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Madden 2004 - Sim Franchise Owner?

Posted by simoniker on from the big-john-embiggens-us-all dept.

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to an extremely in-depth interview with Madden 2004 producer Jeremy Strauser, courtesy of Sports-gaming.com. One of the more interesting confirmations is of a new 'Owner Mode' for the seminal sports title, described as "....comprised of setting prices, staff, assistant coach, training staff, facilities, building a new stadium. All that has a symbiotic relationship with prices, attendance, performance, and wins and losses." Strauser even says that the programmers/testers "jokingly called the game 'Sim Owner'..", but it's clear the main concentration is still on the actual football, including making online play fairer.

1 of 13 comments (clear)

  1. On Madden... by mandalayx · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We have rules to the extent that we limit play selection (for guys who want to go for it on their own 7-yard line on fourth down). Gamers won't be able to select offensive plays in certain situations. We'll also restrict the guys who like to move players around. Those guys who take a WR and put him at TE and move him way out in a formation, or a guy who uses fast wide receivers on the defensive line. It's the non-standard stuff the game is going to restrict. But the game has some real creative guys and I have to hand it to them. They are really good at exploiting every aspect. What we try to do is take out stuff we can't normally see in a football game.

    While I love this game, I also don't feel comfortable when I hear these things that I interpret as arbitrary tweaks to cover up faults in the system.

    For example, a local Econ professor did some research on decision-making and figured out that most teams are punting way too much. I chalked it up to traditional football thinking, and over a beer, he told me a little anecdote. Apparently in an old Madden game, gamers were going for it very successfully on 4th down(1). Once Madden heard about this, he thought it was "horrible" and the game engine was claimed to have been tweaked to make converting 4th downs artificially harder.

    And why not play a WR as TE? There's Teyo Johnson drafted out of Stanfurd who's doing just that, IIRC from a Sporting News article. And it's not a stretch of my imagination to see Tony Gonzalez as a decent WR. Heck sometimes I draw up plays just for him so that I don't have to go and invest in an extra player....

    When the developer says that he wants to restrict non-standard stuff, I simply don't feel comfortable. Admittedly they have done a great job in letting Michael Vick lead the league in my 2002 franchise running (well almost) and passing (rating-wise) but I think that basing player behavior on NFL teams is a less optimal result than I would prefer.

    (1) In The Hidden Game of Football by Carroll, et al, the success rate on 4th down is quoted at 49% (p.23, revised ed.)