Madden Sales Down 18% Y-o-Y in October

[spankdatazz22]

Re: Madden Sales Down 18% Y-o-Y in October

tlc is just guessing that competition made EA cancel Elite, but he is right in that competition can potentially hurt a business. After all, if your comp does something better than you and steals your business, than I think that would qualify as hurting.

Technically yes, but in this instance what the competition would be doing is showing where a business was weak. By the competition doing something better it forces [the business] to either improve or risk losing consumers. Something Madden doesn't have to contend with. That they've lost consumers while having no competition is a strong indictment on the product (imo).

We just don't have concrete evidence, that EA cancelled Elite because of 2K 11, or if they wouldn't have done it anyway, had 2K11 skipped this year as well. Or if EA had had an exclusive, that they would have even taken the chance to reinvent Live into Elite at all.

We'll never know.

Well, we sort of do know. Let's argue the opposite. What if NBA Elite turned out to be a stellar title - would EA have cancelled it in the face of competition? Most of us would say no. And that would've either forced 2K to adjust their game if there was the appropriate consumer response to Elite, or they'd risk getting surpassed in areas where their competition was superior. Just think if Tiburon had exclusivity before 2005 where we'd be. I remember them saying online wasn't possible... until 2K did it. Or Ian Cummings saying true physics w/11 vs. 11 players on the field wasn't doable this gen... until NaturalMotion did it. Interactive sidelines, halftime shows, etc. I don't think for a second that if their was another NFL game out there doing these things, you wouldn't soon see them (or something better) in Madden. I give Tiburon props for what they did during the PS1 (and partially the PS2) era in terms of setting a foundation for videogame football. But this gen I can't think of a single innovation they've come up with. You can look at pretty much every other sports game this gen and point to various innovations they've come up with to push their genres forward - it hasn't happened with football.

I don't think lack of competition is the single greatest reason why Madden/NCAA are in the state they are; I'd say Tiburon itself is the number one reason. But lack of competition has contributed greatly to it

[Only1LT]

Re: Madden Sales Down 18% Y-o-Y in October

Can it get any worse?

We've had deju vu's, people holding a gun to a person's head reciting the Gettysburg Address, Hawaii vacation contest, etc....

Sorry, just an injection of a little humor in here.

That is all.

Lol, Touche

[Only1LT]

Re: Madden Sales Down 18% Y-o-Y in October

Technically yes, but in this instance what the competition would be doing is showing where a business was weak. By the competition doing something better it forces [the business] to either improve or risk losing consumers. Something Madden doesn't have to contend with. That they've lost consumers while having no competition is a strong indictment on the product (imo).



Well, we sort of do know. Let's argue the opposite. What if NBA Elite turned out to be a stellar title - would EA have cancelled it in the face of competition? Most of us would say no. And that would've either forced 2K to adjust their game if there was the appropriate consumer response to Elite, or they'd risk getting surpassed in areas where their competition was superior. Just think if Tiburon had exclusivity before 2005 where we'd be. I remember them saying online wasn't possible... until 2K did it. Or Ian Cummings saying true physics w/11 vs. 11 players on the field wasn't doable this gen... until NaturalMotion did it. Interactive sidelines, halftime shows, etc. I don't think for a second that if their was another NFL game out there doing these things, you wouldn't soon see them (or something better) in Madden. I give Tiburon props for what they did during the PS1 (and partially the PS2) era in terms of setting a foundation for videogame football. But this gen I can't think of a single innovation they've come up with. You can look at pretty much every other sports game this gen and point to various innovations they've come up with to push their genres forward - it hasn't happened with football.

I don't think lack of competition is the single greatest reason why Madden/NCAA are in the state they are; I'd say Tiburon itself is the number one reason. But lack of competition has contributed greatly to it

Mamma, there goes that word "force" again lol.

Competition doing something better does not "force" someone to improve. There are several ways that EA could try and combat competition doing something better beside improving their product. They could increase advertising. Come up with slam campaigns. Do give away promos. They could do exclusive deals to eliminate comp (does Dr Evil finger to mouth pose lol). And any other number of things, that do not include making the actual product itself better.

The idea that comp "forces" the comp to put out a better product is a nice pie in the sky, this is what makes capitalism great, idea. It's also a nice idea to think that politicians should be elected solely based on their talking points about the issues in regards to their opponent and nothing else extraneous. But this is the really real world lol, and things don't always work that way.

As for your second point, we don't really know. Not everyone reads forums. Not everyone plays demos. Hell, not everyone reads previews on game sites or game mags. NBA Live may not be AS big as Madden, but it has a big following. There are undoubtedly people out there that would buy Elite, sight unseen, just like with Madden. What am I getting at?

