EA Boss Not Happy With Madden Sales....

[Valdarez]

Re: EA Boss Not Happy With Madden Sales....

Sales for sports games typically reflect the last in the series, because people don't like to get burned twice. If anything, this confirms how the Madden 06-09 iterations were killing the franchise.

Excellent point.

[Tyrant8RDFL]

Re: EA Boss Not Happy With Madden Sales....

Ps3 drops it price to $300 and now they are selling like booty at a prison camp. So lets see....people in a bad economy cant afford $60 greatest of all time football game madden 2010 BUT they can buy a $300 system ........UMMMM Nah its not the economy. Looks like a choice to me.

SLAM DUNK!!!!!!!!!!

No need to say anything else.

[splff3000]

Re: EA Boss Not Happy With Madden Sales....

Looks like the economy isn't hurting Batman AA's sales. Wow!

http://kotaku.com/5356924/holy-two-m...ts-sold-batman

[mvandor]

Re: EA Boss Not Happy With Madden Sales....

Year to year, gameplay remains essentially the same, reducing replayability. I've gone back to COD awaiting all the patches, I simply can't get the hours outa Madden that I used to, particularly before proper patching.

[fjccommish]

Re: EA Boss Not Happy With Madden Sales....

"A BIG BALL OF MUD is haphazardly structured, sprawling, sloppy, duct-tape and bailing wire, spaghetti code jungle."

From the descriptions some of the EA folks have made about fixing one thing only to cause problems somewhere else, that's exactly what they have with Madden.

That's what happens when marketing and not good software development practice drives development.

The game is pretty good and certainly Madden 2010 is better than 2008 and 2009, but it has problems that simply can't be fixed. When people try to fix it, they spend 10x as long trying because of the spaghetti.

[DerkontheOS]

Re: EA Boss Not Happy With Madden Sales....

we want innovationwe want innovation we want innovation.

I second this vote, Mr. President.

[TheCreep]

Re: EA Boss Not Happy With Madden Sales....

Sigh, these threads are all the same. People who hate Madden will point to sales as proof of Madden declining. People defending it will say it doesn't matter. Then, if sales improve, people who hate Madden will say sales don't matter and people who defend it will point to the increase as proof of quality.

In either case, it doesn't matter from our end. Madden will sell enough to justify the agreement with the NFL, both sides will make money from it, and people will continue to be delusional and think these numbers are a sign of anything beyond a desire to gain more customers and improve the bottom line. And guess what, the average customer won't be swayed by a better quality football game. They'll be swayed by a more appealing videogame. That does not translate into what many here are clamoring for.

EDIT: And that's not meant as a slight to the OP. It's a perfectly legit topic and relatively new news. It's just the resulting dialogue that never fails.

Thank you kind sir. Well said. Cant get any more real than that mayne.

[odbman]

Re: EA Boss Not Happy With Madden Sales....

As the white house continues to ruin the country and spend us into economic ruin.Look for more companies to struggle.Most probably the Natioal Game in the next few years will be table tennis .As China continues to by up all assets .Folks the only hope is we need a Video Game CZAR this is one of the few czar's not created by the White House.Granted I know this would be CZAR number 1,000 but hey what's another czar paid for by the good taxpayers of this country anyway.When the government takes over EA the inside word is game price will drop to 25 dollars apiece but the federal tax on the game will be 75 dollars and the internet tax will be 22.50 per month .So enjoy what we have because the future could be bleak.

[odbman]

Re: EA Boss Not Happy With Madden Sales....

Everyone I found this article to help everyone understand.
By Dan Gallagher, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Video game sales fell again in August, the sixth straight month of declines for a sector that has been suffering from a slumping economy and challenging comparisons.

According to data from the NPD Group late Thursday, sales of game software fell 15% during August compared to the same month in 2008. The results were roughly in line with expectations from analysts, who noted that the period is historically a weak one for the industry and the main title for the month, " Madden NFL 10," underperformed compared to last year.

