EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

[23]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

Yeah man but yall keep buying it though

[Valdarez]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

Yeah man but yall keep buying it though

Just because people own/play it doesn't necessarily mean they bought it new. I've bought nearly all EA Sports game used, save for 10 / 11 when I mistakenly believed they were trying to fix/change the game. Last I looked Madden sales have remained fairly flat over the years, when they should have been rising (like NBA2K sales). Haven't seen sales figures in a two or three years now. Has that changed?

Get what you're saying though. Money talks.

[23]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

Until there is an xb1 or NBA elite moment you guys will never see the end of this.

[SamuraiX]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

Until there is an xb1 or NBA elite moment you guys will never see the end of this.

How is there to be an NBA Elite moment with no competition? Madden has been Live/Elite for years now but since there's no competition there's no one to make them go lay in there dug hole of mediocrity.

[ODogg]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

Yeah man but yall keep buying it though

Because it's a fun game. Could be much better with competition but I still enjoy it a lot, especially on the PS4

[Big FN Deal]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

Because it's a fun game. Could be much better with competition but I still enjoy it a lot, especially on the PS4

Not directed at ODogg but this general sentiment kind of irks me because it's almost like this gets used as a fact instead a matter of opinion. Like if someone states their issues with Madden, then in rebuttal someone else states "it's a fun game though", as if to assert those issues don't keep it from being fun. I think the vast majority of people that have issues with Madden, mainly care about those issues because they diminish or prevent their enjoyment, ie how "fun" the game is, lol. I wish the game was fun for me to play, longer than a week or two, unfortunately that's about how long it takes for the legacy issues, along with whatever new ones, to come glaring through.

To bring my pity party on topic, the saddest part is exclusivity guarantees that no matter what I choose to do, not buy, buy used, lobby for change, etc, there's no fiscal reason for EA Tiburon to do anything different.

[kjcheezhead]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

Just because people own/play it doesn't necessarily mean they bought it new. I've bought nearly all EA Sports game used, save for 10 / 11 when I mistakenly believed they were trying to fix/change the game. Last I looked Madden sales have remained fairly flat over the years, when they should have been rising (like NBA2K sales). Haven't seen sales figures in a two or three years now. Has that changed?

Get what you're saying though. Money talks.

Sales have been flat. Madden 13 was hyped by pointing to 1.6 million in first week sales, but that was actually down from 1.9 for Madden 11.

http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Madden_NFL

Madden 25 sales were down to 1 million in the first week. 600,000 less than 13.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain...ts-first-week/

You can point to declining ps2 sales, the transition to new systems last year, etc. It may have contributed but sales are clearly down. I've also pointed out nba 2k actually outsold madden on the new systems. Having a basketball game outsell a football game on any console is telling in my opinion.

[Hooe]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

How is there to be an NBA Elite moment with no competition? Madden has been Live/Elite for years now but since there's no competition there's no one to make them go lay in there dug hole of mediocrity.

This simply isn't true, Madden has never seen the universal panning from critics that the most recent version of NBA Live did. NBA Elite released a quite obviously broken demo (where players on the court would become non-responsive) to which the response was so profoundly bad that the entire game was cancelled weeks before it shipped. Madden has never had any moment of the sort of such poor quality.

In fact, most game critics think that Madden is actually a good game. Not the best sports game on the market, but good and competent. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a game that is merely good.

[Big FN Deal]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

This simply isn't true, Madden has never seen the universal panning from critics that the most recent version of NBA Live did. NBA Elite released a quite obviously broken demo (where players on the court would become non-responsive) to which the response was so profoundly bad that the entire game was cancelled weeks before it shipped. Madden has never had any moment of the sort of such poor quality.

In fact, most game critics think that Madden is actually a good game. Not the best sports game on the market, but good and competent. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a game that is merely good.

Couldn't almost the exact same thing be said in reference to Madden 2006 for PS3/360 in reference to the admitted poor quality of that game? The main difference was, to the original poster's point, Madden had no direct competition so was able to still release Madden 2006 in it's abysmal state, unlike NBA Elite, which had NBA2k to compete with.

