Madden's Biggest Issue: Vision and Focus

[johnprestonevans]

I dont want to start a thread to bash Madden. I like it, but lets face it, the game is not up to par where it should be. I think the biggest issue with the game is the focus and vision of the development team at EA. I know they have the talent to put out great games. So why is Madden falling behind other sports games? It's a fact of life that developers are pushing out sequels year after year and trying to upsell or improve on their current products. Enter the Madden franchise. A once all powerful sports game that seems to have lost its way after being phased by the 2K5 train. Since 2006 there has been no competition. While im sure is a big part of the problem, thats not what i want to discuss specifically. I would like to open up a forum to talk about the vision and focus of the development team and how their top-down leadership – or lack thereof – has negatively affected the quality of the game, and subsequently hurt their bottom line. Madden sales are down. Year after year their numbers are flailing. Sure they still do big business, because they are “Madden”, but they are not dominating the sports game world like they used to.

Why? I think its a simple problem that may not have a simple answer. Focus. When looking back at Madden’s mantra’s or taglines over the past few years you can see how all over the place this team has been.

09 - “The First Sports Game that Adapts To You”. - this is when they tried to implement “Jedi Madden” to teach you how to play and automatically adjust the difficulty setting accordingly. Didn’t work.
10 - “Everything You See On Sunday.” - going back to basics and getting the gameplay right and getting rid of all the extra crap they’ve been throwing in. Make it about FOOTBALL.
11 - “Simpler. Quicker. Deeper.” - making it accessible to casual players and don’t understand football and don’t have time to play full games.

I don’t blame the guys programming the game necessarily, but I feel like the executives at the very top do not understand what constitutes a great sports game anymore. They are trying to be the everything-to-everyone game. What does this year’s tagline even mean? Simpler, Quicker and Deeper???? Isnt that an oxymoron? It just sounds like its trying to be casual. What happened to the Everything You See on Sunday mantra? That is what we want.
Obviously EA wants people to stop thinking about and comparing Madden to 2K5, but here we are 6 years later and they still haven't taken the proper steps in the presentation and gameplay to do so. My argument is that if they could STICK to a vision over a number of years (like a 3 year plan) instead of jumping ship and going in a different direction every year, they would be putting out a much better product these days.

Look at what NHL is doing. They have a 3 year plan to fully implement a new physics engine. This year is about checking...next year is something else...and the year after it all comes together. Excellent. I think we can understand that it takes time to get things right. I accept that and i'm excited to see NHL continue to improved and polish its game. But Madden is more like this marketing juggernaut that does whatever it takes – makes false promises and goes casual...then hardcore...then casual...back and forth to try and get their sales up. I'm sure that at some point the executives came to the team with the demographics and numbers and mandated that Madden has to be made more accessible to people that don’t understand football so we can sell it to them.

I feel this is hurts Madden’s quality because people who don’t like football are not going to buy Madden anyway! Fix your game and polish it up for the people that actually love playing it. Their complete lack of presentation upgrades and discontinued push to "Everything We See on Sunday" this season is bewildering to me.

Does marketing and sales get in the way of good development? Your thoughts on Madden and this issue as a whole? <!--EndFragment-->

[roadman]

Re: Madden's Biggest Issue: Vision and Focus

A lot of what you covered has been stated before.

You touch on a lot of good points.

I think the Madden executives(not developers) want to expand and reach out to every football fan or non-football fan in the world. They know their sales have been declining and that is not good news for their stockholders.

It's difficult to strike a happy medium when you want to develop a game one way and the executives of the company want to cast the net across the world.

[wormturd]

Re: Madden's Biggest Issue: Vision and Focus

The problem is that madden 11 is basically the second version of the madden next gen... It wasn't untill madden 10 that they implemented all the stuff from the PS2 days and gave us what madden next gen should be....

I think 11 will finally give us that old school feel and 12 will be complete with the online franchise that everyone has been wanting.

We really got screwed with those initial next gen games.

[johnprestonevans]

Re: Madden's Biggest Issue: Vision and Focus

It's fundamental marketing issue I think. If you wanna satisfy your hardcore market you need to find out what they want and do it. You cant lump every segment together and try to do everything. They have different difficulty settings and AI sliders to make things easier if that’s what you want. I just feel that last year’s mantra to give us a REAL NFL broadcast experience was a beautiful idea. Sure they didn’t fullfill that promise last year, but they laid some good groundwork that could have been built upon this year and next. Instead they went in a completely different direction.

