Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

[videlsports]

comp forced ea to raise the bar,, they thought that the exclusive agreement would solidfy and eliminate the comp from making games.. wrong 2k has survived, a sc ruling might force the nfl from renewing the agreement, they cancelled the college basketball series, and is it a surprise that ncaa is really good because the ncaa contract ends this year? NHL and Fight night was there best games. EA better hope the MMA sells.... I'll wait until competion comes back after 2013 for the NFL and 2011 for college football.

[roadman]

Re: Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

captain buzzkill.

Ok, I won't go down the same road, I'll take the higher one.

When topics like this come up, my business experience overrides my video gaming experience.

None of us knows exactly what EA does in the board room. All I know is the President of EA wasn't happy with the direction of sales with Madden 10 addressing the stockholders last year. If the low stock price and the declining sales of Madden keep continuing, EA may keep reducing the resources to each of their games, not just Madden.

[grunt]

Re: Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

Ok, I won't go down the same road, I'll take the higher one.

When topics like this come up, my business experience overrides my video gaming experience.

None of us knows exactly what EA does in the board room. All I know is the President of EA wasn't happy with the direction of sales with Madden 10 addressing the stockholders last year. If the low stock price and the declining sales of Madden keep continuing, EA may keep reducing the resources to each of their games, not just Madden.

Then EA would effectively kill the Madden franchise.

[robbiedizzle]

Not surprising. I didn't buy madden 11, and I won't buy another madden until franchise mode is completely redone.

Same here with me

[roadman]

Re: Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

Then EA would effectively kill the Madden franchise.

If the pattern continues to happen, it could happen in the future.

[rooney8]

Re: Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

Ok, I won't go down the same road, I'll take the higher one.

When topics like this come up, my business experience overrides my video gaming experience.

None of us knows exactly what EA does in the board room. All I know is the President of EA wasn't happy with the direction of sales with Madden 10 addressing the stockholders last year. If the low stock price and the declining sales of Madden keep continuing, EA may keep reducing the resources to each of their games, not just Madden.

Sorry if it didn't come across as such but was just a joke at how most are celebrating Madden selling badly and you correctly pointing out how M10 recovered after a slow start.
I agree bad sales doesn't mean more investment but definately neither do good sales. Going by Fifa and Nhl low sales are often the kick in the pants needed. However Madden is a different kettle of fish as they already made their biggest investment with the exclusive license. I don't know bad sales will lead to a more sim game but I just think it is more likely to lead to a change with the license, Ea's approach, just something.

[Mr.Scarface]

Re: Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

Maybe the 5.4 Metacritic USER score for the game will help people understand why....or how about the fact that Madden has not progressed? Let's be honest here 2K basketball sells....Modern Warfare 2 sold big....Even though $60 is a lot to pay for a game, if Madden was high quality, it would sell....trust me. Watch what happens next...

2k11 will not sell anywhere near Madden....Why? Because it is basketball. Plus...it has competition. All basketball titles and hockey titles....combined still won't come close to Madden sales...in the end.

[Lerxt]

Re: Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

When they marketed gameflow as a main feature, as a gamer that has owned a madden game in every year that one has existed, I was insulted. They repackaged the "ask madden" feature and promoted it as something new. I realize that the gameplanning aspect of that feature is different than the ask madden feature, but it just seemed like they assuming that I'm stupid or something.

When you compare the NFL video game experience to almost every other video game sporting experience (NBA, MLB, NHL, Soccer, Tennis) madden just doesn't even compare in terms of replicating that sport in a realistic way. Until madden does this, in any economic climate, their sales will be flat. When the economy is bad, people don't stop buying altogether, they just stop buying things that aren't necessities. If Madden was as good as the Show at replicating the NFL experience, more people would include madden in their list of necessities (even though we all know that necessity is a relative term!). In fact, they now have the reputation, even with gamers who wouldn't play football for 5 seconds, as a franchise that puts the same product out year to year. They need several years of blowing the consumer away with upgrades and realism.

My brother-in-law, the ultimate casual gamer, who never touches franchise by the way, still boasts of the fact that madden is as real as it gets. Realism is the term surrounding their games. Hell, the "It's in the game" phrase used to be longer. "If it's in the game, it's in the game!". Realism. I think, to an extent, they have gotten away from realism in favor of catch-phrase features that are removed within 36 months.

In a recession, people return to buying quality products. They tend to not waste their money. I'm not saying Madden 11 is a waste of money, but I bet some people are choosing to spend their video gaming dollars on a more quality experience.

[marktg30]

Re: Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

Honestly the economy has alot to do with game sales been down.

It has a little to do with it. Gaming has weathered the recession better than ANYTHING else... Besides maybe pron and cigarettes.

[mrforensics]

Re: Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

I totally agree and before the game comes out you hear from them, then once the game is release their no where to be found. Every year they take things from the game and add stuff that shouldn't be added. It will be Madden 2015 and still can't get it right

I just never seem to get a good, positive vibe out of the EA producers (Ian, Phil, etc.) they always seem to be down and never that high on the game before it comes out. I wish they would just swallow their pride and start over. This was done with Triple Play baseball, and it turned into MVP baseball with tons of success.

[mrprice33]

I think these results further lean towards a future where sports games will be developed on a 2 year cycle.
The number of staff involved in developing a game seems to grow with so many specialized areas focusing on individual aspects of the game. Despite this the upgrades seem less each year compared to earlier gen systems.

