Madden Creative Director, Ian Cummings is Leaving Tiburon

[Cre8]

Re: Madden Creative Director, Ian Cummings is Leaving Tiburon

I'm very happy to hear this. I feel this job was more then Ian Cummings could handle. Don't get me wrong, he's a great guy but the series has been going sideway at best since he took over.

On Madden 09 I would agree.

10 looked like a great thing was coming...

11 proved (to me at least) that it was a pipe dream.

[CRMosier_LM]

Re: Madden Creative Director, Ian Cummings is Leaving Tiburon

Dude... Seriously... How can you post trash like this that are absolute guesswork, slander, and completely false? You claim the guys have no vision, work ethic (since you basically claim Ian was on vacation instead of doing his job)... But yet have you ever met the guys?... Have you ever sat in during the development? Were you on vacation with him? Lol! Come on man, its ridiculous statements that make the devs job that much harder and absolutely miserable. Random internet troll can mouth off all day without consequence, but the dev team can't respond to it really without risking their jobs or credibility

[Hooe]

Re: Madden Creative Director, Ian Cummings is Leaving Tiburon

Mark my words people...

THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF THE END FOR EA SPORTS....

It really isn't. Your opinion is an overreaction.

[jeremym480]

Re: Madden Creative Director, Ian Cummings is Leaving Tiburon

One more time guys.... The devs have a direction or idea for the game, they take it to EA Management. Management says no, that's not important, you need to put this in the game instead (example: a content item that's download purchase only). Everyone can blame the devs til they are blue in the face, but those that do obviously haven't actually worked in a professional setting.

I'm sure money had something to do with Ian leaving, but I guarantee a huge part was him and his staff being handcuffed by management and the amount of idiot junk that spews out of peoples mouths on sites like this. His response was always "we are trying", a lot of people realize when he says that it doesn't mean we are trying to figure out how to do it, but most likely "we are trying to get this put into the game but the people at the top don't feel its important".

His job EA also to spit the company line, did you really think he would come out every year and say "can't do it, management doesn't care what you want"? Cmon thats breach of contract and opens him up to a lawsuit... That is after they throw him out the door. Believe it or not, but developers don't have free reign over what the produce, every action is strictly monitored by their bosses to maximize the profit. They are making an absolute killing on MUT, much more than the sales would have netted if the 10% of you who didn't purchase the game would have went out and bought a copy.

As far as everyone who says this lawsuit will change things... The lawsuit will fail miserably, probably won't make it last preliminary hearings. Anyone can file a lawsuit, that doesn't mean it will go anywhere.

Great Post. I agree will 1000% of it. Will read again.



@ all of this.

To say that Ian did nothing is a very ignorant statement, IMO. Madden 10 was a huge improvement over 09. And I'd venture to say that Ian was a nice part of that improvement. I do agree that Ian was necessarily the "director" of Madden because I believe that his hands were tied in a lot of ways but, I do believe that he was a hard worker and wanted to make Madden the best it could be.

While it is pure speculation on my part (because I'll admit that I don't know the first thing about producing and directing the making of a video game), I think that a large part of Ian decision to leave was because of the suits. I think that Ian actually listened to the fans and wanted to give us what we wanted but, they're more interested in thing's like MUT than a better online franchise. I say that only because most "higher ups" that I've come across only see things in black and white. So when they see that online franchise is the least played mode that's all the see therefore, they don't want to spend as much development cost/man hours on it. They don't take into account that the mode isn't played because of the bare bones approach. If something like that was the case I can see how Ian became frustrated with the whole thing. Because basically he's taking it from both ends. He's getting the brunt of the abuse from Madden fans for decisions that basically aren't his as well as, the "why isn't the mode being played" from the suits. It was a lose, lose situation for him.

Again, I will note that this is just a guess just like everyone else here is guessing. Hell, for all we know he's leaving to work less hours, be in a less stressful situation, or any other number of things. Whatever the reason all I can say is I doubt M12 will be effected that much but, I'll definitely interested to see how everything plays out for M13. However, with the suits making most of the decisions I doubt we see any real change there either. Which to me they don't need a massive overhaul like a bunch of people here believe. IMO, they just need to continue tweaking game-play and have a complete offline/online franchises like last gen and then Madden would be great again. But, I guess that beside the point.

[Cre8]

Re: Madden Creative Director, Ian Cummings is Leaving Tiburon

One guy leaving EA isn't going to change anything...

Unless that one guy is Peter Moore.

[Pared]

Re: Madden Creative Director, Ian Cummings is Leaving Tiburon

Ok -

The baseless comments and all-knowing rants stop now.

Discuss the topic. Give your opinions and what you think but STOP POSTING YOUR OPINION AS FACT.

No one buys it here. Only those directly involved have any knowledge on the matters. It's doing nothing but instigating arguments.

Thanks.

[ManiacMatt1782]

Re: Ian Cummings is out

Madden 12 will be fine bro. They are already doing demo to the press this week to get ready for the draft. These few guys leaving ain't going to hurt the game that much. I'm sure EA got this under control.

