EA Sports - A Tale of Two Tribal Strategies

[jWILL253]

I like how everyone thinks casual fans want pretty advertisements and easy gameplay. The ''casual'' fan isn't as oblivious as everyone makes them out to be. I know a dude who only watches the NFL spordaically, but will school me on how the 80's were the best years for the NFL

Plus, NCAA's sales have decreased each of the last four years, so even casual fans are seeing the light, so to speak...

[Seahawk76]

NCAA went after casuals last year with its wide open gameplay (at the expense of those who actually like to play a little defense) and it didn't pay off in terms of sales. On top of that, it was a buggy mess with glaring gameplay deficiencies that required two patches. I was pretty confident that the NCAA team would learn some lessons from last year and the game would bounce back this year. Looks like I was wrong.

If last year's mess wasn't enough to convince the dev team to get back to basics (core gameplay) and tighten up their QA, then I don't know what will. There doesn't seem to have been any change in direction at all which makes me believe that there won't be, at least not with the current management. NCAA is what it is, and the tribe can like it or lump it.

I've never rooted against a game before but I really hope that the sales of NCAA this year fall off a cliff while Madden sales increase. That might be the one thing that would force NCAA to change course before it hits the iceberg.

[mjussawalla]

Quote: Originally Posted by Bwnarrow3

Interesting. EA is using a different approach to raise sales, while Madden is using the obvious approach by giving the hardcore gamers what they want. Good post.

Thanks.

The approach of the NCAA team is similar to what many brands do- especially in the 1980s and 90s. They try to do a little bit everywhere to please everyone.

The Madden team's approach is similar to what sophisticated brands are doing today. Focus on the tribe and let them do the marketing for you.

[doom41]

Quote: Originally Posted by mjussawalla

Thanks guys. Not sure why exactly. Perhaps at some point one of the developers from Tiburon could explain (not sure if they can though). But we have seen this several times in various businesses. Think of Vans Shoes, Harley Davidson, Apple for example. Thus, NCAA's team is playing it safe by using the trusted formula of building slowly (which is understandable). First, it takes leadership - you have to have guts to say - 'we are going to focus our efforts on the top 10-20% of our customer base.'Madden's team must have decided to gun it and say 'we are going to build the most realistic experience' (of course at the risk of alienating the masses who want something more playable and fun). For example, MLB 2K9 may be terrible for core baseball fans, but it maybe good enough for me. Second, you have to have a long term strategy. We always stress, that this is a 2-3 year plan - not something that will make changes in 1-2 quarters or at the end of the year. I am not 100% sure, but I believe the Madden team has a better idea of what Madden 12 looks like than the NCAA team has of what NCAA Football 12 looks like.

While I'm not arguing that both games seem to be going in slightle different directions, I think you (and most people on these boards) are giving the OS community more weight than you should. I have only on occasion seen the NCAA board top 200 viewers, and Madden sometimes gets over 300. So I'll use 500 viewers to give you the benefit of the doubt. I'll also give you a 100% increase to represent the die hards that don't get on the these boards. So that gives us 1000 people in your "Tribe" Now I don't know the exact sales figures for Madden and NCAA for '09, so I'll be conservative and say 1 million for Madden and 600 thousand for NCAA. Now with these numbers your "Tribe" represents less than about 0.1% and 0.16% of EA's market for Madden and NCAA respectively.
When you look at it this way, EA really doesn't need to focus on us, because we are not the top 10-20%. In fact from a business standpoint, they shoudn't focus on us, because a large number of us "DIE-HARD" FANS will buy the game regardless,
While I am in no way saying that I am happy with the direction of NCAA, I can understand why their philosophy is to target the more casual gamer. NCAA isn't just the little bro. to Madden, College Football is still the little bro. to the NFL, so NCAA is starting at a disadvantage with smaller core target than Madden. They have to appeall to more casual gamers than Madden does.
Again, I'm not tryig to defend EA. I'm just trying leave my personal thoughts/feelings at the door, and take a realistic look at a situation that seems to bother a lot of people.

[doom41]

Quote: Originally Posted by rudyjuly2

Good blog. I wonder how much Teambuilder will boost sales for NCAA. Some people eat that stuff up. I do think building a realistic game will be good for everyone - casual and hardcore. The casual fan wants the game to look like the real thing - they just need to play on the easier difficulty levels to avoid frustration.

I agree the casual fan want the game to look like the real thing, but to them I'm sure it already does. That is the difference between the casual and the hardcore fans. Casual fans don't know/care as much about rosters, sliders, ol/dl interaction. They want a game with good graphics (and this is very subjective, I've heard quite a few say they think the graphics in Madden on Wii looks realy cool, but I don't), that is fun, and probably not to hard to win.

[da ThRONe]

Quote: Originally Posted by doom41

I agree the casual fan want the game to look like the real thing, but to them I'm sure it already does. That is the difference between the casual and the hardcore fans. Casual fans don't know/care as much about rosters, sliders, ol/dl interaction. They want a game with good graphics (and this is very subjective, I've heard quite a few say they think the graphics in Madden on Wii looks realy cool, but I don't), that is fun, and probably not to hard to win.

But they do notice facemasks, chaingangs, refs, pre&post game shows, stat overlays, equipment updates and improved running animation. And guess who has them and who doesnt?

[yankeesgiants]

Quote: Originally Posted by da ThRONe

But they do notice facemasks, chaingangs, refs, pre&post game shows, stat overlays, equipment updates and improved running animation. And guess who has them and who doesnt?

Thats called a sound business model. You always put your new features in your high end product. You do that way because it will get more exposure and feedback. If it results in positive feedback then you build on that and put it in your secondary product later. If it fails then you get rid of it. It's easier and cheaper to remove it from one product instead of two. The two games are seperate entities that sort of work together by roster importing. There not supposed to be equal in any way other then price. If they were suppose to equal then they would sell/market together. They obviously dont do that. So one is the big brother and the other is the little brother.