Madden's Current Gen Has Not Been a Success

[RaychelSnr]

To say that the Madden series has been a success this console generation would be an overstatement of the decade.

Think back to the year 2004, a year that could be summed up as nothing short of a football gaming utopia. NFL 2K5 aside, EA's Madden 2005 set the bar for all successive iterations in the series. The game was the perfect blend of polished gameplay, solid presentation, and new and innovative features like defensive playmaker controls. Madden 05 had football gamers glued to their consoles for months to come.

Fast forward to 2006 when the now infamous Madden "next-gen" trailer was released, and the hype surrounding Madden's move to the Xbox 360 and PS3 was at a fever pitch.

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[elgreazy1]

Competition breeds excellence, and Madden hasn't had competition since Madden 05. When a product or service no longer has to work hard to earn your money then the quality of the product or service will suffer.

[unfriendlyghst]

Spot on analysis. I for one was overseas when the trailer and subsequent madden 06 game were released . Needless to say its 2011 and I am still not impressed.

[Eski33]

Nice blog but this whole topic has been beaten to death. You didn't mention anything new that has not been said or written in the past five years.

From my standpoint and a longtime gamer (have played every rendition of Madden since its Apple II days) Madden isn't a failure. To gamers, yes, the game has not lived up to a certain level of expectation especially on consoles that are to have more power. From an economic standpoint, people are still buying Madden. If Madden is so bad, how is it making so much money? Simple -- There are people out there who find the game fun.

I am on the fence. When the 360 / PS3 era came about, my expectations mirrored everyone else's. I couldn't wait to see what EA would do with more graphical power and with consoles having HDD as a norm, EA was sure to break out all the stops. Instead, what we got was a stripped down game that didn't have nearly the features the PS2 / XBox versions had.

Since that time, the Madden series improved little by little each year. Madden 09 and 10 were great games with Madden 10 taking visual leaps over its predecessor. The problem with Madden is that there are people want it to fail that they spend every waking moment looking for bugs, glitches, issues, etc. and blogging, writing in forums and recording videos that go straight to YouTube for all to see.

I understand why people do this. They want competition back which is a great thing.

In looking at what the NCAA 11 team did, this has to push the ante for the Madden team because NCAA 11, although not perfect, is one of the best console football games to date. It is visually pleasing as well as the online dynasty has to be one of the best multi-player features ever (outside of BAP in NHL).

To compare Madden to a game like Backbreaker is almost criminal. First, to say a developer with fewer resources created a revolutionary physics engine is a tad slanted. Keep in mind that the developer of Back Breaker developed the physics engine first THEN creaeted a football game as a way to show it off. They aren't a football game developer who created a great physics engine. Also, your blog makes it seem as if they created this physics engine in one development cycle which isn't the case. NatualMotion was working on that physics engine for years and it took almost as long to release BackBreaker.

I have no issues with the physics engine that is currently utilized in Madden and NCAA. Only those that cannot get past the simple fact that these are games and they will never fully emulate reality will continue to be "unhappy" with the state of Madden and other games.

[unfriendlyghst]

I don't understand how madden not having consecutive hit tackling going in 2011 is anyone wanting the game to fail

[Segagendude]

Re: Madden's Current Gen has not Been a Success

Unfair comaprison, I know......but......

When I take a look at The Show, Madden seems like a PS1 game still in developement.

I agree with this blog 100%. I just hope Ian and co. can FINALLY change this.....

[Nab_Impervious_XII]

Re: Madden's Current Gen has not Been a Success

Simple statement: We just badly need competition in football to achieve breakthrough advances.

EA's FIFA rarely gets competition, but I feel like that game has already maximized its reality (It's not tremendously hard to simulate people running with the occasional tackle).

But american football has 22 people in constant interaction with each other. It's extremely difficult to simulate. And without competition, EA isn't going to take the necessary risks to achieve this momentous task when the 'status quo' is enough to sell games.

[siznit]

Re: Madden's Current Gen has not Been a Success

This blog speaks the truth. If 2ksports could of made NFL games on this generation of consoles EA Sports would be making a lot better Madden games than they are now. They are saving their big features and gameplay tweaks for when 2k gets the NFL license again.

[ch46647]

Re: Madden's Current Gen has not Been a Success

Unfair comaprison, I know......but......

When I take a look at The Show, Madden seems like a PS1 game still in developement.

I agree with this blog 100%. I just hope Ian and co. can FINALLY change this.....

