiz for that), but they're getting there and the game is in a hell of a lot better place than it was from the start of next-gen up to Madden '09. Making a great simulation game doesn't happen overnight. Just look at NBA 2K. It took them from 2K6 to 2K11 to make the basketball game the simheads have always wanted.

[Only1LT]

Lol. I had to laugh when I read this article, because it sounded like it was written by a forum poster.

[Only1LT]

Quote: Originally Posted by BlueNGold

I'm starting to get tired of reading this **** (also including some of the things St. Chaos has said as well). I'm by no means a guy that's going to defend Madden at each and every opportunity. I didn't really like '11 that much and haven't played it in months with no regret, but to make ridiculous statements like this is what got rid of the devs interacting with us in the first place and why, even though things like instant bans are being handed down, the Madden forum is still filled with this garbage. If they didn't care about "fundamentally sound gameplay", why would they scrap all of their old run blocking code and re-do it to resemble real life blocking schemes? Just to do it for fun? Come on now.... Madden is by no means perfect and still needs a lot of work (we can thank guys like David Ortiz for that), but they're getting there and the game is in a hell of a lot better place than it was from the start of next-gen up to Madden '09. Making a great simulation game doesn't happen overnight. Just look at NBA 2K. It took them from 2K6 to 2K11 to make the basketball game the simheads have always wanted.

It's very easy for people to use Ortiz as a scapegoat, but this is neither fair, nor accurate. Madden's problems pre-date Ortiz' appointment by a couple of decades. The game is not all that different. I'm still amazed that people still cling to the Ortiz is gone there's only good times ahead, mantra.

The team is the same. It's been the same forever. Game development is a creative field. Creative people are motivated by the creative process, and the end result. Not to say that money isn't a factor, but it is secondary to the actual work. These aren't blue collar people. They haven't been dogging it all this time and are, all of a sudden, going to turn it on. It's been on as much as it is ever going to be, for the last decade.

I'm sorry. It's time people stop deluding themselves. Either the team has reached it's development limits, or the culture that is in place, isn't designed to take advantage of their untapped creative talents. Either way, the story will end the same. You know how it ends, even if you don't want to admit it to yourself.

Most people won't agree with this, and that's fine. It's fine to have faith, even if I have none, but it just irks me a little when people use Ortiz' ouster as a beacon for a bright future, when it's obvious they haven't paid much attention to the past. If they did, they'd remember that the game that they are playing today, was designed to play like the game they played 10yrs ago, and unfortunately, for the most part, they've succeeded.

[pietasterp]

To me, the entire point of the demise of football gaming (and sports gaming in general) perpetrated by EA is that people are having this back-and-forth about whether they should fix the franchise or the basic fundamentals of football as if it is an either/or proposition. Given adequate competition (or any at all), there's no question both would be fixed annually, or else they'd find themselves in an NBA Elite-like situation with a few short years. The fact that they attempt to improve their game by the decade, rather than by the year, is allowed only by the fact that there is no other measuring stick by which to measure progress (or lack thereof).

I give IGN some credit for bringing this argument to the mainstream; after all, I haven't seen any other major media outlet call out EA on this since it went down in 2005 (frankly, I didn't think anyone but OS'ers cared...). But if you ask me, it's too little, too late. I believe we on this forum called this 6 years ago - we all knew what would happen to football gaming for the duration of the exclusive license, and lo and behold, here it has come to pass almost exactly as predicted.

EA did violence to football gaming, not to mention sports gaming as a whole, and should be held accountable for it. Or at least it should be acknowledged that they did so. Think about this: this entire next-gen cycle has been a lost generation for football games. We still haven't gotten back to where we were in 2004, for Pete's sake!!! Nothing EA can do can ever make up for the fact that the 360/PS3 era has been completely and totally lost. If a few gaming websites take a few mild pot-shots at them over it, I'd say they got off easy.

[LaW97]

the most important stanza in the article

""This year we focus on gameplay," The team might say. "We've got our sights on Franchise mode improvements in two years." If someone were knocking the Madden series in the teeth each year, this type of lackadaisical planning couldn't exist. Let me repeat again -- there were absolutely no changes to the Franchise mode between Madden 10 and Madden 11. And the Franchise mode in Madden 10 sucked."

i can care less about online leagues and ultimate team.
can i jus get a solid franchise mode.
that used to be a staple and a career mode is the staple of every sports game but the last 3 maddens have not cared one bit