NCAA Football Over The Years

[majesty95]

I saw Pasta Padre post about the decline in sales numbers and a subsequent post on here about it. I thought I would take a look back at NCAAfrom a sales perspective since it transformed from Bill Walsh CollegeFootball to NCAA Football 98. I'll also look at what we most likely can expect going forward.

Here are the global sales numbers for every year since NCAAFootball 98:

98 - 700k
99 - 1.06M
2000 - 950k
2001 - 700k
2002 - 1.57M
2003 - 2.16M
2004 - 2.25M
2005 - 2.53M
06 - 2.81M
07 - 3.32M
08 - 1.92M
09 - 2.10M
10 - 2.48M
11 - 2.06M
12 - 1.69M
13 - 750k (currently)

I think we can all agree that the time period of NCAA 2005-07 wasthe greatest era in the franchise's history. Most people (myselfincluded) believe 06 was the greatest version ever made. That got meto thinking about what has caused the drop off and what will cause arebound?

From 2002 though 07, we saw an increase in sales every year. Then there was a drastic decrease in 08.

Part of the decline was probably because of the economy. We werejust getting into what turned out to be a recession and people wereclearly being more frugal with their hard earned cash. The other partwas likely the debut on next gen.

NCAA 07 debuted on the 360 and, while it received decent to goodreviews, there was a notable drop off from the high level of reviewsthat its predecessor on the PS2/Xbox had been receiving. Those reviewsdeclined all the way through NCAA 09. Finally, NCAA 10 received a slightbump but it was still nowhere near where they had been on last gen.

Since NCAA 10 we have seen a large mixture of reviews (good andbad) but nothing that has returned the series to the form it saw inthe mid-2000's. Not coincidentally, we have also seen a consistentdrop in sales numbers every year since NCAA 10 as well.

So why is that?

I believe the single biggest thing holding back NCAA has been thegame engine. The build that the current game is based off of wasbuilt in 07/08 when the game debuted on next gen. Almost anyprogrammer will tell you that when the 360 and PS3 debuted, they werea nightmare to program for.

That initial build of NCAA Next Gen was crafted by engineers thatstill did not have a good grasp of the next gen systems. The gameengine they built was limited because of their inexperienceprogramming for those systems. So, we got a stripped down version ofthe NCAA we were accustomed to.

While game developers have become more skilled at programming for thetwo systems (360 programming was made infinitely more user friendlythanks to new developer tools), there is still not a complete graspof how to make everything work exactly how they want it to(especially on the PS3). This is being made even worse (I believe) bytrying to make everything work on a game engine that was strippeddown and lacked functionality to begin with (due to the complexity ofprogramming).

So, where do we go from here?

I think the answer is finally, the new Infinity engine that will bedebuting with Madden 13. We are finally getting a new game enginebuilt with the new tools that have come along and by engineers thatnow have 6-7 years of experience with the current generation ofconsoles.

Beginning with Madden 13 (and most likely carrying over to NCAA14), I believe we will finally begin to see the true potential ofboth the systems the game are being played on and the gamesthemselves. Hopefully, that will bring a new wave of features andimprovements and we will finally see the reviews return to the levelsthey were at in the mid-2000's.

EA is hoping they will see a return in the sales numbers as well.

So, with all of the doom and gloom that has been posted, I hope this breathes a slight bit of hope and optimism back into the forums. I have not been terribly excited about the direction the game has taken over the past few years. However, I truly believe the guys at EA and Tiburon are committed to finally getting both of these franchises back on track.

Hopefully, we begin to realize that commitment at the end of this month when Madden 13 debuts.

[dingleberryfinn]

Re: NCAA Football Over The Years

any video game that has a shelf life of one year should be sold at a lesser price than regular video games.

[majesty95]

Re: NCAA Football Over The Years

any video game that has a shelf life of one year should be sold at a lesser price than regular video games.

So all sports video games, all Call of Duty games, etc should all have a lower price point? And games like Leisure Suit Larry that had only one iteration and got horrible reviews should be priced higher?

[dingleberryfinn]

Re: NCAA Football Over The Years

So all sports video games, all Call of Duty games, etc should all have a lower price point? And games like Leisure Suit Larry that had only one iteration and got horrible reviews should be priced higher?

Good point, just sports games. Even if it's only ten dollars less, at least that's somethin'.

[Joobieo]

Re: NCAA Football Over The Years

I know several of my friends wont buy the games year in and year out because they are casual sport gamers and don't really see the point in just buying "updated rosters" as they see it.

[cptnclutch28]

Good point, just sports games. Even if it's only ten dollars less, at least that's somethin'.

That makes no sense at all. We all pay our prices we are willing to pay whether getting money off by trading in games and using promotions (amazon and others) to get to a price we are comfortable with paying.

