Well I dont see how they can be
unrelated. I certainly dont want to think that the hiring of a new Creative Director and an "innovative" new approach to Madden are just random, unrelated events.
I agree with previous posters that EA + Madden + Innovation = a screwed up game. Imo, there are 3 primary play modes to Madden:
- Offline Franchise-Does not work properly. Stats, AI, CPU logic(in all facets of the game-draft,free agency,trades, etc)....none of it works correctly.
- Online Franchise-A mere shell of what it should be. Imo, this mode is 50-60% complete at best.
- Online Play Now-This really depends a lot on server reliability and exploits and is better than it has been but still needs some work.
In short, EA has made improvements but has still yet to put out a complete game where these modes are truly great gameplay experiences. IMHO, if EA finally had these 3 areas working properly that would indeed be true innovation for them.