[Hooe]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

Couldn't almost the exact same thing be said in reference to Madden 2006 for PS3/360 in reference to the admitted poor quality of that game? The main difference was, to the original poster's point, Madden had no direct competition so was able to still release Madden 2006 in it's abysmal state, unlike NBA Elite, which had NBA2k to compete with.

Based on my limited experience with Madden 2006 which I did not buy on the XBOX 360 - it was a subpar game on account of poor commentary and presentation, 30 frame-per-second refresh rate, lack of depth in game mechanics, blocky-looking players, average gameplay, and lack of depth in gameplay modes, but it was not fundamentally broken and non-functional.

[SamuraiX]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

This simply isn't true, Madden has never seen the universal panning from critics that the most recent version of NBA Live did. NBA Elite released a quite obviously broken demo (where players on the court would become non-responsive) to which the response was so profoundly bad that the entire game was cancelled weeks before it shipped. Madden has never had any moment of the sort of such poor quality.

In fact, most game critics think that Madden is actually a good game. Not the best sports game on the market, but good and competent. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a game that is merely good.

Reviewers have been calling Madden a good game for years but, that doesn't make it so. Madden 09 was one of the worst football games ever with Ian Cummings coming out and saying nearly every QB in the game threw at speeds faster than Brett Favre but I'll bet you a shiny nickel it still got a bunch of reviews talking about how good it was. And there's alot of people out there who will tell you that what Madden is today compared to what it could/should be is far from "merely good".

[Hooe]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

Reviewers have been calling Madden a good game for years but, that doesn't make it so. Madden 09 was one of the worst football games ever with Ian Cummings coming out and saying nearly every QB in the game threw at speeds faster than Brett Favre but I'll bet you a shiny nickel it still got a bunch of reviews talking about how good it was.

Well I mean of course not, the beauty of opinion is that everyone has their own, thus a Madden NFL discussion board. I can look at the critical consensus on Metacritic to determine what the overarching critical consensus was about a game, however.

Frankly, I thought Madden 09 was the first enjoyable version of Madden on the Gen-7 consoles, but I'm not going to sit here and say it was anything to write home about; it was decent, IMO. I didn't really start enjoying Madden on the 360 until Madden 10 came around, personally.

[SamuraiX]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

Based on my limited experience with Madden 2006 which I did not buy on the XBOX 360 - it was a subpar game on account of poor commentary and presentation, 30 frame-per-second refresh rate, lack of depth in game mechanics, blocky-looking players, average gameplay, and lack of depth in gameplay modes, but it was not fundamentally broken and non-functional.

You're choosing to harp on the point of how non-functional Elite was compared to Madden to try and dissuade my point when we all know what I was trying to say. My point being that Madden has been mediocre at best for years now in large part due to the lack of competition in football gaming thus not allowing the possibility for a brand to punish Madden's slow development such as 2k did to the Live series.

[Hooe]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

You're choosing to harp on the point of how non-functional Elite was compared to Madden to try and dissuade my point when we all know what I was trying to say. My point being that Madden has been mediocre at best for years now in large part due to the lack of competition in football gaming thus not allowing the possibility for a brand to punish Madden's slow development such as 2k did to the Live series.

Your original assertion was that Madden has been in the "Live / Elite" range of quality for years. If that's your opinion, fine, you're free to hold that, but the critical consensus of the video game industry and majority of the millions of people who buy Madden year over year - many not present on this website - don't agree with you. People tend to buy games they enjoy playing.

I don't disagree that lack of competition has hurt Madden's growth as a game over time - competition breeds innovation - but that competition isn't coming back anytime soon, so we are where we are.

[Big FN Deal]

Re: EA Still Owns the NFL License Exclusively

Based on my limited experience with Madden 2006 which I did not buy on the XBOX 360 - it was a subpar game on account of poor commentary and presentation, 30 frame-per-second refresh rate, lack of depth in game mechanics, blocky-looking players, average gameplay, and lack of depth in gameplay modes, but it was not fundamentally broken and non-functional.

Apparently not the final build but similar to NBA Elite's demo, a short time before Madden 2006's release, EA Tiburon admitted to starring at blank screens, ie not having a playable game but they proceeded to throw something together in time to release in an exclusive market. So if you don't think EA would have done the same thing with NBA Elite, if they had an exclusive NBA license, I again refer you to what they did with Madden 2006.