That being said I have to agree with you majestic I believe they are finally starting to make a move forward with this game engine. Only time will tell of course but it seems that this new engine is going to be a good base. My only thing is what's going to happen when we go to the next gen? Are we going to be forced to suffer through 6-8 years of bad game engines before they get something that works properly? Just curious what your thoughts may be on that

[woodsmall12]

Re: NCAA Football Over The Years

My fears are the same as cptclutch ... if we believe that we are on the cusp of discovering what is actually behind the curtain and on our way to greener pastures, then what happens when we go to next gen again? More lackluster efforts and frustration?

Just seems like its taken so long to get here, if we are indeed there ... still love the game but utilize and manage your resources more effectively and according to what the fans want, and you honestly cant go wrong IMO

[Blue]

Re: NCAA Football Over The Years

My fears are the same as cptclutch ... if we believe that we are on the cusp of discovering what is actually behind the curtain and on our way to greener pastures, then what happens when we go to next gen again? More lackluster efforts and frustration?

Just seems like its taken so long to get here, if we are indeed there ... still love the game but utilize and manage your resources more effectively and according to what the fans want, and you honestly cant go wrong IMO

Based on rumors lets say Xbox 720 and the PS4 hit stores by Black Friday 2013, NCAA 14, like 06, won't make it to the new systems and Madden 14, like 06, does. Only few developers know how the next gen is, in terms of making the games. In the first post it said developers would agree 360 developing was a huge learning curve, it may not be that way for the forthcoming generation. The new engine could be easily upgraded over a few installments and we could see amazing gaming for years to come. Or not and all long time sports gamers will be wishing NCAA 14, like 06, was on 720, and then we endure another several years of declining review ratings.

Now I was too young to pay attention when 360 was rumored and then released, so I have no knowledge of the rumors and innovations that preceded the release of 360, But so far I have seen some pretty good signs the next generation will be great. Ea adding in game face creation on the web for Madden 13, and what about Black Ops 2 having Live Streaming of games (as soon as I heard this I was thinking of the movie Gamer). Those may not be big deals to you guys but to me these examples are music to my ears, there are more examples but those are the only coming to mind right now.
It's still to early to tell, but I always have high hopes

[majesty95]

Blue Dude said it pretty well.

Hopefully Microsoft and Sony have learned from their release on current gen and the uproar from developers. The 360 has already made significant strides. We just need Sony to follow suit.

I've been a Sony supporter for many years and always thought it was the lack of power on the 360 holding the games back. in fact, it was the near rocket science sophistication of the PS3 and the 13 manuals needs to program for it.

Wether we like it or not, these two companies are tied together. All cross platform games face the same issues, making a game that fits as well as possible onto both systems, which are inherently different.

It makes sense that both console manufacturers and EA have learned from their mistakes. I would expect EA to delay the release of next gen Madden ad NCAA if needed to get a more robust game engine to build off of. They know the difficulty they faced with this one, so it would behoove them to start with a better foundation next time.

Also, there won't be near as big of a rush to develop games for this new generation. The gap between current gen and the 720/PS4 will be much less significant than the one we saw from last gen to current gen. Plus, the economy still hasn't rebounded so the amount of people rushing out to upgrade will be lower as well.

I could be wrong and we repeat this cycle all over again, but I would probably bet against that.

[mcpheje]

Re: NCAA Football Over The Years

I'm an optomistic guy by nature so I too will hope for the best. However, looking at those numbers from a business perspective is troubling. If the numbers don't rebound, there are a couple of other possibilities that come into play: 1) some level of changes within the Development team or 2) discontinue making the game (as seen with the March Madness series). I would expect the company to go with option 1 prior to resorting to option 2. However at some point it'll cost the company more money to make the game than what they'll earn in revenue. The sales numbers are interesting but the profit numbers would be much more informative.

All said and done I hope the series gets a chance to evolve onto the next generation of consoles.

[fistofrage]

Re: NCAA Football Over The Years

750K in sales seems bad, but honestly how much time, effort, and resources went into NCAA 2013? It feels stale like NCAA 12.5 and from what I can tell, it looks like a couple interns were assigned to the task of adding a couple bells and whistles to NCAA 2012 while noone concerned themselves with fixing or adding items to the game that have been missing or needing fixing for years. I'd be interested to see what their break even point is and how much they actually paid in salaries to produce this game.

The AI option is broken now. The AI safety play is broken. The Penalty sliders for clipping, pass interference, etc. don't work at all. The QB accuracy slider has little to no effect. The list goes on. Let alone the plethora of features we had on the PS2 that still haven't made it to this generation.

EA will phase out NCAA football as the sales deteriorate. They are already preparing you for it with no draft class imports into Madden.

