I'm more interested in seeing what the guys who left end up doing. It's apparent EA has no interest in making major changes to the gameplay in Madden. I can't say that I blame them as they still sell a ton of games every year.
I don't expect Ian to come out and burn bridges with EA, but hopefully he will talk to someone in the media about his experiences with Madden.
I think he tried to do some things but Corperate would not let him..( probably will try to work on some type of rockband game ( or a new vision for this genre)
First off, I wish Ian the best...and hope all goes well for him in the future.
I think it's pretty safe to say Ian cared about the product he was involved with. And I believe he did what he could, to make Madden a better game. I'll always remember the great amount of time [all hours of the day and night] Ian spent here on OS during the dev cycle for M10. Beyond impressive, imo. We were afforded a terrific ear for our input. Those were heady times.
I'm more interested in seeing what the guys who left end up doing. It's apparent EA has no interest in making major changes to the gameplay in Madden. I can't say that I blame them as they still sell a ton of games every year.
I don't expect Ian to come out and burn bridges with EA, but hopefully he will talk to someone in the media about his experiences with Madden.
I'd be surprised of he sings off key, no matter what. On the one hand, he can be surly and snippy, but on the other, he's not going to give himself a rep as an employer's future PR pain in the ***.
He's one of the better known game developer personalities out there, for better or worse, but he's young and he won't go out of his way to blow up his career by ****ting on the place that gave him his biggest platform for career development and resume fodder.
That's one theory. Imo it's simpler than that--this generation's Madden series was compromised from the outset.
This was significant because it meant that the team responsible for developing the initial Madden 06 (360) (i.e. the basic code that would be the foundation for all of EA's next-gen football titles for years to come) had to do so with only limited knowledge of how the final 360 hardware actually worked.
I'm not saying that MS's failure to deliver beta dev kits on schedule was the sole cause of all of the problems we've seen with EA's next-gen fb titles. There were some very questionable initial design choices made as well, decisions that repeatedly forced the development teams of the subsequent Madden's to spend a fair amount of their time trying to find workarounds for the mistakes made in the past. I am saying that this generation's Madden got off to a dreadful start, one from which the series has never fully recovered.
Well let's say it's both. While I agree with you that Madden got off to a rocky start when they rushed to deliver Madden 06 on a short cycle, they also had to make much higher payments to the NFL that same year which I believe cut into the development funds.
Also as people often point out, this game is not developed on 1 "engine". Every year they choose which ones of the multiple "engines" to rip out and redo. By the 5th development cycle (Madden 11) there should be almost no trace of the slapped together abomination that was Madden 06 code.
2.EA is a company that is unstable financially. I don't believe they see a benefit to dumping large amounts of money into Madden development. Football fans will purchase even if the game is subpar. A more practical approach is to get the gamers to pay additional funds for things like Madden moments and AFL packs. What EA is really out to do is increase the amount of casual gamers. They make the game quicker, simpler and more arcade to try to achieve that goal.
3. People always point out, the Madden series is improving but just not fast enough and lags behind the Show and NBA2k. Could it be that those games just have more funds for their developers to work with?
4.Ever noticed how the game improvements always seem half baked? For instance, they add Gus Johnson but he sounds broken and Chris calls him "Tom". Ian himself came on after 11 dropped and said they needed new equipment but spent the money for the sound budget securing the rights to the stadium songs we hear in Madden 11 instead. This tells me there are times when Ian is being shortchanged in his attempts to improve the game.
5.Those same stadium sounds were held out of Madden 10. Again, I don't believe this is Ian's fault. I think EA made a poor decision and chose to deny those things to us because they felt they already had enough improvments to sell Madden 10.
These types of business moves will tie the hands of any designer whether it is David Ortiz, Ian Cummings or some new replacement. That's why I don't believe Madden will see a major change if Ian leaves.
Sorry for the long post. If you got this far, thanks for reading.
Madden has been controlled by the suits for a long time. My guess is Ian had ideas to make the game great but kept hitting the wall the suits put up.
