Game Informer - EA Sports Opens Up About The Challenges Of Developing During COVID

[Hooe]

I thought this was a rather humanizing article. Touches on how both the Madden NFL and UFC dev teams handled product development during this, well, interesting year.

https://www.gameinformer.com/2020/09/03/ea-sports-opens-up-about-the-challenges-of-developing-during-covid

[TarHeelPhenom]

Re: Game Informer - EA Sports Opens Up About The Challenges Of Developing During COVI

They were definitely affected the same way everybody else was. This will get lost in the debate though. They are making video games for profit and we buy them for our entertainment. But, they are still human beings. Gotta take that into consideration man.

[kennylc321]

Re: Game Informer - EA Sports Opens Up About The Challenges Of Developing During COVI

Well back in April I said this is not good. COVID, along with the new console launch was just a bad combination.

EA should have made the decision to abandon "The Yard" (I know I keep saying that and I know I'm biased because it's so stupid) and worried about it another day.

Between MUT, The Yard, CFM, and Storymode, they are essentially trying to produce four games into one disk. And since you got PS5 coming, it's double that... which tells me that PS5 will be nothing more than the PS4 with shiny graphics but I digress.

[dvdsaba]

Re: Game Informer - EA Sports Opens Up About The Challenges Of Developing During COVI

They've had a decade to improve franchise mode but ignored it even before COVID. It wasn't going to be a priority for them this year as FOTF and The Yard still would have got the focus. No sympathy from me.

[RogerDodger]

Re: Game Informer - EA Sports Opens Up About The Challenges Of Developing During COVI

I’m sure Covid affected EA as it did everybody. But in a year when the exclusive license was actively sought by them and would inevitably be received with a mixed reaction, their decision to go all-in on an arcade mode made the overwhelmingly negative reaction this year inevitable.

[PhillyPhanatic14]

Re: Game Informer - EA Sports Opens Up About The Challenges Of Developing During COVI

They've had a decade to improve franchise mode but ignored it even before COVID. It wasn't going to be a priority for them this year as FOTF and The Yard still would have got the focus. No sympathy from me.

Gotta say I agree strongly with this.

Look, we were all affected by COVID. There's two groups that are going to emerge on the other side: the ones who whine about how difficult it was to adapt to a changing workplace, and the ones who suck it up and find ways to thrive despite the additional challenges.

Of course I understand why they're releasing an article like this in the midst of all the hate they're getting... they need a PR win more than anyone right now... but there's plenty of devs releasing quality games in the middle of the same exact pandemic as Tiburon faced. No reason to complain about it and act like they faced some super unique set of circumstances that their consumers and other game developers didn't.

[lambo3500]

Re: Game Informer - EA Sports Opens Up About The Challenges Of Developing During COVI

They've had a decade to improve franchise mode but ignored it even before COVID. It wasn't going to be a priority for them this year as FOTF and The Yard still would have got the focus. No sympathy from me.

Exactly, most of the fanbase isn't upset cause how awful M21 is. It's been awful arguably since 08. They have removed more features then added. And many of the features added were in the older iterations at some point. Covid doesn't excuse the previous 10+ years of poor gameplay, terrible presentation, and awful franchise modes.

[CujoMatty]

Re: Game Informer - EA Sports Opens Up About The Challenges Of Developing During COVI

Well back in April I said this is not good. COVID, along with the new console launch was just a bad combination.

EA should have made the decision to abandon "The Yard" (I know I keep saying that and I know I'm biased because it's so stupid) and worried about it another day.

Between MUT, The Yard, CFM, and Storymode, they are essentially trying to produce four games into one disk. And since you got PS5 coming, it's double that... which tells me that PS5 will be nothing more than the PS4 with shiny graphics but I digress.

The Yard does nothing for me at all. Not even a little bit interested in it.

This seems like an example of personal taste or opinion vs objectivity.

Reading that the goal of The Yard was to broaden appeal of an NFL game and the fact it's pretty much universally the only thing mentioned in any review, even the real bad ones, as a positive, tells me that maybe that's what they got right.

It just doesn't appeal to you and I so it feels like resources poorly used.

I think the reality is that Madden hasn't really done much to innovate long before The Yard was conceptualized so I guess I dont see the correlation between things really being different this year if The Yard wasnt a thing.

I will say that covid probably contributed to the game being a buggy mess but I'm confident patches will fix that.

Long story short, I have very little confidence that EA would have made great decisions that affect my personal enjoyment of Madden even without The Yard lol

[AUChase]

Re: Game Informer - EA Sports Opens Up About The Challenges Of Developing During COVI

I don't have any doubt that there are a lot of obstacles to overcome.

Madden obviously didn't create a worldwide pandemic, but what they have done to work against themselves is create an expectation to release a football game every single year. They do it because they can sell it and keep the profit train rolling. We all know how business works.. a company like EA has a lot of overhead to cover and I'm sure their business model isn't built to sustain the possible loss of not having an annual release, but that's a lot of the problem with the game's quality.

