Why doesn't he just come back?

[Valdarez]

Re: Why doesn't he just come back?

Ian BLOCKED Valderez...same as he has blocked me.

Well, I'm not exactly an angel here. At first I still complained about the License Deal (I'd have to go back and look at how much). It took me a bit to separate Ian from EA Sports management. So I was still part of the problem, and I told Ian I didn't blame him for blocking me. I'd say that 70%+ (obviously a rough estimate) of the negative feedback he received was due to the NFL Exclusive License deal. Quite honestly any person who puts themselves out as a rep of EA is going to get slammed for that licensing deal, so in a way it's almost a no win situation.

[roadman]

Re: Why doesn't he just come back?

I think Valdarez is spot on when he said developers are shielded from the good, bad and ugly from consumers. Those hits usually go to CS and that is why CS has a high turnover rate.

Here is something I want to share that I experienced communicating with the Sr. Producer of HH Baseball at the time.

I was the connecting rod to the community/forum for the Sr. Producer from 3DO. He would never post in the forums.

We would develop questions about the game and he would respond to them throughout the course of game development. I noticed I was receiving those emails at 2 to 3 a.m in the morning. He was taking his "own" time at home and responding to the questions at all hours of the night. He was also married and expecting his first child.

He would tell me every so often he needs to stay away from the boards as they were a time waster and many of the post were filled with vengeance and hatred. Please keep in my he never personally posted on the board, it was always through me. The vengeance and hatred posts were all directed at the game and the company, no personal attacks. However, those posts that were filled with vengeance and hatred towards the company and the game were still putting a hole in his gut.

It was because he was personally involved in both areas.

Seven years later and nothing has changed, has it?

These two experiences are co-related. I feel if we want an EA developer on the boards, their needs to be constructive criticism not just personally, but with the game and the company.

Based on the two experiences, I doubt that would ever take place.

So, we go back to square 1 and we don't have developer interaction.

My preference would be to have developer interaction, but I agree with Valdarez, the NFL license deal is preventing that from happening.

[boooey]

Re: Why doesn't he just come back?

Your company buys out the competition all the time. I can point to several really good products they have ruined. (I bet you can too)

Guys like us in the business world are used to dealing with customers, and their occasional vitriol. Game developers really are sheltered from it, unless they take it upon themselves to venture forth onto the forums, and then when they do it's a rude awakening.

When you start your career and are exposed to it pretty much from year 1, you slowly learn to ignore the anger and focus on the problem. You also learn to turn a deaf ear to most things. Though I will say that I rarely had to deal with any personal attacks myself. Usually if a customer were interacting with me, they were utterly grateful to have such a high connection.

Ian said via twitter that he didn't realize what he signed up for when he started interacting with the community. He had no idea he'd get the backlash for the NFL Exclusive Deal angst. At the same time, he didn't have experience handling customer criticism/anger (Ian even said he had me blocked, but while I criticized harshly at times, I can't find anywhere where I personally attacked in my posts, so the skin was thin to start), and to make things worse, many community members didn't appreciate the direct communication they had with an EA representative (something that is very hard to come by).

I personally enjoy the communication, and the insights we get into the development process and the state of the game. As a fan of 2K Sports, I can tell you it's far more than 2K Sports has ever deigned to provide to the community, especially in the football arena. 3 years after the release of APF2K8 and they still haven't given us information on exactly how the Player Abilities work, no patch to fix some of the easily fixable problems, and they even took down the league websites after telling us they would be back when they went down initially (the loss of which effectively killed the online community). As much as a dislike EA for screwing gamers over the NFL Exclusive licensing deal (yes, I know it's not EA's fault, but we'll agree to disagree on that topic for now), 2K Sports has shown themselves to be utterly indifferent to their fans as well, even on things that don't take much time/$$$ such as answering basic questions about their game. EA Sports have won points in the community / interaction arena for their football fans in my humble view, while 2K Sports seems to have gone out of their way to shun their football community.

so tell me.. what would you rather have of these 2 scenarios?

1. 2K put out a great product, and less DEV interaction
or
2. EA put out the same ole half finished Madden every year, with DEV interaction and lots of hype blogs.

pretty easy answer for me.. enough of the excuses.. they just need to deliver a great (and complete) game already, and 90% of the hate will vanish into thin air..

[Pringles]

Re: Why doesn't he just come back?

the dude got metacarpal from typing so much and had to take time off lol would you want to come back. i have been here not very long but i noticed everyone bashed madden for what it is not instead of looking at the big picture witch is i takes a 3 year cycle to get a game right it does not happen overnight and when he came here he was open to everything only to get bashed.

i think the most important thing to do is post your ideas on how to make the game better but do not expect replies from the development team. its like a girlfriend that broke up with you get over it. lol

[Segagendude]

Re: Why doesn't he just come back?

I don't do the Twitter thing, but apparently you can follow Ian on there and ask questions and such....

[PGaither84]

Re: Why doesn't he just come back?

