Everyone's age?

[The GIGGAS]

Quote: Originally Posted by Dr Death

W/ today's technology, it shouldn't take more than two years. W/ all the great programmers out there, they should hire them, take next year off and deliver a monster game in 2013. Of course we all know that won't happen and next year's game will have many issues as well. Which is why I won't be buying and I'm sure many others won't as well. How high that number is remains to be seen... but something tells me the fiasco this year will resonate for a long time.

Today's technology adds untold complexity to the server. Look at what's going on with Elite. They say they're going to rebuild the entire game from scratch. Cancelled year 1. Cancelled year 2. Hopefully have it ready for year 3, but doubtful. That means it's going to take 3-4 years to rebuild that game, and who knows if it's going to be any good.

Also, if you don't hire all of these people at one time and start them all together working on this rewrite, you're liable to be forced to comply with Brooks's Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%27_law). The main gist of that law is:

Quote:

adding manpower to a late software project makes it later

That doesn't even mention any possible contract breaches that might occur if EA doesn't release an NCAA game.

So yeah, if EA doesn't want to put out a product for 3 years, be completely unsure whether the game is going to be good or not (i.e. how many bugs millions of users will find that it was impractical to expect hundreds to thousands of testers to find), and you've got a tendency to have late projects keep slipping...

[jswaykos]

Quote: Originally Posted by youALREADYknow

Simple answer. Some people (possibly you) play NCAA as an entertainment outlet and like to simply play football games. Other people play NCAA to become immersed in the simulation of a Dynasty. If the game's faults don't allow you to become immersed in that Dynasty or require insane amounts of effort to create the game environment that you desire, then you would be and should be a disappointed consumer. Believe me, you're not the only person with a lot of things going on their lives outside of video games. Speaking personally, I'd much rather be able to get my hands on a quality football game that allowed me to pop in a disc and begin an amazing Dynasty or Franchise experience without spending countless hours fixing problems that should have never made their way through unit testing and QA. This would allow me to enjoy 1-3 hours per session with the game and feel like I have satisfied my urge for football. Instead, the football games released by this studio have required hundreds of hours of what I feel are wasted time in order to get a halfway decent simulation experience in their Dynasty and Franchise modes. So in your world, there are two choices: Buy or don't buy. From a strictly business perspective you are correct that those are the options. From the human perspective that leaves a LOT to be desired when you're force fed only one product choice each year. That's the whole reason behind antitrust and monopoly law and unfortunately this game developer has landed in a sweet spot of the law that enables them to get away with this current game without customers choosing a different product.

I never said I was the ONLY person with a life outside of video games and certainly do not want to imply that.

But you then say, "From a strictly business perspective..." Well, this IS a business we're dealing with! My issues are with people who treat this as a very deep human relationship with real feelings involved. You say you're "force fed" the product. No, you're not. You do not HAVE to buy this game. Someone who buys the game and THEN complains has very little 'voice' as far as their opinion is concerned. Someone who does not buy but gives reasons why is much 'louder', if you get what I'm saying.

EA says, "Thanks for your money! See you in 2013!" Is that 'right'? No, on a human level probably not, but why SHOULDN'T they say that? But if 500,000 less people buy the game in 2013, you can bet they'll start to care.

[jswaykos]

[quote=Cardot;2042859594]

Quote: Originally Posted by mra85a

Ah, gotcha. For the next time, this site and the "impressions" threads are great for these purchasing decisions....epecially for those on a budget....you can get right down to the smallest detail. I would just recommend waiting 3-4 weeks until after release. Sometimes the more glaring issues take a while to really be noticed.

Agreed 1,000%. Early adopters to ANY product risk being let down. It's the 'price of doing business', as they say. For example, everyone who jumped on board with the iphone4 on release day was met with crazy amounts of dropped calls. People, like myself, who waited a while for all the kinks to get worked out were able to purchase a fully functioning product - or at least a product for which we were totally aware of the downfalls.

If you bought the game on release day based only on marketing hype and the back of the box, shame on you. For the past few years have been "ready, fire, aim". Release, fix problems. Repeat. People - again, like myself - who resisted our impulses were able to read ALL impressions after long term bugs/glitches were discovered. Since I was fully aware of the potential problems with the game when I purchased it last Friday, nothing came as a surprise. As such, I am pleased with my purchase.

