No Custom Draft Classes is a True Oversight By EA - thescoop's Blog

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No Custom Draft Classes is a True Oversight By EA

Posted on August 10, 2014 at 04:52 PM.

With no college football title this year or for at least the foreseeable future, Madden gamers will not be able to simulate the future of the NFL with real future stars. At least as of yet it has not been reported that we may edit any of Madden 15's draft classes.

For some this will not be a big deal at all. Since this is a virtual future, the EA generated classes will be enough for many gamers. And some may prefer actual classes, but will be fine making due with EA's fake group.

But for a few dedicated football gamers, this is a true oversight. This hurts their enjoyment of the game. I hurts because they want, at least for the first four years of their franchise anyway, to have the next generation of the actual NFL available for them.

Now before we can explain the merit of having them, we must understand their reasoning for not including the ability to edit draft classes. If you care to make an argument for something, you must always understand the other side of an argument.

EA wants to control storylines for the future classes

Now this might not be a big deal for some gamers and it wasn't done as well as some who do like the generated stories would like either. But some enjoy these stories and while they are not as good as others, they do add to drafting the fake class.

No matter what we think of these generated stories, they are something EA likes and plans on keeping in the game. But one could argue that last year in the last-gen versions of Madden 25 you could still import NCAA 14 draft classes. Once you did this you got NO draft class stories for that year.

Sure, EA may like their stories they've come up with but last year gamers were provided with this as an option. This year it appears we will have the same option we did last year with current-gen and that is EA's classes and that is it.

Most of the gamers who want real draft classes would gladly trade these storylines for a custom draft class featuring our own edits of real college players. This is more important to several Madden gamers. And of course, in a few years they will be able to have the storylines anyway.

Also, why not just have storylines randomly generate around custom draft classes anyway? I wouldn't think it would be too hard since the storylines are already generated within the game and suppose to be random this year anyway, ensure no two draft classes are alike.

All and all, as an argument against custom draft classes, this is a weak one.

EA fears being sued for using any real NCAA Player's likeness due to recent court battles

It is really hard to blame EA for being extra sensitive in these uncertain times. I mean the guys over there have seen the death of the NCAA series, in which they never used actual names but instead allowed gamers to customize and share rosters.

Their fear is, and we saw their gun-shy approach with EA Sports UFC, that someone will create a real person and they will be sued. They fear after already losing big time in courts they might be facing another battle.

This argument is a harder one to overcome because anyone should understand their concern. But I will attempt to alleviate their arguments behind this concern.

For starters, a truly custom draft class isn't the same thing as having a game, that feature correct numbers, heights and weights (in most cases) of the players in college football. It isn't even in the same ballpark. While being gun-shy is understandable, this argument isn't sound.

The NBA 2K series has had fully customizable draft classes for years and no one has said a word about them. MLB the show allows gamers to edit minor league teams so they can feature real players as well. Again, the big difference is they are not using the same numbers or stats as the real life players. They are making the gaming community as a whole do this work and no profit is being made by this. It most cases these players must be built by the gaming community by scratch.

These creations are custom and really cannot be argued to be stealing anyones property. We've also seen the WWE wrestling series allow gamers to create and share real wrestlers not in the game or with the WWE for years and again, nothing is being drawn out of this.

This argument is only being made due to the guy-shy nature of EA's recent court battles. As long as EA allows gamers to simply edit a class that has NO baring on a real class, they should be fine. And if they are too scared to allow us to share then they can go the EA Sports UFC route (again, a stupid knee jerk route, but one they could choose.)

Again, this one is a reason we may understand a bit more, but the recent court battles really don't have much baring in allowing a true customization of a class.

After four years, everyone is playing with a fake draft class anyway

This is true. We aren't playing (for the most part. I do know some gamers that have studied the top future high school prospects to create for NCAA's recruiting classes) real players after we get past four years. But in the past we could still be playing with players we recruited.

While I believe most will be fine with going along with EA's generated draft classes after this period, some enjoy full customization. Why not allow that? This is more of an excuse than a reason. Just because you do a customized draft class one season doesn't mean you won't want to do it the next. The same is true if you don't.

I for one made several players as custom recruits for NCAA over years. I had a core few I would make every year and even knew what years I wanted to include them. I do this in the NBA 2K series. How great would it be to keep being able to do this in Madden? How great would it be to see my custom player included in one of EA's randomly generated storylines?

The possibilities are endless and the enjoyment would be as well. EA really should consider this because it isn't just about using real players for some gamers, but at least having control over who the players are and their names.

Heck, they could even allow more customization in the future like allowing us to create our own backstories for the players. Sure they might have to limit the number of players we could create stories for but this could be another way to make the game more custom and more fun for creative gamers.

Having a true sense of customization is one of the main selling points of sports gaming over the years and gamers are never going to truly like having it taken away from them. If the lack of confirmation is a true sign we will not be able to customize draft classes this year that is a true shame.

EA will really want to re-evaluate leaving this feature out. While again, we understand why they are gun-shy at the moment but for now they are only hurting their product. They are hurting gamers with a love for customization.

I hope that, if not this year, EA will soon learn to not be dictated by fear. And maybe when all the dust is settled and we hopefully see a return of College Football in video games, articles like this one won't be necessary.

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