EA put money into trying to reinvent Live. By cancelling it, and theoretically starting over again, or at least doing major tweaking to what's there, they will be spending more money and using more man hours. They could have easily released the game. It doesn't matter if the game got killed, it wouldn't be the first Live to get killed lol, they still would have moved some copies. How many I can't say, but definitely more than zero, which is what they sold by cancelling it. Knowing that, I would argue that them cancelling it had less to do with 2K, and more to do with them really not being happy with the title at all.

This is EA we are talking about. The company that most people think have been on cruise control with Madden since the exclusive license. So why would people, who think that EA is that kind of company, think that they wouldn't release some POS game whether it was ready or not? You can't have it both ways.

I'm not saying that it isn't possible that 2K 11 is the reason that they cancelled Elite, I'm just saying that it is also possible that they actually cancelled it because they weren't happy with it, regardless.

Your last bolded statement was fine until the very last sentence. If you had said But I think lack of competition has contributed greatly to it, it would have been fine as well. The lack of "I think", like you had in the sentence before it, means that, you think, the last statement, is a statement of fact, which you have no way of knowing if it is or not.

[Blue Line]

Technically yes, but in this instance what the competition would be doing is showing where a business was weak. By the competition doing something better it forces [the business] to either improve or risk losing consumers. Something Madden doesn't have to contend with. That they've lost consumers while having no competition is a strong indictment on the product (imo).



Well, we sort of do know. Let's argue the opposite. What if NBA Elite turned out to be a stellar title - would EA have cancelled it in the face of competition? Most of us would say no. And that would've either forced 2K to adjust their game if there was the appropriate consumer response to Elite, or they'd risk getting surpassed in areas where their competition was superior. Just think if Tiburon had exclusivity before 2005 where we'd be. I remember them saying online wasn't possible... until 2K did it. Or Ian Cummings saying true physics w/11 vs. 11 players on the field wasn't doable this gen... until NaturalMotion did it. Interactive sidelines, halftime shows, etc. I don't think for a second that if their was another NFL game out there doing these things, you wouldn't soon see them (or something better) in Madden. I give Tiburon props for what they did during the PS1 (and partially the PS2) era in terms of setting a foundation for videogame football. But this gen I can't think of a single innovation they've come up with. You can look at pretty much every other sports game this gen and point to various innovations they've come up with to push their genres forward - it hasn't happened with football.

I don't think lack of competition is the single greatest reason why Madden/NCAA are in the state they are; I'd say Tiburon itself is the number one reason. But lack of competition has contributed greatly to it

very well said.....competition does one of two things; it makes the competitor step up their game in the fear of loosing business or the competition is too great thus causing one company to fold its cards. folks thats what competition does in all aspects of life. for those that are saying "all competition does is it gives us another choice" well thats really nice however that is not the purpose of this discussion. companies do not care if you as the consumer have the luxury of picking more than one title. companies care about sales and money. and yes i do believe that NBA 2k's supremacy had alot to do with nba elite's demise.

for those that want to keep arguing this...well lets agree to disagree. i guess we can only wait and see what happens to madden once 2k puts out a football title.

[Blue Line]

Mamma, there goes that word "force" again lol.

Competition doing something better does not "force" someone to improve. There are several ways that EA could try and combat competition doing something better beside improving their product. They could increase advertising. Come up with slam campaigns. Do give away promos. They could do exclusive deals to eliminate comp (does Dr Evil finger to mouth pose lol). And any other number of things, that do not include making the actual product itself better.

The idea that comp "forces" the comp to put out a better product is a nice pie in the sky, this is what makes capitalism great, idea. It's also a nice idea to think that politicians should be elected solely based on their talking points about the issues in regards to their opponent and nothing else extraneous. But this is the really real world lol, and things don't always work that way.

As for your second point, we don't really know. Not everyone reads forums. Not everyone plays demos. Hell, not everyone reads previews on game sites or game mags. NBA Live may not be AS big as Madden, but it has a big following. There are undoubtedly people out there that would buy Elite, sight unseen, just like with Madden. What am I getting at?

EA put money into trying to reinvent Live. By cancelling it, and theoretically starting over again, or at least doing major tweaking to what's there, they will be spending more money and using more man hours. They could have easily released the game. It doesn't matter if the game got killed, it wouldn't be the first Live to get killed lol, they still would have moved some copies. How many I can't say, but definitely more than zero, which is what they sold by cancelling it. Knowing that, I would argue that them cancelling it had less to do with 2K, and more to do with them really not being happy with the title at all.

