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Madden 07 Earns $100 Million in First Week Sales
192939495969798999 writes "CNN reports that Madden 07 grossed over $100 million in the first week, helping to resurrect a sales slump for Electronic Arts. The article states that most people are waiting for the release of PS3 and/or Wii to make game purchases." From the article: "An industry turnaround isn't expected until next year, and EA officials predicted during its quarterly earnings report on August 1 that videogame sales for 2006 across the industry would be flat to down 5 percent."
The stereotype for /.ers is that they like video games but hate Football. Does this extend to video game representations of Football?
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
Having had a roommate who was into Madden pretty hardcore, I can tell you that EA makes some minor design changes from year to year and occasionally adds new functionality (but not always all that interesting). Most of it, though, is roster changes. And sports gamers eat it up.
What's significantly different about all of the games based in the D&D universe? Oblivion, Morrowind, Baldur's Gate, Champions of Norath, every Fantasy MMORPG, etc. Each game has the same classes, almost the same spells, weapons etc. What changes? A few textures, a name or two in the same rehashed "you must fight evil" story?
Usually it is just new rosters and more player animations, capabilities. People buy the game to play with friends or online, once you play a game for awhile, you learn its quirks, so even if you had a new roster, the game wouldn't be as much fun. However a new game with new tweaks, will take a while to learn, so the game will be fun for another couple of months.
While I don't entireley disagree with you, I do on several points, 2 of which I feel are worth mentioning:
A) Games in the "DnD" (as you put it) universe at the very least have different storylines. Different events will occur leading to something new, whereas in football you play football. Each game of football you play will be differemt, but I can't see the difference between madden 06, 05, etc being all that riveting (50$ worth of fun that is)
B) Yes, classes/spells/abilities are similar between games. However, there is room for innovation and development. In Madden you can pass, punt, tackle, etc etc etc. There isn't all that much room for development. It will always be pass, punt, tackle, etc etc etc.
To understand recursion, one must first understand recursion...
The difference is that RPGs don't get released every single year, and they tend to be fundamentally different. Anyone who says that Oblivion and Morrowind are the same - a few minor details, never played them both. The baldur's gate series is fairly close to what you're saying, but Neverwinter Nights is quite dissimilar to baldur's gate. I have not played Champions of Norath, so I shall not comment. But I will comment that D&D Online and World of Warcraft aren't even close to the same as far as gameplay mech goes. For the most part though, the games in the series you mentioned often involve a core engine rewrite, whereas the Madden games seem to only get engine upgrades each console generation, yet they charge full price for it. Don't get me wrong though, I'm not complaining because it obviously works for them. EA would probably be long gone by now if they didn't have their EA Sports line-up.
disclaimer: I've been known to store numbers in my ass for which to dig out when quantities are required.
It's because '06 blew. Every magazine I read indicated that if you had 05, not to bother with 06. So now you've got all your rabid foaming at the mouth by every year's game crowd, combined with the more conservative skip a year or two crowd, all lined up to buy the game.
08 projection? Don't even bother making the game. Sell a box with last year's game in it again, then make waves in 09. That's what six figure salaries suits call "a three-year-plan".
You can get 15 minutes of fame, but you can go down in history for infamy.
People don't wait till the next system to play games right now. They buy the next system to play the next games. EA's slump: A product of a stale market of games. I've never heard of anyone saying "This game sounds fun, but I'd rather not play any games for a year and wait till the PS3 comes out to play games".
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.