It's too late to significantly help the game. I respect that the dude did talk to the community. But he was also in major denial about the product. I hope fresh eyes on the project helps fix some of maidens major issues this gen, like poor line recognition, size not mattering for blocking and tackling. The complete lack of cleanup hits. Invisible walls forming around players during tackle/break tackle animations. Secondary AI that is predictive, not reactive. Hopefully new eyes fix these inexcusable problems that have gone on for far too long without being addressed. I'm slightly optimistic for 2013

[GGEden]

Re: Ian Cummings is out

To me, it just sounds like Ian Cummings has lifted off his career while at EA and is now in a position to start up his own development company. Taking a bunch of people with him to start it off. Just spring-boarding from the 'success' of Madden.

[SA1NT401]

Re: Madden Creative Director, Ian Cummings is Leaving Tiburon

I wish Ian and those who left the BEST of luck in their next venture. WHat impact does this have on Madden 12? HOnestly, i couldnt care less about what happens to their "football" title.....Madden is forever dead to me.

NCAA is the only football fix out there in my eyes.....

[guaps]

Re: Madden Creative Director, Ian Cummings is Leaving Tiburon

Regardless of who leaves Tiburon, it is important that the new team introduces a new direction for Madden. The current direction has become uninspiring and uncreative IMO. The current team relies too heavily on market research and polling for new features - the data shows this, the data shows that - that they end up only putting in 'safe' features that people have voted for or have been confirmed to be a good idea by some data, instead of presenting bold and creative ideas for football video gaming.

People know exactly what they get from Madden and many have become cynical as a result - just look at many of the posts in this thread. Many cheer when they hear that there will be major changes on the Madden dev team, but as long as Madden's direction remains uninspiring and uncreative, there is really nothing to cheer about.

[iBlievN5]

Re: Madden Creative Director, Ian Cummings is Leaving Tiburon

Well M12 is done so there's really nothing lost there, however I think we'll miss Ian's contributions. Say what you will, but under Ian, we lost the phase of madden where it was all about the BIG SHINY NEW mechanic like weapons or run to daylight, we got football improvements. Granted, they weren't perfect, but they were undoubtedly the right direction. We got a semblance of a pocket. Locomotion. QB accuracies on different levels, and some things I can't think of currently. I'm saddened that M13 and beyond won't be directed by him since he was probably our last gasp at simulation.

[Smoke6]

Re: Madden Creative Director, Ian Cummings is Leaving Tiburon

Well, hopefully he's in a position where he can give the community what they want or do his best at making sure it happens. I would like to know how much these guys in the suits play madden as I would like to have there PSN Id's or GT's to give them a dose of how badly this game needs some major attention to gameplay.

Best wishes to them all and hopefully the new recruits and promoted should be a fun ride going into the next madden after this one. Just dissappointed in the late release that may or may not have anything to do with this. Maybe ill give NCAA a shot and have more time to get in the groove again like back in the PS2 days.

[marshallfever]

Re: Ian Cummings is out

To me, it just sounds like Ian Cummings has lifted off his career while at EA and is now in a position to start up his own development company. Taking a bunch of people with him to start it off. Just spring-boarding from the 'success' of Madden.

Whats wrong with that? Its a way to make a name for yourself. Now if we found out he put no true effort as the director of Madden the last couple of years, then we have the right to be upset. However using the position he currently had at EA to form a new studio is no biggie.

[iBlievN5]

Re: Madden Creative Director, Ian Cummings is Leaving Tiburon

Regardless of who leaves Tiburon, it is important that the new team introduces a new direction for Madden. The current direction has become uninspiring and uncreative IMO. The current team relies too heavily on market research and polling for new features - the data shows this, the data shows that - that they end up only putting in 'safe' features that people have voted for or have been confirmed to be a good idea by some data, instead of presenting bold and creative ideas for football video gaming.

People know exactly what they get from Madden and many have become cynical as a result - just look at many of the posts in this thread. Many cheer when they hear that there will be major changes on the Madden dev team, but as long as Madden's direction remains uninspiring and uncreative, there is really nothing to cheer about.

I don't know of a company that lets their employees do things that won't be blatantly favorable to their audience. I always thought that this was the kind of thinking that made me confused, do you not think Ian has bosses to answer to? that he and he alone decided what got to go into the video game? that he got to requisition his own resources?

When you have a product, bold and creative get you in the door, from there it's attempting to appease the crowd. I'd have like bold/creative, but I also think we've done about all the bold we can do without becoming arcade. Understated improvements like locomotion were cool/usefel, maybe some type of WR/QB chemistry would have been nice though.

[GGEden]

Re: Ian Cummings is out

Whats wrong with that? Its a way to make a name for yourself. Now if we found out he put no true effort as the director of Madden the last couple of years, then we have the right to be upset. However using the position he currently had at EA to form a new studio is no biggie.

I didn't imply there was something wrong with that