This is EA we are talking about. The company that most people think have been on cruise control with Madden since the exclusive license. So why would people, who think that EA is that kind of company, think that they wouldn't release some POS game whether it was ready or not? You can't have it both ways.

I'm not saying that it isn't possible that 2K 11 is the reason that they cancelled Elite, I'm just saying that it is also possible that they actually cancelled it because they weren't happy with it, regardless.

Your last bolded statement was fine until the very last sentence. If you had said But I think lack of competition has contributed greatly to it, it would have been fine as well. The lack of "I think", like you had in the sentence before it, means that, you think, the last statement, is a statement of fact, which you have no way of knowing if it is or not.

nba elite was rebuild because it wasn't a good game....not because it was great and ea wanted to make it greater. if elite was the only nba game there wouldn't be a need to rebuild it because they would do the same thing they are doing with madden. i like your pure hearted way of looking at things and believing that ea actually wanted you to be able to play a really good basketball title thus rebuilding it from the ground up however thats just not what happened.

[Only1LT]

Re: Madden Sales Down 18% Y-o-Y in October

nba elite was rebuild because it wasn't a good game....not because it was great and ea wanted to make it greater. if elite was the only nba game there wouldn't be a need to rebuild it because they would do the same thing they are doing with madden. i like your pure hearted way of looking at things and believing that ea actually wanted you to be able to play a really good basketball title thus rebuilding it from the ground up however thats just not what happened.

How could Live not be a good game? According to you and others, competition forces people to make better products. If that is the case, how is it possible that Live was ever a bad game? There were always other B-ball games, no?

It has nothing to do with a "pure hearted" view. EA could have released the game the way it was. To think other wise, is absurd. EA would have sold copies of the game, regardless of how much bashing there was of the game in reviews, boards, or word of mouth. To think otherwise is absurd. There are people that don't pay attention to those things and buy things for what ever reason they do. People bought Haze didn't they? People saw Battlefield Earth didn't they? By not releasing the game, at all, all the money put into Elite, went down the drain.

Regardless of how big a train wreck Elite would, or would not have been (I still have the demo on my XMB, and still haven't gotten around to trying it) there is no doubt that they would have sold more copies by releasing it, then by cancelling. Even if they sold one copy. Do you think that EA is above releasing a POS game? If you don't, then you have to accept that it is possible that they didn't release it because they weren't happy with it, because it doesn't matter if NBA 2K11 sells 20mil copies and Elite sells 500k, that's still 500k more than they would have sold by cancelling.

There is more than one possible reason for why Elite was cancelled. To think otherwise, would again, be absurd. Understand I am not saying that comp was not the reason it was cancelled, just that it is entirely possible that it wasn't.

A lot of you like to speak about things as fact, that you could not possibly know whether it is fact or not. Unless, of course, if one of you is named Charles Xavier, in which case I apologize lol.

[tlc12576]

Re: Madden Sales Down 18% Y-o-Y in October

How do we know competition ended NBA Elite? Just like we don't know if competition has an influence on making products better, how do we know it was competition that led them to close shop and retool? We can speculate that was part of the issue, but it's not a given or guarantee. It could be because they listened their core audience and to the premature meta critic scores as well.

I'm sure they are hoping for a short term pain for a long term gain.

Just to be clear, what I posted was, "It can't hurt the consumer or the NFL video game market but it can hurt the actual game of Madden, ala NBA Live. Competition ended that game and probably had alot to do with NBA Elite being unreleased this year."

I stated competition ended NBA Live because in NBA Live 10, EA actually hired a NBA 2k dev and tried to improve on what NBA 2K had been doing for years. After NBA Live 10, it seems EA just conceded to 2k with the mo'cap animations (or whatever 2k uses), scrapped the NBA Live series and decided to create a whole new game, NBA Elite, using RTP. If you don't think that's a clear sign of the competition ending NBA Live, nothing will convince you, IMO.

The main thing is Roadman, you are saying in this post what I have been saying from the start and LT agreed with. In EA sports games there have been successes and there have been failures, both with and without competition. Sometimes, it is very difficult to clearly define how the lack of competition or the presence of competition directly affected the product, either positively or negatively.

So however gamers feel about Madden, they should hold EA accountable, not competition. It is wishful thinking to say "if only Madden had competition, it would be _____", nobody knows.

[roadman]

Re: Madden Sales Down 18% Y-o-Y in October

Just to be clear, what I posted was, "It can't hurt the consumer or the NFL video game market but it can hurt the actual game of Madden, ala NBA Live. Competition ended that game and probably had alot to do with NBA Elite being unreleased this year."

