Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

[Radja]

Re: Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

This is the first year I wasn't even the least bit tempted to buy Madden. I am an offline franchise player and the franchise mode is going to need quite an upgrade to pull me back in.

THIS!!!!! ^^^^^

i read no franchise updates and i decided i can continue my madden 10 'chise.

[Radja]

Re: Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

Based on the reviews the NHL demo is getting, it certainly looks that way.

Meh, I think the author is too eager to produce a cause and effect with Madden sales numbers and what *might* happen with the game industry in general. How about "Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Madden?"

Of course, Peter Moore and Co. will look at this as more evidence that the game needs to be "simplified" further. Much easier to believe you've overcomplicated it rather than produced a game more people are becoming disenchanted with because you're not responding to repeated community requests and instead implementing changes no one asked for.

the gaming industry needs to start innovating enough for us to merit spending $60 for more than a couple more race tracks or a couple more moves in a game or slightly better visuals. years ago tomb raider lost it's core audience when the third versions only real upgrade was the levels became almost impossible.

the hardcore have for several years been the parakeet in the coal mine saying madden needs to fix the game play first. the casual are finally catching on too.

the ea ceo can spin it any way he wants. the metacritic score is the proof.

[rooney8]

Re: Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

First week numbers...

Madden 10 360-575,624
Madden 10 PS3-363,256
Total-938,880

Madden 11 360-542,803
Madden 11 PS3-445,648
Total-988,451

They're up about 23% on ps3, down about 6% on 360, up about 5% overall.

Good research on that article.

Sarcasim and research fail for you i'm afraid mate. Article FTW.
Those numbers for Madden10 are for two days sales and the numbers for Madden11 are for five days sales.

“Madden NFL 10” takes the top spot on this week’s worldwide chart, with over 1.25 million units sold in the first two days of release. The platform breakdown is as follows (note this is worldwide figures, but of course the majority of Madden sales occur in the US):

Overall, first week Madden sales are down 23% from last year, but much of this difference comes from the fact that Madden 09 released on a Wednesday so had 4 days of sales in the tracking period whereas Madden 10 released on a Friday and only had two. Comparing directly to the first two days of sale last year, Madden is actually only down 12% year on year.

As you can all see the numbers from M11 to M10 are bad and to M09 are awful even though M11 had an extra day. So all those (roadman, Only1LT) who needed proof I hope this will satisfy. Madden11 sales are terrible lets continue to celebrate and hope this will change the arcade approach to sim, sim, sim.

[frankstallone83]

Re: Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

Don't put too much hope in the NFL - they love exclusive deals and their ego is enormous. They threatened to sue a church a few years ago b/c they charged 5$ (for expenses) to a "Super Bowl Party." (no joke: http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/01/n...ings-to-blame/)

Basically they're going to do what is most profitable - hopefully that could work out in our interest but I won't hold my breath.

[mrprice33]

Re: Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

Sarcasim and research fail for you i'm afraid mate. Article FTW.
Those numbers for Madden10 are for two days sales and the numbers for Madden11 are for five days sales.

“Madden NFL 10” takes the top spot on this week’s worldwide chart, with over 1.25 million units sold in the first two days of release. The platform breakdown is as follows (note this is worldwide figures, but of course the majority of Madden sales occur in the US):

Overall, first week Madden sales are down 23% from last year, but much of this difference comes from the fact that Madden 09 released on a Wednesday so had 4 days of sales in the tracking period whereas Madden 10 released on a Friday and only had two. Comparing directly to the first two days of sale last year, Madden is actually only down 12% year on year.

As you can all see the numbers from M11 to M10 are bad and to M09 are awful even though M11 had an extra day. So all those (roadman, Only1LT) who needed proof I hope this will satisfy. Madden11 sales are terrible lets continue to celebrate and hope this will change the arcade approach to sim, sim, sim.

For now then I guess we'll just have to wait to see whether or not the first 2 week or first month sales match up. If not, then fine, sales are down.

Yay?

[stead21]

Oh well, karma is a biyah.

[infamyice]

I wouldn't even say there's trouble in the gaming industry because it's Madden by it-self. There's no other Football franchise except EA, and I'm not happy about that, cause I'm a big 2k Football gamer. Granted 2k owned Madden in almost everyway possible, but nobody want to play the same Franchise game year after year without a chance to exile the previous year(s). JMO

[Exonerated]

Re: Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

blame your government lol. for the economy. so ea can blame the government.

If Madden was still 60 and your income went up by 10%, madden sales would be rising.

[TreyIM2]

While the economy DEFINITELY has left an earmark on retail sales, in general, in the case of Madden, if gamers REALLY wanted to get at Madden because word of mouth was that the game was incredible,gamers would have went out and really spent the money on it. Didn't Modern Warfare 2 break all or some types of records, last year? Weren't we STILL in a recession? Were we even moreso in a recession back then, supposedly, at that?? Bottom line is that people HAD TO HAVE Modern Warfare 2, REGARDLESS of the economy because it was deemed to be THAT GOOD to many. Hell, I even bought the damn game and I have NEVER even owned a CoD game, prior, in my life!!! And guess what? I enjoyed the hell out of it, even at just an offline level. I don't do much online and never even played MW2 online, AT ALL.

