I Don't Understand All the Madden Haters!

[ODogg]

Quote: Originally Posted by Sam Marlowe

^^^ Fifa is EA's flagship sports title. American football does

FIFA may be their best selling title world wide but EA was built on Madden and it's their most well known title here in the States.

[kbmnm247]

Quote: Originally Posted by ODogg

When NHL was rebooted it was barely a functional game. All of the reviews said it was missing x, y and z but it had a great engine "to build on". It's taken years to get back many of those features but is now a great title again. As for NBA look at how bare bones the reboot of it was last year. It was so bare bones they had to scrap it for a year and do another year of development on it. And when it does come back you can bet it will be missing a ton of features that NBA Live had. All good reasons as to why Madden will not benefit from any competition so long as it makes money and the competition to it is no real threat. It lives in a vacuum because it's the king, it's a money maker and it has no reason to change. As I said before, competition will not change any of that. Only competition that poses a threat to it can change that. I fail to acknowledge it because the history of Madden is such that it proves my point. It's never radically changed due to any competition, again with the exception of Gameday which did force it to change from 2D to 3D about a year earlier than EA really wanted to. Outside of that the only ways that competition has changed Madden is in very small ways, small feature changes. The core concept or engine has never been rewritten or radically redesigned, re-thought out or re-booted due to any competition. I wouldn't be so sure of that. The market for sports games isn't as big as it once was and EA knows they overpaid for the exclusive agreement. Also many analysts have really given great reasons as to why it makes no sense for EA to keep an exclusive agreement as they had no real competition before and with no one else working on any football games for years they will have absolutely no competition at all for years to come even if the agreement expires and is not renewed. The real decision here comes down to the NFL and whether they want exclusivity to continue. If they do then EA has no choice, they cannot lose their flagship title. If you're angry about the entire situation write to Roger Goodell and the NFL and let them know. But being angry at EA is like being angry at the man your wife cheated on you with. It's misdirected anger and really makes no sense.

You always say it's the NFL's fault. EA WENT TO THE NFL and said yo, let us buy an exclusive agreement and the NFL said sure, if you want to give us millions of dollars for doing nothing, we'll take it. But let us check and see if any other company will pay more.

They went to the NBA and other leagues too for an exclusive agreement because they ARE LAZY. They are a ****ty company and are lazy. They could do SO MUCH more than they do for their consumers but instead they hold features back to keep you buying next years version.

[blackngoldfan]

Quote: Originally Posted by ODogg

Was it better when ESPN 2K was their competition?

Most of the features that people people have been begging for EA to bring back, originated when they had competition. (In-game saves, custom cameras, defensive hot-routes, accelerated clock, etc.) ESPN 2k gets Chris Berman, Madden get's the "Tony Bruno Show". It's ALL about the competition. Without competition, EA has been able to randomly throw in gimmicky features with no consequence. Features such such as Huge ability Icons on the field (bulldozers, hammers, lightening bolts,.....), Radio Guy, Rewind, Lead Blocker, etc. When these features are a BUST, everything is scrapped. Start over. Let's do another 3 stage process. At times, I feel as if they treat the retail version of Madden like a Beta copy that is for sell. There's no way a sports game should be released with a broken fatigue slider. With all of that said, Madden is improving. I just think that they would spend more time crossing their T's and dotting their I's had there been a serious threat to contend with. Just look on the basketball side of sports gaming. The success of 2k11 has shut down release of NBA Elite until 2012. Competition Baby!! Gotta love it!!

[Broncos86]

Quote: Originally Posted by kbmnm247

You always say it's the NFL's fault. EA WENT TO THE NFL and said yo, let us buy an exclusive agreement and the NFL said sure, if you want to give us millions of dollars for doing nothing, we'll take it. But let us check and see if any other company will pay more. They went to the NBA and other leagues too for an exclusive agreement because they ARE LAZY. They are a ****ty company and are lazy. They could do SO MUCH more than they do for their consumers but instead they hold features back to keep you buying next years version.

I believe it was the other way around, as previously stated in this thread. Did you read that? The NFL put the license up for bidding.

[spankdatazz22]

Quote: Originally Posted by ODogg

The only real challenger to Madden I can ever recall is Gameday and it was the title that made Madden miss a year and transition from 2D to 3D. So don't think I don't know the history here. My point is that you guys keep acting as if Madden will really change much just from bringing competition back. Sadly, that's not the case.

It's speculative, but I'd argue Madden has no where near the juice it had last gen. If the license were suddenly open to anyone and 2K threw their hat into the ring, I don't think anyone would be saying 2K has to take drastic measures like pricing their game at $19.99 just to get people to try it. Madden was so entrenched w/gamers last generation, 2K had to do something that drastic just to get people to try their game out. But that was then.