Its like going to make yourself a piece of toast. You put the bread in the toaster but then while you're waiting you decide to draw yourself a bath. While the water is running you figure you can quickly get the lawn cut. In the end you have a half cut lawn, a flooded bathroom and your smoke detector is going off. Fix one thing - not matter how long it takes, then move on to the next. "Everything We See on Sunday" should be THE vision for Madden this year...and next...and the year after that.
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[jvaccaro]

Re: Madden's Biggest Issue: Vision and Focus

I feel like this thread would have been more appropriately relevant maybe 3-5 years ago. I truly believe that the current dev team at EA tiburon is making the biggest strides in madden's history.

It is well documented that they rewrote the next gen Madden from scratch. Ever since they've been trying to work back in decades of features from past gen in a single year development cycle. Considering the time constraints, and that this dev team headed by Ian is only on it's second release, I'd say they've done a great job.

It can be debated, but most (non-haters) would agree that Madden 10 is the best video football game to date. Maybe not 5 years better than 2K5, but again, that's because of the next gen rewrite pushing them backwards out of the gate. It's looking more and more like Madden 11 will be another improvement.


All in all, this dev team is what has saved Madden from the Ortiz era of Arcade-y gimmicks and gone down the sim road instead.

[GiantBlue76]

Re: Madden's Biggest Issue: Vision and Focus

I feel like this thread would have been more appropriately relevant maybe 3-5 years ago. I truly believe that the current dev team at EA tiburon is making the biggest strides in madden's history.

It is well documented that they rewrote the next gen Madden from scratch. Ever since they've been trying to work back in decades of features from past gen in a single year development cycle. Considering the time constraints, and that this dev team headed by Ian is only on it's second release, I'd say they've done a great job.

It can be debated, but most (non-haters) would agree that Madden 10 is the best video football game to date. Maybe not 5 years better than 2K5, but again, that's because of the next gen rewrite pushing them backwards out of the gate. It's looking more and more like Madden 11 will be another improvement.


All in all, this dev team is what has saved Madden from the Ortiz era of Arcade-y gimmicks and gone down the sim road instead.

I have to respectfully disagree here with, well, just about everything you wrote I think everyone can agree that Madden on next gen has been a colossal failure. That's been well documented by the community and even by many of the developers themselves. Although I personally did not like Madden 10, there were improvements for sure. The problem is that there is no competition (which is obvious) and that the executives at EA want to grow the madden base. They are not concerned with 35-40 year old football heads like many of us. They are focusing on the next generation of gamers, mainly younger kids. They feel that if they can make the game easier to just pick up and play, the casual football fan who plays games sometimes, will walk into the store and pick it up. The executives are not interested in the older, hardcore football guys as much because they know many of those folks are already hooked and will make a purchase no matter what they put in the box.

The other item is the fact that they don't want to make the game "too good" in one year, so as to hurt the sales the following year. That's why the hype train is down this year. Not hyping as much gets people to purchase for the gameplay improvements, but it REALLY hypes them for next year, with the promises of improved franchise.

Unfortunately this is all marketing and business 101. From a purely business perspective, it's a brilliant marketing scheme and it rakes in millions each year. You have to hand them that. Executives at EA care about one thing and one thing only... sales and the stock price. That's it. That's what every big public company cares about. The bad part in all of this is the consumer gets the shaft.

None of this is news so the best we can do is be active in the community, try to push for what we want in a great football game, and see what comes out on the other end. I've always been very critical of Madden and how EA Tiburon does things, but I always have an open mind. At the end of the day all I want is what everyone else wants, a great playing, realistic football game.

[DaveDQ]

Re: Madden's Biggest Issue: Vision and Focus

I agree that there is a deep issue with Vision and Focus. I think we can have a good discussion about it too without the thread turning into a bash session. Let's hope that doesn't happen.