Now, I'm not saying that business SHOULD be like this. It shouldn't. Ideally, EA would release the perfect game every year. They strive for that, too. But that's just not how it is. Like it or not, that's the way it'll continue to be.

[mra85a]

The Iphone4 was fixed though...

[jswaykos]

Quote: Originally Posted by mra85a

The Iphone4 was fixed though...

Yes, and because I waited to see if it'd be fixed before purchasing, I bought it and am happy with it. If you (anyone, really) waited to see if NCAA was fixed, and it wasn't, then you wouldn't have to buy it.

Look, I do get that it's our only option for college football. I love college football as much as anyone else here. I truly do. But if I found the game to be so broken that it was unplayable, then I just wouldn't buy it. It'd suck for me, but that's life.

The 2K baseball series got to be so broken that I stopped purchasing 360 baseball games for years. Then I just decided to get a PS3 and The Show. Similar actions can't be taken here, but I did initially stop buying the broken baseball series. I really wanted a new baseball game each year, but it just wasn't happening.

[youALREADYknow]

Quote: Originally Posted by jswaykos

EA says, "Thanks for your money! See you in 2013!" Is that 'right'? No, on a human level probably not, but why SHOULDN'T they say that? But if 500,000 less people buy the game in 2013, you can bet they'll start to care.

You are misinterpreting the relationship between revenue and product quality.

If sales drop by 10% in 2013 (which would take a LOT of consumers stepping away from NCAA considering the rate of growth of overall console owners on a YoY basis) then you believe that EA will "start to care" about product quality.

This would be contrary to everything we've seen in the past. In the past, what we've seen is that the real change that is made when revenue falls is to CUT BUDGET. A reduced budget on an already strained team results in even lower product quality.

If the trend of lower sales continues for multiple years and margins are not met, then ultimately the product gets canned because only a suicidal company would double down on investment into a failing product that is not considered "critical" to the bottom line anyways.

If you don't believe me, then look at EA's NCAA Basketball, Triple Play, the entire PC platform of sports games from EA, and NFL Head Coach.

Do you believe the product quality has gone up in any of the above due to consumers not stepping up to the cash registers?

Fortunately, for some, there's just no way that sales are going to drop at any kind of substantial rate because console adoption is still on the rise for this generation of consoles and that means a broader consumer base to purchase the game.

[jswaykos]

Quote: Originally Posted by youALREADYknow

You are misinterpreting the relationship between revenue and product quality. If sales drop by 10% in 2013 (which would take a LOT of consumers stepping away from NCAA considering the rate of growth of overall console owners on a YoY basis) then you believe that EA will "start to care" about product quality. This would be contrary to everything we've seen in the past. In the past, what we've seen is that the real change that is made when revenue falls is to CUT BUDGET. A reduced budget on an already strained team results in even lower product quality. If the trend of lower sales continues for multiple years and margins are not met, then ultimately the product gets canned because only a suicidal company would double down on investment into a failing product that is not considered "critical" to the bottom line anyways. If you don't believe me, then look at EA's NCAA Basketball, Triple Play, the entire PC platform of sports games from EA, and NFL Head Coach. Do you believe the product quality has gone up in any of the above due to consumers not stepping up to the cash registers? Fortunately, for some, there's just no way that sales are going to drop at any kind of substantial rate because console adoption is still on the rise for this generation of consoles and that means a broader consumer base to purchase the game.

Perhaps I should've said "start to notice." Because as long as sales keep going up, there's little incentive to go way above and beyond the necessary requirements to achieve said success levels.

It WILL take people walking away from the product to have any hope of change. But will that happen? I doubt it.

[stlstudios189]

I have the same point (not trying to say we should buy the game no matter what) but, in my business if we suck and less customers come in and spend $$ we don't up labor hours to make service better we cut more hours to save our margin thus hurting service again etc... it's hard situation to fix. I just bought the game and actually it's not bad to me. EA try's to release the best product they can it's funny last year all I heard was praise for NCAA football "it's the best ever" this year it's "unplayable"