The six-month slump in sales will make it even more challenging for the industry to how growth this year. Overall sales for the sector so far this year have totaled $9.07 billion, down 14% from the same period last year.OUCH

[Curry59]

Re: EA Boss Not Happy With Madden Sales....

http://kotaku.com/5356597/ea-boss-do...adden-10-sales

Well, this is what happens when there is no innovation in the game. Pro Tak is great, but what else is there?

Yep. And they'll want to blame it on the economy. No, we can afford $65. It's just that when we as the consumer ask for improvement and listening to our feedback, and you don't buy into that, your sales will suffer.

[roadman]

Re: EA Boss Not Happy With Madden Sales....

Is it entertaiment or is it a hobby? If it's entertainment, it's pretty expensive entertainment vs feeding a family of 4.

If it comes down to feeding your family and you are unemployed vs enjoying your hobby or personal entertainment, guess which one wins out?

Also, as it was pointed out to me yesterday, even though Madden might be declining in sales on a yearly basis, Madden still is a profit for EA.

This article states that EA games need 1.1 million in sales to break even.

http://games.venturebeat.com/2009/08/26/eas-chief-creative-officer-describes-game-industrys-re-engineering/

I agree with Dave374. Sure, Madden might be having a dent in sales with the hardcore community like, OS, but I'm sure if mom and dad are unemployed, junior will not be receiving his annual Madden pick-up.

Also, people seem to be glossing over the NPD article that Cusefan posted a few pages back.

According to analyst, Madden and Batman are doing what they expected to do.

Today's numbers were slightly larger than predictions given to GameSpot earlier in the week by analysts such as Divnich, who thinks the Madden decline isn't as serious as it might seem. "Madden sales came in-line with expectations, but again, I do not believe this is a negative reflection on the series," he elaborated. "With the PlayStation 3 gaining a tremendous amount of steam and the continued success of the Xbox 360, we are confident that Madden NFL 11 will show a positive increase. Growth over the last 12 months among the core next-generation systems was simply not large enough to sustain growth for the Madden series."

He continued, "Batman: Arkham Asylum met our expectations and the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 SKU ratio was in-line showing that exclusive content can drive a significant amount of sales for the platform receiving the exclusive content. I would not be surprised if we begin to see Microsoft and Sony approaching publishers on delivering future exclusive content to their platform. It would certainly be cheaper and just as effective than paying for pure exclusivity."

Looking at the current month, Divnich believes that the shrinking rhythm game market--down 46 percent year-to-date--will see a turnaround, thanks to a certain foursome. "I am more than confident that September sales will post a positive comparison. Guitar Hero 5 sales are in-line with expectations and Beatles sales are on track to significantly exceed my previous estimates."

[sois]

Re: EA Boss Not Happy With Madden Sales....

Looks like the economy isn't hurting Batman AA's sales. Wow!

http://kotaku.com/5356924/holy-two-m...ts-sold-batman

Shhhhh, the economy is terrible!

The cream always rises to the top.

[Step2001]

Re: EA Boss Not Happy With Madden Sales....

This is easy!!!

EA just needs to add NFL Head Coach 09 Offseason and keep adding on to Madden!

That's what people want for offline and online franchises! We keep telling them over and over.

Not much more we can do except get the game and point out the bugs.

[Flamehead]

Re: EA Boss Not Happy With Madden Sales....

I for one don't believe EA is evil, but I do believe they are severely incompetent in their QA process--if they even have one. That, and they're incredibly obsessed with everything online, so much so to the detriment of many other things.

They bought some time with the "we're a new team, we're interacting with you" etc., but how long will that last? Are they who we think they are? Time will tell.

Sales? Maybe. But I do think people are just plain increasingly tired of the bugs, questionable priorities, etc., and the "but we're a new team" thing is only going to last so long.

[Flamehead]

Re: EA Boss Not Happy With Madden Sales....

That's what people want for offline

You just lost the developers right there. Not their priority man. What are you gonna do?

*shrugs*