Head Coach Business Model (long)

[theengine]

I just read in the "Donny Moore is leaving" thread where Donny made comments along the lines of "Josh Looman will still be here for HC10"

The thing is, I'm not sure I WANT a HC10. We can see where the release strategy (i.e. every year) for Madden is dragging down the francise. I know a lot of people who don't seem to understand why the Madden francise fell apart on the new consoles. I read comments everyday where someone says something like "Why would they take that out of the game, that was in Madden 05, why isn't it in the new one?" The answer of course is that for every new console they have to start over completely. They have to rebuild francise mode and the graphics engine and the ability to edit players and superstar mode and all of it. In less than one year. That's why Madden 06 was an unmitigated disaster.

We will, in a couple of years, catch up to the gameplay of Madden 05 or 06 for the Xbox/PS2 era. But we'll have shiny graphics. And in five years, we'll get a stripped down/no francise-mode-having abortion for the Xbox 720 or whatever. And they'll have to build it all up again.

That's why I'm hesitant to even ASK for a head coach 10. We seem to have a decent foundation for a game series and I know EA would love to pump out a 60 dollar game every year.

But here's what I want; here's my vision for the Future of Head Coach : They release the game every three/four years with major graphical/gamplay changes. For the better, preferrably . That gives them enough development time to avoid these release day bugs and allows for better overall development.

But once a year, they release a large patch that updates rosters/presentation(i.e. commentary)/new rookies/minor gameplay fixes, etc. They charge like 15/20 bucks for this, both online on Live and Home and also an instore dvd, slightly marked up for packaging etc.

[ahunter5]

Quote: Originally Posted by theengine

I just read in the "Donny Moore is leaving" thread where Donny made comments along the lines of "Josh Looman will still be here for HC10" The thing is, I'm not sure I WANT a HC10. We can see where the release strategy (i.e. every year) for Madden is dragging down the francise. I know a lot of people who don't seem to understand why the Madden francise fell apart on the new consoles. I read comments everyday where someone says something like "Why would they take that out of the game, that was in Madden 05, why isn't it in the new one?" The answer of course is that for every new console they have to start over completely. They have to rebuild francise mode and the graphics engine and the ability to edit players and superstar mode and all of it. In less than one year. That's why Madden 06 was an unmitigated disaster. We will, in a couple of years, catch up to the gameplay of Madden 05 or 06 for the Xbox/PS2 era. But we'll have shiny graphics. And in five years, we'll get a stripped down/no francise-mode-having abortion for the Xbox 720 or whatever. And they'll have to build it all up again. That's why I'm hesitant to even ASK for a head coach 10. We seem to have a decent foundation for a game series and I know EA would love to pump out a 60 dollar game every year. But here's what I want; here's my vision for the Future of Head Coach : They release the game every three/four years with major graphical/gamplay changes. For the better, preferrably . That gives them enough development time to avoid these release day bugs and allows for better overall development. But once a year, they release a large patch that updates rosters/presentation(i.e. commentary)/new rookies/minor gameplay fixes, etc. They charge like 15/20 bucks for this, both online on Live and Home and also an instore dvd, slightly marked up for packaging etc.

Most of what you've written makes sense, and I totally see your point. I have to strongly disagree, however. Here's why:

I would contend, and I don't think I'll get any disagreements, that this game is what it is because of the developers who worked on the game. Chris, Josh, Donny, and company are obvious text sim fanatics who wanted to move the game to the next level. After reading Bill's game reports, I can comfortably say they've largely succeeded, at least thus far.

If EA doesn't create HC10, do you think Chris and Josh are going to rock out at Tiburon for three years until they make another game? No -- they'll either jump on Madden or move to another game entirely. If we don't get HC next year, we most likely won't get Chris and Josh. We've already lost Donny.

I'm looking at this game as sort of the perfect storm. It seems like the right developers came together at the right time to make the game we've all wanted. If we lose these devs, I fear we lose the game.

[auburntigersfan]

Good points ahunter.

If it is successful, they will release it next, and so on and so forth. Whichever way they can make the most money. They would never release it only once every 3-4 years because if it was successful enough there would be large enough base that would buy the new game.

[SmashMan]

The big difference is that the foundation of the game (from all accounts) is pretty damn good. I have enough confidence in the Head Coach team that even if there is another version next year, that they have enough in place that some minor tweaking to correct any issues can be taken care of pretty easily.

Madden can only fix so much in any given development cycle that they always have another laundry list waiting for the next version. Their foundation is flawed. Will I play it, will I have fun with it? Sure, but it is what it is. They can tweak it enough, but the foundation is still flawed.

Head Coach does not seem to have this problem. We'll all find out soon enough.

[theengine]

Quote: Originally Posted by ahunter5

If EA doesn't create HC10, do you think Chris and Josh are going to rock out at Tiburon for three years until they make another game? No -- they'll either jump on Madden or move to another game entirely. If we don't get HC next year, we most likely won't get Chris and Josh. We've already lost Donny.

If this game sells extremely well, Josh might use this as a springboard to jump ship to start up his own Britney Dance Beat franchise.

But for seriously, they wouldn't be just sitting there eating Lunchables for three years then put the game out in a week (which is what i think happened to NCAA). They would begin work on both next years SuperPatch(TM), as I'm calling it, and the game coming out in three or four years. Remember, the whole point of this is so they could have longer development cycles which should keep them super busy for the whole three years. With maybe a week off. Kinda space out into several three day weekends.

[Michael321]

Quote: Originally Posted by theengine

But once a year, they release a large patch that updates rosters/presentation(i.e. commentary)/new rookies/minor gameplay fixes, etc. They charge like 15/20 bucks for this, both online on Live and Home and also an instore dvd, slightly marked up for packaging etc.

I'm pretty sure they do this already. But they charge 60 and they call it NCAA and Madden. Just read the forums. Head coach does look good though and its the only one that looks worth 60.

[JRod]

They could just roll HC into Madden. Of course that would mean we get a long of bang for the buck.

For casual gamers, they offer the usual madden franchise mode, basically HC lite. Then they offer the advanced mode for people that want the HC experience and action football.


I think a two-year game would be the best. I don't think it will be a yearly thing.

[x1Blumpkin1x]

A release every other year would most likely be more than enough. I think a fair amount of HC dev resources going forward will go into the gameplay tweaks they make to the new Madden engines as they implement them in HC. The interface and foundation to the rest of the game will need some tweaks, but realistically they will get more additions than fixes (presentation, practice squads, longer career, hall of fame, online play, etc, etc).

I like your idea of staggering releases. So one year you get a full release (2008), the following year (2009) you get an expansion pack of sorts for $30. The expansion has roster updates, some new features like maybe the longer career and a few other things. Then the following year (2010) you get another full release. These full releases include the new and improved Madden engine, tweaked to support the HC gameplay, as well as other new improvements and new features. And the cycle continues.