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

[Juiceman612]

I skipped Madden 09 due to it being stale. I bought 10 because I wanted football again. Then I realized the franchise mode was boring and even 1 on 1 online got stale to me. So I picked up NCAA not having bought it before and I'm hooked. It's all I play. I do think the gameplay is better in NCAA, but drop that point and what has me immersed in NCAA? The dynasty mode. It's addictive. The fact is NFL regular season games in a Madden franchise don't feel important. NCAA has a better football atmosphere from in-game play to recruiting, etc.

I'm not saying I have the answers - but I am saying it's gotta feel addictive like others have previously mentioned. NCAA, in my opinion, has that addictive feeling. And I'm a WAY bigger NFL fan, FWIW.

[Game4fun]

The reason for me is because speed dictates everything. It's not real when the best players are always picking the Raiders and beating anyone because of the speed they have on defense. The raiders are not anything special in the real world However they continue to be the best team every year.

Also the best players always pick the same plays over and over= MONEY PLAYS. It seems to many the more plays you pick the chances of you fumbling increase and NOT all plays work. IMO it's like they can't ever get all the plays to work correctly. I have no idea how to make a video game But even I know If your making a game for the NFL fan or football fan you have to make it more realistic in gameplay for people to want to pick up again.

I don't plays as much lately because in my opinion it's no0t as realistic as some people make it out to be. Theres a ton of glitches exploits and overall limations for what I can do as far as a play calling standpoint. For example I have tried over and over to do play action and curls. Those plays never work for me. That can be due to lack of skill or lack of gameplay. I'm just saying. I have heard people say they can do those plays all the time and I have heard players say they can hardly do them.

But sense I have about 150 games in online I think Curls and play action don't work because they result in INT's and sacks. IMO it's like every year you just gotta find the plays that work and throw out all the other ones that don't work. I'm not saying they should work all the time But the majority of the time I havent had any succsess with those kinda plays.

I won't get into all the little things that drive me crazy as a Madden Fanatic because I know it's not easy making a football game But I think IMO the final product could be better then what I paid 60 dollars for this year.

[Evan_OS]

Quote: Originally Posted by The GIGGAS

I would love to believe that they'll change, but if I know the EA brass... they'll have blamed it on a bad economy, and not changed courses. We'll see what we get with Madden 12, although I haven't been holding my breath for a while.

I don't think EA is going to say it's just a bad economy and not change courses. Losing nearly 20% sales isn't good.They know they're sales are dropping, and they know if they don't step it up and get some more sales in, it might not be pretty.

[idesign2]

I bought the game first day, but then sold it a few days later. The game was just too stale and boring for me. At this point I'm not sure what they could do to get me to purchase future releases. I suspect EA will need some competition from a second NFL game in order for real change to occur. Not holding my breath on that, though.

[ryan36]

Quote: Originally Posted by The GIGGAS

I would love to believe that they'll change, but if I know the EA brass... they'll have blamed it on a bad economy, and not changed courses. We'll see what we get with Madden 12, although I haven't been holding my breath for a while.

Unscientifically , this means their "NFL exclusive title" would be moving close to zero units in 5 years , due to rate of decline.

I think losing a fifth (almost ) is way too large even for EA to blame on the economy.

Think of what they did with Elite...they drastically changed it because "sales are down in all basketball video games" and ruined it...but 2k11 is up this year, because it's an awesome title.

Nope, I think this big of a decline= them not being self deluded enough to blame on anything but a subpar product.

[bill2451]

yeah, honestly I'm just bored with Madden at this point. Have there been nice improvements, sure, but to me its just felt too similar for too long

I'm amazed we are still button passing. I would have thought by now they would have figured out a great way to utilize throwing to the right stick (and not the sloppy way it was done in Backbreaker).

Speaking of Backbreaker, as much as some people may not want to hear it, that game proved that REAL physics NEED to come to madden. There were so many things wrong with backbraker, fundimental things that made the game very difficult to play. But then there were moments where it just looked and felt so damn good. The interactions in madden just feel so canned and boring compared to BB that it truly is hard to get into it, and that is w/ a BB physics system that still had many issues itself (players felt far too weightless and collapsed too easily most of the time).

And all that said, I dont see the "physics" being put into NHL 11 is going to cut it. It is a joke that that system is even called physics, because it is far from it (the BB physics put it to shame)... and for the record, I am a huge fan of the NHL series, so I'm not bashing it. It's just that in terms of physics, the NHL has a slightly more dynamic animation system than in past years, but to call it physics is an insult to true physics engines.

Finally, the immersion and franchise modes in Madden are just laughably bad. Look at a game like CH2k8, arguably the greatest "franchise" mode of all time. The gameplay in that game is so far out of date that it is actually difficult to play at this point, but you still get a ton of people who swear by that game. I did not buy Madden this year, but had they had the level of franchise mode that choops did, I would EASILY be able to overlook the stale gameplay. Thats not to say I don't want gameplay improved, but you can't have stale gameplay and a pathetic franchise mode (seriously, they still can't even get IR to work correctly. In this day and age that is inexcusable.)

[jyoung]

They tried to fix the gameplay this year by adding "locomotion," and instead, ended up completely breaking the defense.

The result?

Madden 11 is actually more frustrating to play than Madden 10.

God forbid you try to take the game online, where you will see gameplay that doesn't even resemble football.

It's long past time to get EA Tiburon out and get a new developer in with a fresh take and new engine.

This year's game proved that EA Tiburon can't even tape a band-aid to the current broken engine without throwing the gameplay off-balance and out of whack.

[pietasterp]

What immediately caught my eye was that the peak of the Madden sales was mid-decade....which is about 2004-2005. Remember that year? The last year we had more than 1 NFL game to choose from? Coincidence? Maybe....