I personally like Madden 11 but that said having such important features such as the Franchise mode completely left untouched is unforgivable. EA have made improvements largely in areas that do not require massive funding. The most obvious being the development of Ask Madden into gameflow. Even the much hyped NHL 11, outside of it's gameplay refinements, looks very similar to NHL 10. The menu system, Stanley Cup celebrations & commentary are all from last year.

Probably the biggest single factor of increased development costs over previous gen systems is the amount of money spent on providing online functionality within a title. No matter how good a game may be, unless it works flawlessly online, it won't get good ratings.

I also think we as gamers have a degree of responsibility. Nowadays there are so many blogs & forums whereby the gaming community can air their views of a game & as so often is the case it's the negative aspects that get talked about the most. This can often put off fringe buyers from shelling out the money for a new release. I think these communities can help developers in that they give them a live feedback of what people do & don't like about their titles but in addition they lay a weight of expectation on a game that is almost impossible to fulfil.

In fact so many ideas & theories are discussed in the lead up to a titles release that the game will never live up to the hype it has amassed. This goes some way to explaining why there is such a discrepancy between the ratings from the industry to the user on Madden 11.

An example of a game that was received with great acclaim on the back of lower expectations was the first version of UFC. However when it came to the sequel there was a feeling of disappointment because the expectations had become much higher.

If the current sales trend is repeated in other key titles, big guns like EA will likely make the decision to take longer to develop a title which in turn can have a number of significant improvements over it's predecessor.

I personally hope that games like Madden do continue to be released annually but in doing so I am realistic that 1 year to the next I am not going to see too many changes to a game.

One thing is for sure developers will not be willing to throw more money at game development at a time when no matter how good the game is sales levels may not improve to a justifiable level.

That's a wonderful post. Personally I think if they really blew out franchise, online franchise, and presentation they'd do much better (sales wise) next year. It's unfortunate because with sliders this is one of the best on the field football games I've played, and will be even better once they patch up a couple of things, but it is very disappointing to see how little was done to franchise.

I've been kind of saying since ncaa came out that these games are on 2 year development cycles, just unofficially so. It will most likely take them 2 years to implement any feature now, as the dev cost (in time and money) is far too great.

For example, let's say ea brought back the radio show from 2005. They'd be maligned for it, because this is now the hd video era, and video should be the focus of the franchise presentation. How long would it take to do enough fmv to last 30 years worth of franchise presentation? That would take forever.

I'm of the opinion that the excitement will come back when ea can manage to replicate the experience of following a season on tv on madden.

Time will tell if sales are actually down, but they've got to show us something next year. I was fortunate to have $50 in credit at Amazon which meant I got the game for 10 bucks, and I don't know if I would have bought it otherwise (and a lot of people on here would call me a hardcore ea apologist). If next year brings us the same franchise without a tremendous leap forward in gameplay (like a true physics engine), I'm probably taking next year off.




Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

[PhillyJim76]

Re: Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

Madden will always do well, because it is Madden. That is the problem. I am as guilty as anyone, although my copy was purchased for me as a birthday gift, but look how many people buy Madden out of habit. That's the problem, and we are all culpable!

[roadman]

Re: Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

Sorry if it didn't come across as such but was just a joke at how most are celebrating Madden selling badly and you correctly pointing out how M10 recovered after a slow start.
I agree bad sales doesn't mean more investment but definately neither do good sales. Going by Fifa and Nhl low sales are often the kick in the pants needed. However Madden is a different kettle of fish as they already made their biggest investment with the exclusive license. I don't know bad sales will lead to a more sim game but I just think it is more likely to lead to a change with the license, Ea's approach, just something.

You might try using the winking smiley or the laughing smiley next time instead of the grumpy smiley. Hard to tell the way people feel on a messageboard. (just a suggestion)

Tibouran tried a different approach this year and the jury is still out on how that will all shake out. On OS, we know most of the folks didn't purchase or don't appreciate 11, but worldwide, we don't know what the take is, yet. You can take a look at recent history and ask if declining/bad sales have lead to more sim games for Madden. However, there was a post recently by Adembroski that went through the history of Madden 06-09, and then since Ian and Phil took over. It really made me think and put a different perspective on where the series is going. Unfortunately, it's not going quickly enough for a lot of people.

I want an authenticated NFL game as much as the next person does.

[LucianoJJ]

This bad news could lead to a number of things happening.

1) EA may decide to dump Madden, and reinvent the NFL game they way they are looking to with NBA Elite succeeding NBA Live. We might finally get a real Next Gen game, but I don't like throwing Madden under the bus. (Sorry) EA can always say, Madden's retired, he's old, but this is going to burn long time fans.

2) New releases might finally drop in price to $49.99. Great.

3) EA will probably get rid of Riccitello, their head honcho, or Peter Moore, the figurehead at EA Sports.

4) This I hope won't happen but, what if EA decides to dump NCAA Football and use all the best talent from that team to rework Madden/NFL Football? If they can justify killing off NCAA Basketball and NASCAR, NCAA Football could be sacrificed.

In the end, it's the economy, stupid, as Bill Clinton said. A weak economy is painful, but it also exposes the people who do business poorly. Eventually next gen is going to fizzle out, never having lived up to the hype, and we'll either have better games on mobile devices, or we will find something else to do with our time and money.

[Exonerated]

Re: Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

Madden will always do well, because it is Madden. That is the problem. I am as guilty as anyone, although my copy was purchased for me as a birthday gift, but look how many people buy Madden out of habit. That's the problem, and we are all culpable!

The problem is with the game, not the consumers.

I'd rather have fun with Madden and hope for a better game, than sacrifice my own enjoyment to make an unheard stand.