They key component in what goes into a high selling game like Madden is who is responsible in saying yes or no. Considering the game's capacity to sell well, I'm thinking executives have a big say in the direction of the game. They want to protect the game's earnings. The possible flaw in that is that they never take risks and and up settling for what is. I happen to think this is where Madden sits right now. The biggest reason as to why this game sells well is because of it housing the NFL. There is no one feature that the game has that the buyer touts as genuinely innovative or game enhancing.

Take one game like EA's NHL series and you will see the anticipation in the buyer as to what the next level is for that game. You don't get that upward sense with Madden. It's more of a lateral feel, where they are traveling along, picking and choosing things to enhance the game, yet never improving on what they picked up. There just isn't a sense that they are creating standards to be reached.

That's where vision and focus comes in. If you don't have those two things all you do have is a game that relies heavily on the fact that they have the NFL. But in reality is vision and focus is lacking and that's exactly why a game like Madden 11 appears to be more along the lines of Madden 10.5.

[jvaccaro]

Re: Madden's Biggest Issue: Vision and Focus

The problem is that there is no competition

I don't view this as "the problem" at all. I'm sure the dev team takes pride in their job and gives their best effort, or else their job would be at risk. Competition wouldn't hurt, but I believe this card is waaay overplayed.

the executives at EA want to grow the madden base. They are not concerned with 35-40 year old football heads like many of us. They are focusing on the next generation of gamers, mainly younger kids.

I strongly disagree. Madden 10 took the largest steps in terms of becoming a "sim" game. Unless you're referring to the wii version (and I don't think so) I don't see this. For every gimmicky-type option they may introduce (gameflow/no sprint/fight for fumble) you can turn it off or back to the way it was originally. It also looks like Madden 11 is going to be even more sim now with locomotion and improved blocking logic.

The other item is the fact that they don't want to make the game "too good" in one year, so as to hurt the sales the following year.

I'm sorry, but this sounds a little bit like a conspiracy theory to me. I'm not buying it, and I have my BS in Business Admin w/ a major in Marketing.



My personal opinion is that people are still trying to look at it like we should have a game that is vastly improved every single year. But we all know that the dev team took a huge step backwards rewriting for next gen... If you based your expectations off of improvements over last year only (not where one person thinks the serious should be by now) then you'd be less disappointed.

I also feel that people underestimate the challenge of coding AI for 22 players on the field at the same time. It's a challenge uniqe to football games.


just my $0.02

[johnprestonevans]

Re: Madden's Biggest Issue: Vision and Focus

I also feel that the developement team that is actually making the game take pride in what they do. They are talented artists and programmers for sure. What I feel is the issue is the higher level that instructs that team what they will be focusing on each given year. Madden 10 was a nice step forward for the franchise. Going "back to basics" and delivering a solid football experience was the best thing they could have done. My concern is that this year, instead of continuing with that focus, they decided to shift to a very casual audience by taking the play-calling decisions out of that audience's hands. A fine idea, but certainly not one that is a back-of-the-box selling point for most Madden gamers. No progress in the Extra Point or camera options is inexcusable when sacrificed in favor of a marketing-driven casual playcalling system.

[tlc12576]

Re: Madden's Biggest Issue: Vision and Focus

I don't view this as "the problem" at all. I'm sure the dev team takes pride in their job and gives their best effort, or else their job would be at risk. Competition wouldn't hurt, but I believe this card is waaay overplayed.



I strongly disagree. Madden 10 took the largest steps in terms of becoming a "sim" game. Unless you're referring to the wii version (and I don't think so) I don't see this. For every gimmicky-type option they may introduce (gameflow/no sprint/fight for fumble) you can turn it off or back to the way it was originally. It also looks like Madden 11 is going to be even more sim now with locomotion and improved blocking logic.





I'm sorry, but this sounds a little bit like a conspiracy theory to me. I'm not buying it, and I have my BS in Business Admin w/ a major in Marketing.



My personal opinion is that people are still trying to look at it like we should have a game that is vastly improved every single year. But we all know that the dev team took a huge step backwards rewriting for next gen... If you based your expectations off of improvements over last year only (not where one person thinks the serious should be by now) then you'd be less disappointed.