I have been a Madden fan since 92' and used to follow this board religiously since 07' hoping that Madden would return to the game I loved as a kid. Unfortunately, I have all but given up on Madden for this generation. I have not played "The Show" much but I play NHL 11 all the time. The gameplay in NHL 11 is LIGHT YEARS ahead of where Madden is at the moment. Other sports games like "The Show", FIFA, NBA 2k11, and NHL are absoulely amazing when compared with Madden.

I put in Madden 11 the other night for the first time since September and was disgusted by how poor the gameplay and presentation are. I am not a Madden basher by any means but anyone who grew up playing Madden like I did has to be ashamed by the current offering. Madden has literally nothing to hang their hat on at the moment. The gameplay and presentation are bordering terrible, and the franchise mode has not been touched in years and is an absolute joke. The only thing you could say is acceptable in Madden are the graphics. However, the fact that the players move like robots, and after the play is dead they just wander around the field with no real direction or reactions make the graphics go to waste.

My .02

[hitstreak13]

Re: Madden's Current Gen has not Been a Success

Sigh- I remember the days of having to choose between gameday, madden, NFL 2k, and blitz. Each game brought on a unique perspective/experience. I highly doubt we will ever see that again. Good analysis by the way.

[fistofrage]

Re: Madden's Current Gen has not Been a Success

Operation Sports always gives it high scores.........

[guaps]

Re: Madden's Current Gen has not Been a Success

EA's FIFA rarely gets competition, but I feel like that game has already maximized it's reality (It's not tremendously hard to simulate people running with the occasional tackle).

You must never have heard of Pro Evolution Soccer (PES). FIFA had a hard time keeping up with PES on the last-gen machine in terms of innovation, which got PES get a bigger market share with every release. This in turn forced EA to create a super game engine for the current generation consoles.

But as regards to the positive about competition in video games, FIFA and PES are prime examples, because they constantly copy and improve each others features/idea. Delivering two fantastic soccer games each and every year.

[Nab_Impervious_XII]

Re: Madden's Current Gen has not Been a Success

You must never have heard of Pro Evolution Soccer (PES). FIFA had a hard time keeping up with PES on the last-gen machine in terms of innovation, which got PES get a bigger market share with every release. This in turn forced EA to create a super game engine for the current generation consoles.

But as regards to the positive about competition in video games, FIFA and PES are prime examples, because they constantly copy and improve each others features/idea. Delivering two fantastic soccer games each and every year.

True, I know about PES. I'm talking about recently though. They've been subpar for the past 3-4 years and for the most part, they've given EA little to no competition this generation. (To PES's credit though, EA has similar exclusive agreements with the top tier tournaments - so they're partially limited). But my point was that this relative lack of effective competition doesn't anger me as much with Soccer because I feel the 'locomotion engine' is already an accurate depiction of soccer. Players pass the ball most of the time, and tackling can be pre-scripted (without the need for a real-time engine like euphoria) because it's so straightforward and doesn't happen very often.

Locomotion is only 40% of the equation in American football. The tackling engine and "player interaction" are the parts that need real innovation. And it's a huge task that requires huge risks to overcome. And I'm not sure if EA will take those risks without the necessary competition.

[Only1LT]

Re: Madden's Current Gen Has Not Been a Success

"What's even crazier is that Backbreaker actually looks more like the 2006 'next-gen' Madden trailer than the real Madden."

I thought that was hilarious.

[KingV2k3]

I am somewhat surprised and pleased to see this article on OS...

I agree with the majority of it's content and tone, but have steered away from this sort of critisism of the title, because I figured all it would do is get me a "yellow card" or "pinked"...

I also, have to admit that I'm "part of the problem", because as disappointed as I have been with the product since '05, I've purchased it every year since...

I don't balme Ian and Phil, there intentions are solid, they just have to report to an entity that values "New" features over core (sim, offline) gameplay...

What vexes me is the fact that it loses customization and desireable features (like the control over the sim stat engine and CPU gameplay through Coach Philosophy adjustments a la '05, custom playbooks in franchise, run / pass commit) to focus on Gameplanning, which may have been a success if they didn't break it with their own patch...



I don't buy Hockey or Soccer games, so I'll take OP's (and others) take on those, but as a guy who buys The Show every year, NBA2k most years and was blown away by this year's NCAA, the Madden franchise has to admit that in overall quality, it's barely scraping into the Top Ten for Sports titles, despite sales and it's "Household Word" factors...

The skeptic in me realizes that folks "phone it in" at work and school in every walk of life and are rewarded with passing grades and job security (for simply showing up), but this sort of work ethic would, as a freelancer, just kill my ability to make a decent living...

That being said, I'm going to enjoy my (highly flawed, but enjoyable) Bills fanchise...

Like I said, I'm my own worst enemy for folding every year on my planned Madden embargo...

Ugh...