Why does EA continue to give the NCAA games the shaft?

[TJdaSportsGuy]

Quote: Originally Posted by ka520

bump

Please don't "bump" threads here at OS.

(and yes, I realize that by telling him not to bump, I am in effect bumping the thread.)

[Keith121212]

Because Madden is EA's flagship title obviously. The NCAA series will never reach its full potential under EA or EA Tiburon. It can be decent but never truly the best. It will never be more apparent then this year I think because Madden looks like it's going to be the best its ever been.

[cookiebach14]

The reason NCAA looks different to you than Madden is because of simple logistics disk space. The NCAA game has to make space for over 100 teams and players while madden only has 32. This gives madden a little more room to use on animations, graphics,etc

[OpusX910]

Quote: Originally Posted by nuckles2k2

You sir, are not in the minority alone...I'm up in there as well. Although this year looks to be different with that monstrosity of a beast called Madden 10 coming out.

Agreed...even when i thought both madden and ncaa were great games i still played ncaa more, the past few years its been buy ncaa, and skip madden...this year tho it'll be vice versa, i hope madden 10 is as good as they're hyping it up to be

[fistofrage]

I don't think that EA gives NCAA the shaft. It has less of a budget than Madden, but thats just simple business philosophy. Madden sells more, gets more resources.

The issue I have with NCAA is that the development team seems to be shooting themselves in the foot or intentionally sabotaging things just to fix them next year. Either way, there are alot of mistakes in this franchise that don't have to do with the dedication of resources.

1. Broken sliders being included in final version despite alleged working sliders being available.
2. Horrible rosters when that information is basically free.
3. Not adding things to the current gen that were already developed on the last gen. Logic should be Logic.
4. Leave the graphics alone. 2009 graphics were fine, there was no need to change the camera angle, etc from 2009. Should have focused on gameplay and presentation.

The list goes on, but its not EA giving this team the shaft, it seems more that the team doesn't maximize efficiency with the resources they are given.

[big_larry]

i think they purposely try to make madden better than ncaa every year. or for that matter they purposely try to make the pro games better than the college games because they sell more, they are more popular, and it just wouldnt look right if a college game was better the a pro game. and im perfectly ok with it because i play madden ncaa football.

[fistofrage]

Quote: Originally Posted by big_larry

i think they purposely try to make madden better than ncaa every year. or for that matter they purposely try to make the pro games better than the college games because they sell more, they are more popular, and it just wouldnt look right if a college game was better the a pro game. and im perfectly ok with it because i play madden ncaa football.

I think EA may handcuff the NCAA development team as there are things that EA wants MAdden to introduce first. Politics may get in the way of economics here.

However, on last gen NCAA was clearly better IMO. Alot of things were done right, then in 2008 they decided to sabotage the pursuit angles on last gen. Was that a directive to ruin the game or incompetence? I don't know, you could easily make a case for either scenario.

But its silly and counter productive to not maximize sales of this franchise. The games sell for the same price, and if NCAA is great, people will buy Madden because of that.

If NCAA is terrible, Madden will lose sales because of it. Its a zero sum game for EA. Madden just sells better but the profit margin on NCAA is much higher because both games sell for $60. But because they are both under the EA umbrella, the combined sunk cost is a constant. So regardless of what franchise sells what, EA is better off maximizing the total sales.

[pote14]

Quote: Originally Posted by Mad 69

Why would EA want NCAA to be better than Madden? They don't, thats obvious. They have been working on football games for 20 years and if they wanted, they could make NCAA as good as Madden but they don't want it to outshine the franchise game, which is Madden. I don't see whats so hard to realize this.

i rest my case. thank you for agreeing.