Operation Sports at one pont was a place where you would find constructive [being the operative word] critisisim and very little bashing of the developers themselves. This is no longer the case. Part of the problem is many of those who post here don't understand that you should leave the developers out of the conversation completely. While everyone likes to hear "I love you man!" [insert bud light comercial here] That doesn't "belong" here any more than "You are an idiot," or "just suck it up!"

The developers came here to get feedback on the game. Over time they were getting venom from internet jerks far more often than feedback. Who would want to come back day in and day out and read that? Until OS returns to a state where people can leave the developers out of the discussion, I doubt we will see them return.

^ READ AS: Stop being jerks and just focus on the game.

[KBLover]

Re: Why doesn't he just come back?

The developers came here to get feedback on the game. Over time they were getting venom from internet jerks far more often than feedback. Who would want to come back day in and day out and read that? Until OS returns to a state where people can leave the developers out of the discussion, I doubt we will see them return.

While I understand the point - is there a game developer in the world that does NOT get venom from some segment of their user base? I mean, if I go to boards about a RTS or another sports game, or whatever, there are venomous people there too.

While I don't disagree that people shouldn't be that way - fact is, they are, and I bet they are on EA's own boards.

In fact, the more users you have the more likely some will be venomous. It's almost a law of averages. It just seems like it was some level of 'surprise' that there was such venom even in existence. Maybe it was just the culture of the board before I arrived here that makes me not 'get it' in terms of just OS, but in the gaming world, so to speak, in general, it doesn't seem all that odd to get venom. NOT getting it would be more striking, imo.

[TheWatcher]

Re: Why doesn't he just come back?

I think there is a lot of constructive criticism here, I think that's impossible to ignore. But then you have some things that go overboard. I particularly find it amusing that there are some people who post entire in-depth threads about EA's operations as if they know anything about them at all, even though they've never stepped foot through their doors, and have never met or spoken in-person to any of them. Then I cringe when I watch other posters take it as if it's gospel.

I can completely understand why some folks on the Madden Team get frustrated because a ton of posters start following people who lead the charge of negativity and people like I described previously, it becomes a mob mentality at times, and that can become unreasonable to work with.

The average gamer will never accept that a lot of problems in sports games have a great deal to do with the short cycle and the way that things have to be prioritized as a result. Let's be real... Madden this generation was built on shaky ground, we know that, and they know that. They've tried to make the best of it and fix what they could, and I think Madden 10 was a good example of them trying very hard to turn things around. The fact that a lot of it was rejected pretty much says that nothing they do will ever bring certain people to their side.

I've complained about things for years, the same things, and even did so in person with the Madden Team... but I understand that it's not easy to fix everything, I also understand that some things are relatively easy fixes but priority decisions move it down (or off) the list and there is an explanation behind it even if I don't always agree with the thinking (and I do often disagree). In fact, one of my biggest complaints based on my perception of how they view certain things (and that perception comes from talking to them face-to-face) is that if hundreds or thousands of people aren't asking for something that probably means nobody cares about it and wouldn't want it or use it. But I think it's unanimous among others who have been there and spoken on this same issue (because I've spoken to those people and have gotten this information), that it's not about how many people ask for something all the time... it should be about doing something because it's simply the right thing to do. If I ask you why you didn't add something that you see perhaps every week during the playoffs for example, and you say it can be added fairly easily, but you still don't do it even though it's something you see all the time in the NFL, there comes a point when you have to step back and ask yourself "If the motto is everything you see on Sunday, see it in Madden NFL... and we know we can do it without greatly disrupting the flow of production... then why would we NOT do it?"

Finally, I think OS management has done a great job of handling things, and I don't think it could've been done any better. It's just one of those situations where things don't work out as well as you hoped and you have to move forward. Nobody in EA owes us any explanations as to why they don't post often or if they decide not to altogether. The only thing they owe us is to deliver the product they promise. If only people would stick to criticizing just that and not call developers names and make accusations, perhaps what we're discussing now wouldn't even be a discussion.

[Valdarez]

Re: Why doesn't he just come back?

I think there is a lot of constructive criticism here, I think that's impossible to ignore. But then you have some things that go overboard. I particularly find it amusing that there are some people who post entire in-depth threads about EA's operations as if they know anything about them at all, even though they've never stepped foot through their doors, and have never met or spoken in-person to any of them. Then I cringe when I watch other posters take it as if it's gospel.

What threads are there on their operations? I'm not sure I've read any. I posted a thread awhile back about their business practices and how they are affecting the consumers. Is that what you are alluding to?

The average gamer will never accept that a lot of problems in sports games have a great deal to do with the short cycle and the way that things have to be prioritized as a result. Let's be real... Madden this generation was built on shaky ground, we know that, and they know that. They've tried to make the best of it and fix what they could, and I think Madden 10 was a good example of them trying very hard to turn things around. The fact that a lot of it was rejected pretty much says that nothing they do will ever bring certain people to their side.

What was rejected? I think that's a misrepresentation, at least per my experience on the forums here at OS. Can't speak for other places, but most of their changes were well received by the community though some feel as some of the promised items didn't make it into the game or aren't as apparent as expected, which is true to one extent or another depending on the topic at hand.