I also feel that people underestimate the challenge of coding AI for 22 players on the field at the same time. It's a challenge uniqe to football games.


just my $0.02

Everybody is entitled to their own opinion but Im suprised to hear a consumer say they dont see the lack of competition "as the problem AT ALL". All this talk about Ortiz and code being bad along with it taking till Madden 10 to finally make a decent NFL game, took place under the exclusive license. If you honestly believe that these mistakes and problems, if the true cause, wouldnt have been corrected sooner with competition, I think you are sadly mistaken.

Also, even with the lack of competition, EA taking till Madden 10 to finally make a decent next-gen Madden because of code problems is unacceptable, IMO. I know Ortiz is gone but EA has been in charge the entire time. Like the OP has said, it seems obvious that the executives are the ones mounting this bull and the devs are just holding the horns. No reason for us not to believe this was the case with Madden 06 too. So getting rid of Ortiz would seem more like a scapegoat but actually had little to do with who has been accountable all along, EA.

EA has been the ONE company consistently in charge of next-gen Madden. Therefore, consumers should expect to see consistent improvement EVERY year in Madden, not everytime a new dev leader is appointed or new code has to be written. I cant go to EA and say I want to buy Madden for $10 because I got my hours cut at work. EA doesnt want to hear my excuses for not paying for their game and likewise, I dont want to hear EA's excuses for Madden not being where it should be.

EA is in business to make Madden to make money not excuses, period.

[HealyMonster]

Re: Madden's Biggest Issue: Vision and Focus

I think this is an excellent thread.

The big issue is Vision and focus. Look at Madden 10. The game didn't do anything "great". What I mean by this is that they implemented online franchise, better presentation, pro tak, and the qb arm motion while being hit thing. Pro tak turned out to be a bit buggy, the qb arm animation was a mess, online franchise was nearly a worthless feature to people not willing to spend 40 hours a week trying to keep everything in order with a pen and a paper. The web site they gave you was pointless and didn't work properly half the time at least at first. And then to top it off they now admit that half the things they did as far as presentation "was just for the sake of doing it with no real rhyme or reason". While yes this was a lot better than 09, essentially everything they "gave us" had something wrong with it.

Im not exaggerating, and i dont think anyone can really argue with that. To some people, thats good to go. they dont need polished features. But make no mistake, Madden is seemingly the only game that gets away with being completely unpolished every year. For the most part because theres no competition, but also because the developers are still riding the coat tails of the devs that made 90-2004 when Madden made a name for itself. The truth is madden has done no innovating or been complete since 2005, they admit most of that themselves.

to boot, back to my original thought, if they had the vision to say make presentation solid and hold off on online franchise. NFL 2k5 might not of had the best gameplay, but their presentation was GREAT. MLB the show might not have the greatest presentation, but their stadiums and animations are GREAT. You see what I mean? There is nothing in Madden to say OK, that'll get fixed next year, for now though Franchise is great, or the stadiums are great, or presentation is great. They are behind the ball in every area of the game and even when they try to improve something like commentary, we are back to where we started again. Nothing I have see says its great. Its like last years commentary with a new voice. If they implemented some type of dynamic commentary, something new and innovative then that is something we could cling to like ok, they are moving in the right direction. that commentary is great. But its not, its the same commentary with a new guy doing it which essentially removes the possibility that we will have Madden commentary rival what nba 2k is doing. I say this because I doubt they are going to redo commentary 2 years in a row so next year will essentially be the same as this year. And thats a shame. they went through 3 types of commentary and still have not taken a step forward. That in itself is the soul of this thread.

[GiantBlue76]

Re: Madden's Biggest Issue: Vision and Focus

I don't view this as "the problem" at all. I'm sure the dev team takes pride in their job and gives their best effort, or else their job would be at risk. Competition wouldn't hurt, but I believe this card is waaay overplayed.





I strongly disagree. Madden 10 took the largest steps in terms of becoming a "sim" game. Unless you're referring to the wii version (and I don't think so) I don't see this. For every gimmicky-type option they may introduce (gameflow/no sprint/fight for fumble) you can turn it off or back to the way it was originally. It also looks like Madden 11 is going to be even more sim now with locomotion and improved blocking logic.





I'm sorry, but this sounds a little bit like a conspiracy theory to me. I'm not buying it, and I have my BS in Business Admin w/ a major in Marketing.