Madden the game is not longer important to EA it's madden the revenue generator. They bought themselves a monopoly, then pump up the hype and advertising, then the remaining budget goes into development.
I wish Ian the best, 2K this is your time to shine. With EA being sued, and losing Ian and others, another FB game could come in and really shine.
Part of me is upset, but hopefully we get someone in there with an "i dont give a you know what" mentality and just gives us what we been waiting for gameplay wise. Know one has hit it out of the park yet and I hope it comes soon. At this point now, all I am really hoping for is DLC in the form of there revamped ONLINE FRANCHISE and i will be content. Slap a $20 price Tag on it and call it a day and continue to give us an roster updates as usual.
Spend this extra year developing a great foundation and just keep building on it.
My guess is Ian had ideas to make the game great but kept hitting the wall the suits put up.
HAHAHA, that's funny. Maybe he was going to next include the little kids who come out and pick up the tee on kickoffs or more fan cutscenes. Ideas to make the game great? Have yet to see that from him or any of the producers of this game
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Could it be that those games just have more funds for their developers to work with?
Or they just don't have good developers. Even NCAA is showing good signs of improvement so far, so it's obviously not the funds. While Ian is a nice guy with the community, he doesn't provide much development wise.
I'm glad he's leaving. Maybe they will get someone in there who actually cares about the game of football instead of all the other small off the field nuances.
If the people they bring in focus on the game inside the big white lines, I will be more than happy. Ian focused on things that I could careless about (i.e. the surprise onside kick this year) instead of focusing on the core gameplay.
I'm not trying to flame, but there is a reason a guy like Mike Wang is so regarded in the basketball video game genre and why EA's title went flat. The guy knows how to make a great basketball game. I've yet to see that from the Madden side
I don't get it. This is a good thing. Madden blows and has blown since 2005. Madden 04 was the last good football game they made, everything since has been ****ty. And this guy was one of the reasons why the games are so bad. It's good he left, maybe they'll get somebody like the guys that make FIFA or NHL to take over Madden and actually make it a quality game. Madden's only around still because they're the only football game. If 2k was still in the game, things would be quite different. People would realize how terrible Madden is and how much it does not represent football. But people have been forced into accepting Madden because there's no other option.
Yeah, because that made NBA ELITE 11 a great ga... wait ...
I don't get it. This is a good thing. Madden blows and has blown since 2005. Madden 04 was the last good football game they made, everything since has been ****ty. And this guy was one of the reasons why the games are so bad. It's good he left, maybe they'll get somebody like the guys that make FIFA or NHL to take over Madden and actually make it a quality game. Madden's only around still because they're the only football game. If 2k was still in the game, things would be quite different. People would realize how terrible Madden is and how much it does not represent football. But people have been forced into accepting Madden because there's no other option.
Glad someone else feels the same way, just see my post on the page before this. Ian was great with the community, so of course people aren't gonna like that he's gone. But, he never contributed that much to the actual game
Yeah, because that made NBA ELITE 11 a great ga... wait ...
Like I said in the poll thread:
Looman is good, but we need some new blood in here. Hell, make this an opportunity to reel in some of the guys from the Backbreaker game and try to get their tackling system into this game. Or go after some of the guys from the NFL/All Pro 2K games,
I know the Backbreaker tackling type implementation would take more than a year, but just a start of it would be better than what we've seen since the start of this franchise on the newest systems.
I don't really think Ian is totally to blame for anything about Madden, I'm sure there is stuff behind the scenes that may have kept certain ideas from being followed up on (budget, time frame, etc...), but I think this is still a good thing.
If the sales are slumping, the development team is falling apart, I can't think of a better reason for EA to finally really go after a good team and pump some money back into the franchise to get it back to the glory days. Anything to break the year in year out cycle of Madden being PAINFULLY stale.
Meh, don't really care. Ian didn't do that much imo. I didn't like the direction the madden series was going anyways. I'm still looking forward to ncaa.