Finally, I think OS management has done a great job of handling things, and I don't think it could've been done any better. It's just one of those situations where things don't work out as well as you hoped and you have to move forward. Nobody in EA owes us any explanations as to why they don't post often or if they decide not to altogether. The only thing they owe us is to deliver the product they promise. If only people would stick to criticizing just that and not call developers names and make accusations, perhaps what we're discussing now wouldn't even be a discussion.

Agreed.

[roadman]

Re: Why doesn't he just come back?

What threads are there on their operations? I'm not sure I've read any. I posted a thread awhile back about their business practices and how they are affecting the consumers. Is that what you are alluding to?

I can't speak for TheWatcher, but I can certainly agree where he is coming from. Comments regarding David Ortiz's days and people not agreeing to accept a new person in charge because the last 4 games on NG were terrible. I'm always open to allow a new person in charge get their feet wet and hit the ground running. Some people on here didn't want to hear that, they wanted to still pound the drums of the last 4 Madden's being lousy. I'm not saying they weren't, but there isn't anything we can do change the past Madden's, but possibly we can try to help the new person out.

I've been trying to tell folks lately that we aren't privy to the inner workings of EA, but people would rather speculate what they think is right.

For instance, let's take the hiring of Mark Turmell. Right away, people see his background and hop on the speculation train that they are dumbing down Madden. Ian had to go on Twitter and tell everyone that wasn't true.

It could be people speculating what is a higher priority to get in the game(online franchise vs presentation vs game play, yada yada yada)

Or it could be as recent as this thread on people speculating the whereabouts of the developers after the game is dropped. I'm sure most of them go on vacations after putting in 60-80 hours per week. They need to recharge the batteries just like we do.

Well said TheWatcher.

[Tyrant8RDFL]

Re: Why doesn't he just come back?

So, you don't think locomotion is a step in the right direction?

To be very honest here my answer is no, because I have to see how it is implemented. I would never say Madden is heading in the right direction till I get my hands on the game, as of right now Madden is a poor game.

I'am not a fan of the engine Madden uses to develop its game. I have only witnessed from Madden since the birth of XBOX 360 and PS3 as a game with way to many problems.

Anyway until they can truly put out a solid product. Anything that they mention as a advancement for Madden is something I have to see for myself in the actual gameplay.

I disagree with this, but it might just be semantics. SCEA is already producing a great game. It's already there from a gameplay, presentation, immersion standpoint. Madden isn't there, but last year led me to believe it's finally headed in the right direction. Madden 11 will show us whether the current team has the chops to get it there.

We shall truly see if the game is headed in the right direction. I hope it finally is.

[roadman]

Re: Why doesn't he just come back?

To be very honest here my answer is no, because I have to see how it is implemented. I would never say Madden is heading in the right direction till I get my hands on the game, as of right now Madden is a poor game.

I'am not a fan of the engine Madden uses to develop its game. I have only witnessed from Madden since the birth of XBOX 360 and PS3 as a game with way to many problems.

Anyway until they can truly put out a solid product. Anything that they mention as a advancement for Madden is something I have to see for myself in the actual gameplay.



We shall truly see if the game is headed in the right direction. I hope it finally is.

Have you ever played FIFA 10? If you haven't, then perhaps you should download the demo.

I love the way FIFA 10 plays on the field.

Just a suggestion.

[JMD]

Re: Why doesn't he just come back?

I go to MLB the show board frequently as I have the game. And I always see Russell and Co. on the boards commenting. Creating threads asking for suggestions for MLB 11 already etc... SCEA is the best period because of their overall game, and most important their customer interaction. I'm sure this thread will be closed, but seriously why did he leave the boards?

I heard it was czuz of certain ppl bashing him or whatever, but until they(EA) has the interaction that SCEA does, Madden imo won't ever overwhelm what are expectations are, and instead will always dissapoint year after year like it has for a while now. Please don't think I am creating this thread to bash EA cuz I didn't. I am just curious why he left?

IMO, Ian just has to suck it up and accept the criticism/bashing(and its over the internet so c'mon, seriously?) and interact with us gamers again.

I didn't realize he left. He just posted on the 7th, a few days ago. Bottom of the page.
http://www.operationsports.com/forum...eenshot-2.html

[Valdarez]

Re: Why doesn't he just come back?

I didn't realize he left. He just posted on the 7th, a few days ago. Bottom of the page.
http://www.operationsports.com/forum...eenshot-2.html

He left last October I believe, and posted a blog explaining why. He's posted a few times, but the interaction is way down.

[Tyrant8RDFL]

Re: Why doesn't he just come back?

Have you ever played FIFA 10? If you haven't, then perhaps you should download the demo.

I love the way FIFA 10 plays on the field.

Just a suggestion.

I have the game and played it and have no problems with FIFA, but FIFA did it correctly.

I just have to wait and see if they can do it correctly with Madden.

Roadman please understand I do want EA to finally get it right. Im just not going to buy a game because it is heading in the right direction.

Right now gamers are just settling for what ever EA puts out, and that is simply because they have no other choice.

I just choose to move on till it is right, and I'm not alone.