My personal opinion is that people are still trying to look at it like we should have a game that is vastly improved every single year. But we all know that the dev team took a huge step backwards rewriting for next gen... If you based your expectations off of improvements over last year only (not where one person thinks the serious should be by now) then you'd be less disappointed.

I also feel that people underestimate the challenge of coding AI for 22 players on the field at the same time. It's a challenge uniqe to football games.


just my $0.02

I guess you didn't play many other football games on last gen. Also, no where in my post did I say the developers don't take pride in their jobs. However, if you think Madden is even remotely close to any of the other sports games or is as good as some past gen football games, I'd have to disagree with you, as would many others on this board.

Madden 11 looks to be much improved on the field, and I'm really happy to see that. However, it is still missing a lot of key elements that I think most can agree, should have been in there by now.

Also, much of the dev team working on the game now is the same dev team which worked on Madden the last 6 years. They all were responsible for the misdirection the franchise took at that time.

Also, you can think it's a conspiracy theory all you want, but I have my sources when it comes to that kind of information. The comparison was made to MLB the show. Less people bought the newest version because the previous year was so good, there was little reason to upgrade. If you don't think that is a consideration by upper management, you truly have rose colored glasses on.

[jvaccaro]

Re: Madden's Biggest Issue: Vision and Focus

The problem is that there is no competition

I don't view this as "the problem" at all.

Everybody is entitled to their own opinion but Im suprised to hear a consumer say they dont see the lack of competition "as the problem AT ALL".

I didn't say it wasn't any problem at all. It may be a part of a bigger issue, and I did say that competition can't hurt. However, when the exclusive license is referred to as "The problem" with EA's handling of Madden, I think that's way too big of a scape goat.

[jvaccaro]

Re: Madden's Biggest Issue: Vision and Focus

if you think Madden is even remotely close to any of the other sports games or is as good as some past gen football games, I'd have to disagree with you, as would many others on this board.

just to clarify:

Madden 10 isn't even remotely close to as good as any other sports games ..?

also, Madden 10 isn't as good as some past gen football games ..?

The first part is obviously a huge exaggeration and hard to take seriously. The second part is kinda true depending how you look at it -- but all you're really saying is that this Madden isn't the best one ever. I disagree with that, but to each his own...

I freely admit that 2k5 did some things better than madden (and it would be really odd if the game had no strengths) but I'm not the one with the rose colored glasses if somebody truly thinks the last gen offerings are still truly superior video games to Madden 10.


I'm convinced that people didn't mess with any sliders or settings with this game. With a little bit of tweaking for personal taste, you can really get a good game of football.

[DaveDQ]

Re: Madden's Biggest Issue: Vision and Focus

to boot, back to my original thought, if they had the vision to say make presentation solid and hold off on online franchise. NFL 2k5 might not of had the best gameplay, but their presentation was GREAT. MLB the show might not have the greatest presentation, but their stadiums and animations are GREAT. You see what I mean? There is nothing in Madden to say OK, that'll get fixed next year, for now though Franchise is great, or the stadiums are great, or presentation is great. They are behind the ball in every area of the game and even when they try to improve something like commentary, we are back to where we started again. Nothing I have see says its great. Its like last years commentary with a new voice. If they implemented some type of dynamic commentary, something new and innovative then that is something we could cling to like ok, they are moving in the right direction. that commentary is great. But its not, its the same commentary with a new guy doing it which essentially removes the possibility that we will have Madden commentary rival what nba 2k is doing. I say this because I doubt they are going to redo commentary 2 years in a row so next year will essentially be the same as this year. And thats a shame. they went through 3 types of commentary and still have not taken a step forward. That in itself is the soul of this thread.

Good points. The commentary issue is probably one of the best examples of the game lacking a core identity. Instead of truly recreating the game's commentary, they added a new voice. They didn't however change the dynamics of the mechanism. That's what takes vision and focus. The vision would be to see a game where the commentary is more precise and specific to what is transpiring, coupled with a color commentator that compliments the happenings of the game. The focus would be to stick to your scheme and follow it through until fruition.

The game isn't entirely stale. I really like Madden's approach to pre-snap features. Everything is clean and never confusing, allowing you to adjust very quickly. that is definitely something they do well. On the other hand, the core gameplay suffers to the point that I just don't anticipate its release.

It's almost as if they plant seeds every year but never mind the garden.