I have played the game since Bill Walsh football. Bought a copy every single year. Some years, it was the only game I bought for the system. And now, if it went away, I wouldn't miss it. The game is sick and tired, and I am sick and tired of trying to find work arounds and house rules to try to make the game as decent as it was 6 or 7 years ago on the PS2.

EA better hope there is a whole new generation of gamers that embrace college football and who never played a PS2. Because anyone who had NCAA 2004-2006 on the PS2 is left shaking their head and walking away from the game.

[majesty95]

Wow, so much to address.

I'll start with the sales numbers. While they are troubling, the 750k current is early. However, I doubt many more copies will be sold when Madden releases so it could be indicative of a huge overall decline.

I, too, am concerned that NCAA may go the way of March Madness. However, I think by looking at the history of sales for the franchise, there is something there with this game. They just have to recapture it.

College basketball was considerably less popular than football and they had two companies making the game (which have both now folded). It's possible but I don't think that's their where this game is going. NCAA can and has been very profitable and it would be foolish to walk away from that.

As far as Madden not having draft class imports. That is because of the new connected careers. They wanted to have draft profiles for all of the players that would play into the Twitter feeds an what not and show all of that off. You just can't have detailed profiled for CPU generated recruits imported from NCAA (at least not as detailed). I expect we will see that make its return eventually. But I could see them leaving it out too since NCAA now has it's own draft feature.

Pertaining to the game being "broken", that is a term too easily thrown around. Broken indicates unplayable. There is nothing unplayable with this game. Is it perfect? No. Is it flawed? Yes. Is it broken? No.

I know there are people who don't even want to play the game because of the coverage (and I'm not far off. It's extremely frustrating). However, look at the poll on here about how satisfied people are with the game. For the most part, people are much more satisfied with 13 at release than they were with 12. That doesn't show in the sales numbers so that may show that OS is more of the hardcore gamers. But if that is true then the hardcore gamers are, by and large, happy as a whole (which I find interesting).

The thing you have to keep in mind is the trend we have seen lately. When they "fix" one thing, something else breaks. Why is that?

The easy thing to do is say that EA is incompetent. Is it really that simple? Then why is 2k having numerous issues that are getting worse each year? How about MLB The Show? New issues have popped up with that game and it's ratings are going down.

I revert it back to the game engine that they are working off of and the complexity of programming. The game engine limits them in what they can do. The complexity of programming hinders their implementation. Yes, they have been programming for 6-7 years on next gen, but they're still working off of an inferior game engine. It's like building a mansion on a mud.

That's why they fix one thing and another breaks. I can imagine that is terribly frustrating for them. With millions of lines of code all relating to each other in some way, good luck finding every bug and fixing it in a way that doesn't negative effect something else.

I've taken elementary programming. It's hard. People who are good at programming have said programming on next gen, especially PS3, is beyond hard. Having to program a game that works smoothly on BOTH systems...I can only imagine.

That's why I think the new game engine will finally get us going in the right direction. They have 6-7 years of experience now and know what their limitations have been and the things that have given them the most problems. They can use that to build an engine that not only better utilizes the capabilities of both systems, but also makes it easier for them to find/fix/address bugs and gameplay issues.

I'm not claiming that it will be perfect and certainly not flawless (this generation of games never will be). But I do think we are headed back towards the glory days of 04-07. For that, I think we can all get excited.

[SanDiegoTrojans]

Re: NCAA Football Over The Years

NCAA 07 was perfection to me. I still play it on the old xbox to this day.

[SlickRick11]

Re: NCAA Football Over The Years

I find these numbers interesting.....I knew there was a decline but it just shows that more people stuck to their guns about not buying the game anymore than I intially thought, hopefully this gets EA's attention enough to fix the bugs and make the game more enjoyable like we all remember they were during the PS2 days

[cptnclutch28]

As far as programming goes yes it is very difficult. It's not easy to make the game play perfectly. Do I think there will ever be a perfect game? No Everyone says that they want a simulation game but in reality if that was the case are people really wanting to have to make passing decisions in less than 3 seconds? I don't believe so. People say that they should implement tiered defensive play calling but in reality yes it works but this is video game world and unless people want to sit there for 2 hours to play one game? No. People want options for the hardcore sim games and the casual gamers so that everyone can be happy but it's not that easy.

I think right now as "flawed" as the game is its still the best that it's been in recent years. There are ways to make the game play the way you want it to as far as sliders and all of that stuff. We are in a world that expects more out of everything we do. We get a game that has good passing mechanics and now the pass coverage is broken. We want a realistic pass rush but if the lineman dont pick up everyone on every play then the pass blocking is broken. We want WR/DB interactions but now that they have worked on that it's not good enough. So what is it that we really want out of these GAMES that will make us happy?