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Only NFL Game This Year Gets Lukewarm Response
aendeuryu writes "The first reviews are in for Madden '06, and the reception is underwhelming -- it's scoring an average rating of 79% on gamerankings.com (at the time of this submission). The reviewers on Gamespot (7.8) and 1up.com (9.0) have different takes on the game, but the readership of both sites doesn't (7.4 and 7.8 respectively). Gamespot's criticisms put the game in a less-than-exciting light: the new QB-vision feature adds realism but takes away from basic fun, and (perhaps most damning) the graphics rate a 7 out of 10 on what was supposed to be a next-generation title. Normally, a mediocre game release isn't a big deal, except that, because of EA's negotiated exclusivity deal with the NFL, this is the only NFL title you'll get to play this year. So, what are the players to do?"
I happen to love football, the actual game, not really most of the video games (for a number of reasons). Before we get a slew of comments making fun of Madden's often repetitive commentary, I wanted to add my 2 cents. NFL football is a game that does not change every year... the rules are pretty much the same from one year to the next, and the real life games themselves were far more interesting in the seventies and mid-eighties than they are today, barring of course some of the big plays (and big win streaks) you see from time to time. New players and annual player turnover only makes the competition slightly more interesting, but the actual systemic variance between each year is minimal.
Systemic differences and improvements are what drive the typical gamer's series purchases. Video games, for the most part, try to deliver a REVOLUTION on each upgrade. About the only revolution you could get with a series like Madden is having the guy come up with something original to say (hasn't happened yet), improving the UI, and making the players look more realistic. But there is a time when this effort stalls, because the game of football itself doesn't change enough to keep fans as interested in purchasing an upgrade to a game that they already own.
Any football fan here would agree that there is very little difference between each new Madden release, except for possibly the player names, stats and some minor UI changes, and Madden saying something slightly different from time to time. But most of his old bricks stay in the game.
Someone could easily reskin and redevelop the game using Madden's engine to make it far more interesting. Like how about a game of medieval football where you have to slit the guy's tendons with your sock-knife, like they used to do back in the day? Seriously... there are a lot of different avenues game developers could be taking to add some spice to these types of games.
If you break it down and see Madden 04 and Madden 05 sitting in either the week rental or the 2 night rental, you'll pick 04 so you can have it a few more days... or at least I would.
My point is that they have to really do something different if they want to improve their ratings and this has to be one of the hardest challenges facing any game designer in the world right now. How do you take a regular sport and make a game out of it that will release a new title each year, without boring the hell out of your fans? It's hard.
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"So, what are the players to do?"
Um...buy a football perhaps?
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
or they could just charge you a subscription fee to add new rosters and occasionan texture/model updates. Then you only buy it once, and assuming the fee is reasonable, it would make more sense.
But that's not nearly as moneymaking as having 10 million people just rebuy a small update every year...
Word has it there's a "hot cocoa" mod available showing hidden footage of a naked John Madden being dragged onto an airplane, lashed into a jumpseat and flown city-to-city over the course of the season. Decency advocates, NFL officials and Hillary Clinton are already threatening to sue . . . :-P
If sales drop, maybe the NFL will look to renegotiate their deal
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I'm sure there'll be a lot of comments here about the whole monopoly not causing innovation thing, except for one thing. EA is currently in the same position as Microsoft is regarding their Office suite. They may be a monopoly, but if they don't offer significant upgrades on a regular basis (once a year for EA, maybe some extra time for Microsoft), nobody will buy their product.
Nobody will buy these games just to upgrade the rosters now, since you can download this information online. If EA wants to keep selling titles (monopoly or no monopoly, they still cost millions to produce each year) they better offer something good with each new upgrade.
UNIX: A computer user is defined as a programmer. WINDOWS: A computer user is defined as a consumer.
If you'll notice, it's the PC version of Madden 2006 that has a collective 79% rating. The Xbox and PS2 versions (presumably more popular than the PC game) are at 87.4 and 88.2 respectively, only 1 or 2 points behind the score of Madden 05.
What are players to do, you ask? Isn't it obvious? If someone comes to the conclusion that the game isn't worth the purchase, be it based on reviews, word of mouth, test-playing it or whatever, then simply don't buy it. There's lots of other games that you can choose from - or you could even go outside for a change instead of just playing computer games all the time.
If you're an absolute die-hard fan that wants a great new NFL game every year (and who thinks that this isn't it), then write to them and tell them what you think about their "exclusive license" deal. Send a snail mail letter, too - these are taken far more seriously than angry emails, who're probably just deleted without anyone really reading them.
That's what I would do - if I cared about football or football games.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
> because of EA's negotiated exclusivity deal
> with the NFL, this is the only NFL title
> you'll get to play this year. So, what are the
> players to do?"