Even with no competition for the past 6yrs, I don't see how anyone could make the argument that Madden is held in the same regard now as it was last generation, and it's really Tiburon's own fault. It would be extremely vulnerable if there were competition, which is why EA will likely make sure they remain the only developer making licensed football games.

[ODogg]

Quote: Originally Posted by bucky60

Competition is no threat because the NFL and EA eliminated the competition. Again, not sure what point you are trying to make.

I've said my point time and time again. Competition is not going to radically change Madden. A lot of you seem to think that it will but it won't. It may cause some features or tweaks to be added but Madden is Madden and is not going to change even without exclusivity.

Quote: Originally Posted by bucky60

It would have to be king with no one else allowed to make an NFL game. Competition would change sales. It was about to when EA bought the exclusive license. 2K was becoming more popular. 2k did pose a threat. It just isn't allowed to pose a threat anymore.

It was the king even with competition. 2k's sales were never any threat to EA. They were miniscule compared to EA. The real issue that 2K brought to the table was their $20 price tag, which the NFL did not like and that issue is actually what caused exclusivity. So if you don't want to blame the NFL for exclusivity you may want to point towards 2K to share some of the blame.

Quote: Originally Posted by bucky60

Well, I would disagree. 2K was becoming more popular. Judging by there NBA game, I'd have faith that there NFL game would have been pretty good.

Perhaps it would have been stellar. There is a good chance it would have been. I always bought the 2K games myself. But it was years and years away from ever making any real dent in Madden's crown.

I remember when ESPN 2K5 came out and I crowed about it to the guys where I worked. None of them had even heard of it and didn't want to try it. Despite the fact that in so many ways it was superior to Madden. I did convince one guy to play it and he loved it but he still stuck with Madden. He did tell me later he was going to buy ESPN 2K6 for sure in addition to Madden. None of the other guys who I worked with would even try another game.

This is the uphill battle a competitor faces when going against Madden. Out of 6 or 7 guys I got one single guy to try the competition and even though he said he would buy it, he also said he'd still buy Madden because that is what all of his friends online played. It's akin to trying to convince people that beta max is superior to VHS. You may realize it's better (and it was) but if everyone else is using VHS then it's not necessarily a losing cause but certainly one that will take years to change the status quo.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for competition to Madden. I'd love to see ESPN 2K13 football as much as anyone. I just really think peoples expectations are misplaced in thinking a) that it would be as good as people think and b) that it would mean Madden would really improve that much if it existed.

[LionsFanNJ]

Quote: Originally Posted by kbmnm247

You always say it's the NFL's fault. EA WENT TO THE NFL and said yo, let us buy an exclusive agreement and the NFL said sure, if you want to give us millions of dollars for doing nothing, we'll take it. But let us check and see if any other company will pay more. They went to the NBA and other leagues too for an exclusive agreement because they ARE LAZY. They are a ****ty company and are lazy. They could do SO MUCH more than they do for their consumers but instead they hold features back to keep you buying next years version.

Take your EA blinders off and realize the NFL wants anything licensed out to be controlled by single companies. Look at anything officially licensed by the NFL and I guarantee only one company has control of it. Video Games are no different.


sent from parts unknown

[kbmnm247]

Quote: Originally Posted by Broncos86

I believe it was the other way around, as previously stated in this thread. Did you read that? The NFL put the license up for bidding.

http://sports.ign.com/articles/572/572886p1.html

Quote:

"We (EA) have proposed exclusivity several times in the past, but this year, in the spring the NFL had an off-site meeting, and they decided to consider bids for exclusivity," Brown told IGN in an exclusive interview. "Several bids were submitted but they accepted EA's. I cannot tell you how much this cost, but exclusivity is expensive, we are paying a premium. It wasn't cheap. I can tell you this, though, all parties all happy with this agreement, and Wall Street seems happy with it too." ... On a scarier note for these same publishers, rumors are already circulating that EA is attempting to negotiate similar deals with the NBA and Major League Baseball. When IGN contacted Trudy Muller, spokesperson for Electronic Arts about these rumors, she told us: "We cannot speculate at this time about any further plans these other leagues may have."

So... in other words.... EA went to NFL year after year wanting exclusivity, NFL denied them. Then NFL sat down and said hey, we can get millions more in revenue for doing absolutely nothing other than giving one company (highest bidder) the exclusive arrangement. EA obviously had more money to beat out 2K and 989 since EA has been around a while longer. That is not EA's fault, but what is EA's fault is trying to procure an exclusive agreement and when you get it you act lazy and don't improve your product as much as you would had you not had the exclusivity.