My suggestion is that EA just stop BSing and pony up a new engine that the series so rightly deserves which is long overdue. It's obvious that continuing to try to make things work with the current engine code is just not going to get the game to the level where it needs to be (aside from toying with last gen DVDs). EA will probably lose the NFL license at this rate once the financial dept realizes what's going on, if they already haven't. Time to share the love of the NFL license and create competition the way it should have been for many years, now. Obviously, without it, in this case, Madden is suffering because Fifa and NHL have reclaimed their crowns because of comp. and it may even happen, sooner or later, with NBA Elite, which I actually expect to happen.

[REDRZA]

Re: Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

I don't buy the economy excuse, or Madden being indicative of the industry being in trouble. Watch how many copies of Halo: REACH sell. They won't have a problem flying off shelves.

Madden gamers are loyal, and purchase every year. After so many years of playing essentially the same game, with minor tweaks and roster updates, many people are tired of the game and want a new experience. EA really needs to build a brand new NFL experience ground up, just an overall better, smarter, more authentic game with realistic physics and player movement/interaction.

[roadman]

Re: Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

So all those (roadman, Only1LT) who needed proof I hope this will satisfy. Madden11 sales are terrible lets continue to celebrate and hope this will change the arcade approach to sim, sim, sim.

Madden started off sluggish last year and with the start of football and the holiday season it picked itself back up and made a small gain over Madden 9 by the time everything was accounted for.

Continue to celebrate less sales if you want to. Business doesn't work that way if one year doesn't sell well, try to do something else the next year.

It's all about budgets and the bottom line. Less sales and revenue this year, less budget next year for franchise mode and everything else that needs improving.

[REDRZA]

Re: Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

Madden started off sluggish last year and with the start of football and the holiday season it picked itself back up and made a small gain over Madden 9 by the time everything was accounted for.

Continue to celebrate less sales if you want to. Business doesn't work that way if one year doesn't sell well, try to do something else the next year.

It's all about budgets and the bottom line. Less sales and revenue this year, less budget next year for franchise mode and everything else that needs improving.

Road, you know you and i are cool, but no way this is true. First off, EA Tiburon's M.O. about trying "to do something else the next year" has been to tune and tweak the old, stale, crusty "legacy code" they have been using for years, taking minor steps forward and backward in the process.

As for next years budget being less because of this years poor sales. Thats utterly laughable. What about all those years we as Madden fans purchased this game to the tune of record sales, and STILL got the same old code tuned and tweaked the following year? In the good years, the budget wasn't increased.

If they arent selling as many games as they used to, as a business eventually you have to INVEST money to make money. It's been a very long time coming, and many of us have been saying it over and over, this game needs new life. They need to build a better, smarter, deeper, more authentic game ground up.

[kjcheezhead]

Re: Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

Madden started off sluggish last year and with the start of football and the holiday season it picked itself back up and made a small gain over Madden 9 by the time everything was accounted for.

Continue to celebrate less sales if you want to. Business doesn't work that way if one year doesn't sell well, try to do something else the next year.

It's all about budgets and the bottom line. Less sales and revenue this year, less budget next yearfor franchise mode and everything else that needs improving.

That's what I thought when EA signed the exclusive deal a few years back. They spent all that money getting exclusive licenses for ESPN, NCAA, NFL, AFL....they have nothing left to put into development and the game will end up suffering.

They have plenty of money for improving, they just spend it in the wrong places.

[TDKing]

Re: Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

Economy had nothing to do with why I didn't buy it or why my friends haven't bought it, we are older gamers with plenty of cash. My reasons are simple "almost online franchise'" last year and those famous "server side patches". Every time I get tempted to pick it up this year I just think back to last year and how excited I was when they anounced Online Franchise then how disappointed I was when I saw what we really got. one other thing, My son who is 15 has a ton of people on his friends list. Normally most are playing madden around this time but guess what out of 100 friends I saw about 3 playing Madded 11. EA are you really listening to the community??? Guess I'm the one smoking the cigar this year, huh...

[roadman]

Re: Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

Road, you know you and i are cool, but no way this is true. First off, EA Tiburon's M.O. about trying "to do something else the next year" has been to tune and tweak the old, stale, crusty "legacy code" they have been using for years, taking minor steps forward and backward in the process.

As for next years budget being less because of this years poor sales. Thats utterly laughable. What about all those years we as Madden fans purchased this game to the tune of record sales, and STILL got the same old code tuned and tweaked the following year? In the good years, the budget wasn't increased.

If they arent selling as many games as they used to, as a business eventually you have to INVEST money to make money. It's been a very long time coming, and many of us have been saying it over and over, this game needs new life. They need to build a better, smarter, deeper, more authentic game ground up.

I know what they need game wise.

Companies also give directives from the top on down. If you laid off a lot of people last year, your stock is real low right now and you have declining sales from year to year, they just can't keep pouring tons of resources into negative numbers.(i didn't even include the exclusive license as KJ pointed out)

If you think that EA will keep pouring more and more resources into a declining product area, that's your call.

I will preface this by saying I don't know what goes on behind the board room and EA and Tibouran and I could be wrong.

My business sense and experience tells me that won't happen.