I stated competition ended NBA Live because in NBA Live 10, EA actually hired a NBA 2k dev and tried to improve on what NBA 2K had been doing for years. After NBA Live 10, it seems EA just conceded to 2k with the mo'cap animations (or whatever 2k uses), scrapped the NBA Live series and decided to create a whole new game, NBA Elite, using RTP. If you don't think that's a clear sign of the competition ending NBA Live, nothing will convince you, IMO.

The main thing is Roadman, you are saying in this post what I have been saying from the start and LT agreed with. In EA sports games there have been successes and there have been failures, both with and without competition. Sometimes, it is very difficult to clearly define how the lack of competition or the presence of competition directly affected the product, either positively or negatively.

So however gamers feel about Madden, they should hold EA accountable, not competition. It is wishful thinking to say "if only Madden had competition, it would be _____", nobody knows.

I understand and agree with what you are saying in your entire post except the competition part with NBA Elite.

As LT eluded to earlier, we don't really know the cause of the short term demise of NBA Elite, and we will never know. We can infer and speculate, but that is about all we can do.

To me, it was just a simple thing that the opportunity wasn't a good fit for the 2k developer jumping over to NBA Live. It was a square peg in a round hole type thing and the quality of NBA Elite wasn't up to snuff.

That's my speculation and I could be wrong too. Nothing more than an opinion.

So, I guess nothing will convince me totally.

[ktownage]

im not suprised. off-line the game had no improvements

[skeezapleez]

They screwed this game up for me by not updating the Online Franchise in the slightest way. They said it was because it was the least played mode in Madden 10 that they didn't do any improvements. It was only the least played mode because it SUCKED compared to NCAA's Online Dynasty.

[thecougarbear]

I'm sure it doesn't help that, you know, the economy is in the crapper. Quite honestly, $60 is a lot of money to spend on a piece of plastic. When I was in college, it was like, "Yeah, sure. You buy Madden every year. Duh."

Working for your money puts a whole new spin on a dollar, let alone $60 of them. I'm not in the least surprised that sales are down. They have malnourished the game to the point of starvation--especially in a time of austerity.

[Blue Line]

Re: Madden Sales Down 18% Y-o-Y in October

nba live was awful....

i had no problem spending $60 on nba 2k11, COD, mlb the show, fifa just to name a few....guess the economy wasn't that hard on my pockets...or maybe i have no problem spending money on products that are worth it.

[roadman]

Re: Madden Sales Down 18% Y-o-Y in October

nba live was awful....

i had no problem spending $60 on nba 2k11, COD, mlb the show, fifa just to name a few....guess the economy wasn't that hard on my pockets...or maybe i have no problem spending money on products that are worth it.

To each their own.

If your surviving, that's great, others aren't.

[Rules]

Re: Madden Sales Down 18% Y-o-Y in October

Ea decided to make the game for the casual player and move away from the sim side of things.

Goal: To grab the arcade side of the market.
Result: Sim players abandoned their game. I didn't even think twice about not buying Madden this year as it would have been a complete waste of money for me. To the point that I have little interest in their Madden Franchise in the future. So add me to another percent that is MOST Likely not buying their game next year either as they would have to do a complete overhaul of the game and they are not going to do that.

In the end: EA Madden = E P I C Fail

Why?

Because they failed to listen!

[Only1LT]

Re: Madden Sales Down 18% Y-o-Y in October

I'm sure it doesn't help that, you know, the economy is in the crapper. Quite honestly, $60 is a lot of money to spend on a piece of plastic. When I was in college, it was like, "Yeah, sure. You buy Madden every year. Duh."

Working for your money puts a whole new spin on a dollar, let alone $60 of them. I'm not in the least surprised that sales are down. They have malnourished the game to the point of starvation--especially in a time of austerity.

nba live was awful....

i had no problem spending $60 on nba 2k11, COD, mlb the show, fifa just to name a few....guess the economy wasn't that hard on my pockets...or maybe i have no problem spending money on products that are worth it.

To each their own.

If your surviving, that's great, others aren't.

I'm not saying that the economy doesn't play a factor. It plays a factor in everything we do.

I will say one thing though. The economy factor goes right out the window for anyone who bought even one game since Madden has been released. If you had $60 to spend on a game, and you bought one besides Madden, then that isn't the economy affecting Madden's sales. That's Madden affecting Madden's sales.

The economy argument only works, potentially, for those that have not bought a single game since Madden has been available. And even then, I'm sure that some number of those people would not have bought it even if they had the money.

The economy is thrown out there in defense of Madden a lot, and again, it is a factor, but it is a factor for every game, and every purchase in general, as well. If you are still making luxury purchases, especially if it is a game purchase, other than Madden, then that is NOT the economy.