Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

[Phixius]

Re: Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

This doesn't surprise me at all. EA has alienated their fan base in favor of a broader audience using a more easier and casual friendly approach when they already had a good one to begin with. EA got complacent and it came back and hurt them.

I don't think this has nothing to do with the game industry because they are games that have much better success in sales than Madden. It's just Madden series in general. Halo Reach has over a million pre-orders.

[bigal093]

This is what I want to hear as I am hoping it changes EA's approach to the game but as the article says this has been happening every year with the game and it's just lead to getting more and more arcade. I think Peter Moore needs to swallow his pride and admit the targeting casuals was a mistake. Cost them more loyal hardcore fans then it gained casuals.

i disagree. i think it has worked. i hate it, i do but it has worked. Madden 08 was the most ridiculous excuse for a football game. madden 99 had more realistic gameplay. it was TERRIBLE not to mention that there were tons of glitches online. and sales have gone down from there.

madden has definately improved since then and the numbers went down. madden hasn't gotten more "casual" since then. not particularly. i think their problem is not having a well rounded game. they have catered to the n00bs and online buffs, which sometimes overlap. what they haven't done is add replay value. instead they stripped down their two offline modes to the core. supposedly they are reworking them bigtime for 12, but i'll believe it when i see it. i don't know what the issue is but i don't think it is that they aren't pleasing hardcore fans, even though we at OS would like the believe that is. i know way more people who just want to play a football game with their friends than hardcore madden players.

[haze56]

Re: Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

Madden 08 was the most fun I've had playing a next gen football game until NCAA Football 11. Madden 09 was awful, Madden 10 was average, and I didn't even bother buying Madden 11 because tons of people have said it's a step down from Madden 10.

Like me a lot of people did not buy Madden 11 because they felt like it had not improved enough to worth buying. I'm a firm believer in making a game every 2 years because it's too hard to make a huge improvement in one year and still have a good game. Games like Halo and Call of Duty take 2 or more years to send out a new game and they really spend time working out bugs and glitches. Madden has a chance to be a good game, but they seem to rush these games out and just seem to half *** them. It's as if I'm making a chocolate chip cookie and I'm making a new one every year. I make tons of them and get feedback from the buyers. They tell me to add and subtract different ingredients from the batter, but instead I make the chocolate chips bigger and call it a new cookie.

[kingcrumb]

I have ask about in game saves and AI that can run the ball for over 12 years. I had to trade Madden 11 in I was able to average over 60 points and I lost. This is the worst Madden IMO in years. Where do they come up with this stuff?

[bms715]

That's between the NFL and EA.

I know that, I'm just saying that as long as EA is the only one making an NFL game, there will still be holes in the game

[bms715]

Madden 08 was the most fun I've had playing a next gen football game until NCAA Football 11. Madden 09 was awful, Madden 10 was average, and I didn't even bother buying Madden 11 because tons of people have said it's a step down from Madden 10.

Like me a lot of people did not buy Madden 11 because they felt like it had not improved enough to worth buying. I'm a firm believer in making a game every 2 years because it's too hard to make a huge improvement in one year and still have a good game. Games like Halo and Call of Duty take 2 or more years to send out a new game and they really spend time working out bugs and glitches. Madden has a chance to be a good game, but they seem to rush these games out and just seem to half *** them. It's as if I'm making a chocolate chip cookie and I'm making a new one every year. I make tons of them and get feedback from the buyers. They tell me to add and subtract different ingredients from the batter, but instead I make the chocolate chips bigger and call it a new cookie.

I couldn't agree more about the game every two years thing

[roadman]

Re: Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

I wouldn't mind the game every two years either, but two things prevent that from happening.

1. The NFL license. The license demands a game from EA once every year.

2. As long as I can remember, Madden has come out on a yearly basis. They won't stop their cash cow as stockholders would drop them in a minute.

It's a business.

[mrprice33]

Yeah like I said they would have to double their current sales to make up the difference and I don't see that happening.

Sent from my HTC EVO 4G using Tapatalk.

[Only1LT]

Re: Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

Madden 11 sales for the week:

360: 554,617
PS3: 459,688
Wii: 92,313
PS2: 62,011
PSP: 42,212

Total: 1,210,841

Looks like you would have won as far as first week sales, but are you speaking in terms of overall sales?

Source: http://www.vgchartz.com/weekly.php?date=40405®=World&date=40405&console=&m aker=EA+Sports

Overall sales. I aint scurred lol.

[Only1LT]

Re: Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

Let's just go down the list, shall we?

Suction blocking and 2 man animations are a product of using motion captured animations in the game. Many other games deemed superior (nba 2k, for one) also have these problems. Until these games go full physics, which only really became plausible a couple of years ago, these issues will remain. That being said, suction blocking is far more rare in 10/11 than in any other version of the game.

Dbs mirroring routes didn't happen until 09 at the earliest. It was not a problem in the last gen versions of the game.

Nano blitzes are a problem that have plagued pretty much every football game ever made. Offensive line ai is probably one of the most difficult things to program in all of gaming, especially when you give the user the ability to hot route defenders and move guys around to trick the ai.

And using sliders takes care of the issues defensively (the same way they fixed 2k5s awful pass coverage).


Sent from my HTC EVO 4G using Tapatalk.

Psychic DBs and Synchronized Route Running, was absolutely, unequivocally on last gen. Not even a maybe.

[qcsavagelife25]

Im too excited to hear this, didnt buy madden cause it was pretty sh!tty this year even though i knew it wouldnt make any difference on sales BUT other ppl felt the same.....thats what it is

[MJ2320]

Re: Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

Naw, just signaling trouble for Madden. :wink:

[TotesMaGotes]

I read the topic title as "Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Crappy Games."

[cdon2k]

Re: Weak Madden Sales Signaling Trouble for Game Industry

Finally EA is getting it where it hurts after riding loyal football fans for years while using this title to finance their takeover of the world. We got poor editions of Madden while they bought the game industry and financed games like mirrors edge which sold like crap. Karma!

[ScottGer76]

It's not suprising really. Games in Canada are priced at 69.99, for essentially a roster update with a few gimmicks thrown in. Over the past 4 years EA have continually released sub-standard football and soccer games that are buggy and flat. Without a competitor in the sports game market why should they change?