It's not fair to developers and it's not fair to consumers. I know it's a different genre, but CD Projekt Red has delayed Cyberpunk multiple times because they didn't have enough time to test for bugs in their game.

I don't intend to be a jerk. I know it's difficult, but a lot of us have obstacles to overcome with work and a pandemic that are unique to our own field, but I can't exactly send my customer a list of grievances because at the end of the day they just care about the product they are paying for being right. Why wait until after the release of the game and all the negative publicity to start a campaign for transparency with the development process?

People are going to criticize no matter what, but if they didn't feel like they had enough time to comfortably release a game and it be good then they should have waited.

I sympathize with individual developers, but not EA as a whole. This game wasn't going to ship with franchise upgrades either way. The timing of everything just seems suspect.

[Therebelyell626]

Re: Game Informer - EA Sports Opens Up About The Challenges Of Developing During COVI

Excuses are like..... well I don’t want to get banned. But they pretty much all stink. I get that the pandemic has been a challenge, but it has been challenging for multiple industries who have been forced to adapt. EA should put themselves in the shoes of McDonald employees who have not stopped working during the pandemic, for a much lowers wage than these developers are probably making.

I minored in marketing. Getting defensive and trying to justify the shortcomings of madden 21 is not the route to go. The game has already sold well. Start focusing on patches, and the franchise updates you promised. If these are even remotely decent they have a really good shot at turning this release around. ‘21 already has pretty good gameplay and just needs some smoothing and refinement.

This whole article reeks of my 7 year old trying to get out of trouble. “But it’s not my fault”. Look EA had 7 years on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox one move this game forward. Pandemic lockdowns started in March. I lived in Orlando for 5 years where tiburon is based and still have a lot of friends that live there. Orlando experience minimal to no lockdown restricting during the pandemic. Nothing compared to what California has been experiencing. Madden and the backlash it is receiving is fully justified. This games shortcomings are not a result of the pandemic. Move forward and improve. It’s quite simple

[PhillyPhanatic14]

Re: Game Informer - EA Sports Opens Up About The Challenges Of Developing During COVI

Excuses are like..... well I don’t want to get banned. But they pretty much all stink. I get that the pandemic has been a challenge, but it has been challenging for multiple industries who have been forced to adapt. EA should put themselves in the shoes of McDonald employees who have not stopped working during the pandemic, for a much lowers wage than these developers are probably making.

I minored in marketing. Getting defensive and trying to justify the shortcomings of madden 21 is not the route to go. The game has already sold well. Start focusing on patches, and the franchise updates you promised. If these are even remotely decent they have a really good shot at turning this release around. ‘21 already has pretty good gameplay and just needs some smoothing and refinement.

This whole article reeks of my 7 year old trying to get out of trouble. “But it’s not my fault”. Look EA had 7 years on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox one move this game forward. Pandemic lockdowns started in March. I lived in Orlando for 5 years where tiburon is based and still have a lot of friends that live there. Orlando experience minimal to no lockdown restricting during the pandemic. Nothing compared to what California has been experiencing. Madden and the backlash it is receiving is fully justified. This games shortcomings are not a result of the pandemic. Move forward and improve. It’s quite simple

This x1,000,000. It's a bad look for them to even take an interview about this because it's a cop out for them not getting the job done that they should have - even with an extra month of work time compared to M20.

[NoleFan]

Re: Game Informer - EA Sports Opens Up About The Challenges Of Developing During COVI

I feel like those guys did a bang up job, in the midst of this global viral pandemic, to still release a good game on schedule. I've never seen a product be released devoid of warts during a normal development cycle and no one has developed a game in these conditions before so at the end of the day...salute to the team for what they were able to accomplish.

YMMV though

[tyler28]

Re: Game Informer - EA Sports Opens Up About The Challenges Of Developing During COVI

We've waited 8 -9 years to have franchise get some major focus again. Whats 2 more months?

Edit: wrong thread, sorry

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[DJ]

Re: Game Informer - EA Sports Opens Up About The Challenges Of Developing During COVI

Good article. Didn't come across as a "woe is me" piece at all.

[TanDax1819]

Re: Game Informer - EA Sports Opens Up About The Challenges Of Developing During COVI

Well why in the world didn't EA just give Madden 20 a decent free DLC with the very few small refinements they put into Madden 21? I'm sure 90% of Madden fans would have been okay with EA being honest and giving us free DLC to make Madden 20 into 20.5 until fall of 2021 when they can release a brand new from the ground up Series X/PS5 Madden 21 title with a new robust franchise mode. They could even release a stand alone title called Madden MUT, which would be only for the MUT players and include the silly "Yard" arcade game on that disc. The Madden I want is a simulation ONLY title with every bell and whistle that the glory days had. If EA would separate Madden Sim football from MUT and the silly arcade game they could actually increase revenue by catering to everyone.