Have a little pride and refuse to buy it? And thus punish both EA and the NFL?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
79% is considered bad? Game reviews have always been inflated, why not do anything about it? 79% is practically the same as 8/10 or 4/5, and that's considered really good in, say, book or movie reviews. Look at IMDB, the best movie there, The Godfather, has a score of 9/10.
Really, a score of 40-60% should be an avarage game, but it appears the game reviewers give this score to games that suck completely.
Oh well.
The quality of a product dropped after it became a monopoly? Surely this must be some sort of oversight . . .
For computer graphics class , Dave Swanson, the Director of Madden, gave us a lecture about the "process" of making a new Madden game. I decided to joke around and ask him "Why do you need to do anything? Don't you have a monopoly?". He replied saying that he actually still works as hard as he did before the monopoly; and that his current aim is to get people who were not intrested in the Madden series before-hand into the game.
He also said that all the stories in the press are mostly an exaggeration of what is really going on.
I agree with your argument for the most. However, I own Madden 2005 and have recently rented '06. In doing so, I have noticed small little improvements that go a long way with the more meticulous football fan, such as myself.
For example, the article's aforementioned QB vision light, which is based on the QB awareness rating and determines the field of vision for a QB. You can control this yourself with the right analog stick or focus in on different receivers. Make a pass to someone not in your field of vision and you will make a duck pass. This feature will need some tweaking, but it is one step closer to making the game realistic and prevents previously awseome madden players from exploiting passing the ball all game.
Another small improvement has been in line play. The animations that determine positioning of linemen during the play are improved. Defensive lineman in a 4-3 now finally line up as they are supposed to (in gaps instead of headup), and the ability to slide your offensive line protection, while not perfect, definitely lets you control logic for your lineman that never existed in previous games.
The last one I'll mention are smart routes. In older games. WR's were restricted to predetermined routes based on the play you call, or you could hot route them, but the distance they run in the route is always the same. Now you can make their curl routes and in/out routes go all the way to first down marker. Again, a small improvement, but one that makes the play in this game a bit better.
In all honesty, I think people expect too much of this football game series. There are only so many things you can add each year and each year everyone wants something revolutionary. All I want is steady improvement so that when I play this game in 2015 (assuming it is still being produced) it should be much closer to the real thing. Just look at at how far it has advanced in 1995 to see what I mean.
I can see it now cross maden with the WWE series and you've got a multi million dollar hit. Now if I can only work in NASCAR and I can target every rednecked american ... I mean red blooded american.
I find it somewhat depressing that a rating of 79% is considered poor. There are 100 percentage points (obviously), and rating all games between 70 and 100 seems something of a waste of numbers. Last time I bought a game magazine (about 10 years ago) one of the games was given 27% - a score which really shows you that it's not worth buying (Lemmings 3D, as I recall).
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Uh... why can't they play Madden '05 or Madden '04 or even ... I don't know... Madden '03?
Someone who enjoys video football enough to buy a new version every year probably isn't very difficult to entertain. He'll buy Madden '06 even if it's just a feature-creep of '05.
...just my 2 gil.
If EA says their monopoly isn't harmful, then that's good enough for me.
After all, if you can't trust a multibillion dollar corporation with no accountability to anyone except their shareholders, who can you trust?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
EA was in serious danger of losing the football crown.
LINK
ESPN NFL FOOTBALL (2004)
216,000 units sold
$10.1 million in sales
MADDEN NFL 2004
3.4 million units sold
$167 million in sales
ESPN NFL 2K5
1.2 million units sold
$24.4 million in sales
MADDEN NFL 2005
2.3 million units sold
$111.4 million in sales
A 50 million dollar drop and 1/3 drop in numbers sold with sega's strategy of selling 2k5. Imagine if they had a 2k6, especially with the buzz they had with 2k5 (2k5 was/is so much better than madden 2005/2006). that's the general consensus.
Madden has "fixed" the same damn problems year after year. I mean, how many times can they fix a same passing game problem? or fix the same running game problem? Hopefully someone will release a 2006 roster update for NFL2K5 (basically what EA does with Madden, but charge an extra 40$ for).
"Tread softly because you tread on my dreams"
As for international sports, you missed rugby, which is without a doubt one of the most exciting sports out there. Talk about non-stop action...
And how about Basketball? Not enough action for you? A couple points every 30 seconds seems pretty good to me.
So, what are the players to do?
That's simple. Don't buy the game. All a company that would seek out a monopoly cares about is money. If you arent giving them money, they dont have any money. If they dont have any money, theyll do anything it takes to get money. In this case, make a decent game.