Why Limit Gamers?

[ven0m43]

Madden has never been able to get this gen up to where it should be and will prob stay that way until the next gen or until the other game companies get the nfl license

[Icarus2k9]

Re: Why Limit Gamers?

Does it feel to anyone else that this entire situation was brought about by Madden's first forays into DLC and microtransactions? (Forgive me if I get the timeline wrong here)

09: Introduction of franchise boosters, in a bid to generate extra revenue for the brand. This means they lock the editing of attributes in franchise mode.

10: Josh introduces the new progression system, which is now built around the idea you can't change the attributes (because boosters locked them in 09). The brand starts to explore stronger DLC incentives such as AFL gear, MUT, etc.

11: Further monetization and the year-long introduction of MUT means EA are making more money than ever through DLC, coupled with the lack of changes in franchise mode causing ill-will amongst a subset of players.

At this point I enter the realm of speculation. Maybe they are making enough money now in this manner to consider allowing franchise heads full customisation at the expense of losing booster income? The only problem is now the DLC model they built in the first place might have in a long-term sense stopped them doing that.

No knock on EA, they have every right to do what they want with their property. And the progression (despite being able to see the letter grades) is far superior to years past.

[KBLover]

Re: Why Limit Gamers?

Someone mentioned earlier in the thread about devs protecting their work. That person was right IMO. To me, I wouldnt allow full blown customization simply to protect the integrety of the game.

I think Ian Cummings used an interesting word in "cheesing". That isnt an industry term I am sure but gamers have come to accept "cheesing" and associate it with "cheating" or more concerning to devs "cheap". Nobody wants their product to be branded that way and the fact is that if you allow the consumer to do as they please, that is what you are going to be looking at.

I wonder how the folks at OOTP sleep at night considering I can do anything at all I want to that game, even if I want to make it so I never lose and have killer players, and screw around with the AI's players/teams/personnel, and edit all their contracts outright (don't even need any stupid "lower all their ratings" workarounds, I just edit the contract and the extension directly), and change the sim engine, the player creation engine, my ballpark at any time, my revenue, edit any player, pick and choose what rules I want in my league, edit out injuries, edit in injuries, edit any rating at any time, etc.

All within the game's own interface. No codes, hacks, hex editing, modding, DLC. If you buy OOTP11, you get ALL of that ability at your fingertips from "go".

They don't seem the least be concerned about "cheese" and, as far as I've seen, no one considers OOTP a "cheeser's baseball game". In fact, it basically considered THE baseball sim game, maybe ever.

My point? It can work and not every gamer in the world is like "OMG how canz I chezzors and haxorz diz game?!!1!!!11"

Some actually, imagine this developers, want to extend the life of your game or make new ways to utilize your game's engine to ENHANCE the image of your product. I still play Kohan 2, an RTS, because I was able to write better AI for it and even modded an "expansion" for my buddy and I to play. A game that would long be on the shelf prompted him to re-buy the digital distribution so he won't have to worry about a disk. Who knows how many mods for games have done the same thing across game genres?

As mentioned, 2k games have done a great job of allowing customers to customize thier experience and IMO that does cheapen the game because it potentially allows for workarounds that would kill off the intergrity of the AI.

Has it hurt the game in the eyes of the community? Obviously not if it's getting praised as a game as well as for it's customization.

Think of it this way, an author writes a book and they copyright it because they dont want you taking it, changing a plotline here or there and altering the outcome.

However, there's a such thing as fan fiction, which is like modding for books/movies/game plot lines and most of the time, not only is this like a "who cares" attitude from the original creators, some have even given ideas/new avenues for new creations for the original creators.

[PhillyJim76]

You guys are all missing the point here.

EA doesn't want you to be able to do all of this. Look an 2k5. The limitless customization has given that game an extended shelf life. Same thing with CH2K8. But, had they been able to release CH2K9 with minimal innovation (which people claim Madden does) there would have been some number of people that said, you know what? Ill just update my rosters from last year's game. I don't blame EA for not allowing this.

[Skyboxer]

Re: Why Limit Gamers?

Something as simple as a global editor has been asked for, for many years. Maybe I shouldn't expect things we've had in pc gaming for years but when consoles went to hard drives I was really thinking we would get much more customization options.

On a side note: I know it seems like I've been hard on EA lately but I think I've been fair. Why EA? Because football is one of the sports games I used to live for. I still have printouts of game stats from fbpro and even madden on apple iie... Me and my cousin used to have major foot all weekends etc...

Fb gaming just hasn't been that fun or emmersive for a good while. I could care less who makes it. Just don't dumb it down. Make it fun but engaging. It just seems lately the Gamer is looked at like "they couldn't handle the game if we make it in depth"