How many layers can you get?

[jpinard]

Just got a preview of pay-per-view of a preview of Madden.

Can I please get a sneak peek at a preview of the preview of the payperview of the preview of Madden 2007?

You know if EA put this much effort into the actual game... maybe it wouldn't suck. Anyone know if they spend more on marketing the game than on the actual game development?

[Ben]

Jeus.

[slantz]

Anyone know if they spend more on marketing the game than on the actual game development?
I was under the impression this was the case for most major-publisher releases. Same for big movies.

I could be mistaken though.

[skyride]

Pay-per-view? Really? People actually pay to watch a preview?

[Robert Sharp]

Jeus.

Jeus ex.

[slantz]

Pay-per-view? Really? People actually pay to watch a preview?
Wouldn't that be a pay-per-preview?

[Jim Preston]

Great question! How many layers can you get? First we got jpinard's bizarre, irrational ranting against EA promotional practices (http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=27905), and now we get a second, equally pointless thread just a few days later! If I didn't know better, I'd say jpinard has a crush on EA and secretly wants to ask it to the Sadie Hawkins dance.

[Warren]

Layers? I'm like an onion ... er no wait. That's Shrek.

[jpinard]

Great question! How many layers can you get? First we got jpinard's bizarre, irrational ranting against EA promotional practices (http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=27905), and now we get a second, equally pointless thread just a few days later! If I didn't know better, I'd say jpinard has a crush on EA and secretly wants to ask it to the Sadie Hawkins dance.

Hey, I wouldn't mind a bit if the game didn't suck every year. But EA puts more effort into awareness than the game itself which is terribly disapponting come football season.

[chet]

Its yet another "jpinard vs the suits" thread. If only jpinard ruled the world...

[Squirrel Killer]

If I didn't know better, I'd say jpinard has a crush on EA and secretly wants to ask it to the Sadie Hawkins dance.
Would that make j EA's bitch?

[dannimal]

If only jpinard's opinion were Wikiality, instead of just a minority opinion. Because there sure are a LOT of people who don't think MAdden sucks every year.

It's not what you want, j. We get it.

[Pumpkinhead]

Because there sure are a LOT of people who don't think MAdden sucks every year.

I'm pretty sure there are not as many as there used to be. I get the sense that EA is losing the hard core Madden guys too.

[Jim Preston]

Hey, I wouldn't mind a bit if the game didn't suck every year. But EA puts more effort into awareness than the game itself which is terribly disapponting come football season.Awww...c'mon now, grumpy gus. We know you like to stand out there in the rain and shake your fist at the world and tremble with impotent rage, but even you know Madden doesn't suck. Maybe the high 80s average metacritic rating is deceiving, and maybe the 6 million people who bought a copy of Madden in some form last year lack your trenchant insight into the true nature of football, but clearly it doesn't just suck. Oh sure, it's got problems and there's always room for improvment, and the 360 version struggled to be a launch title, but suck? Really?

Tell ya what I'm gonna do. If you want...if you're willing to debase yourself, I'll get you a copy of Madden 07 at employee pricing on any platform. $20 bucks is all it takes, even for the 360 version. I'll even ship it to ya for free! Ya can't be that. And you know that little jpinard inside, the little football-videogame-lovin' kid that you smothered with a pillow, would like to play it too. Think about all the EA hate threads you could start if you had you very own copy! I'd even get one for chet, but the extra mouse clicking in Madden PC so infuriated him that I don't think he wears my friendship bracelet anymore.

So there ya go. We're guessing 7 million people will buy a copy this year, and think how honestly you could sneer at them if you had your own copy! Then we could be pals. You don't want to be sitting at home with a lump of coal with Maddenoliday (http://www.maddenoliday.com/app/content/shell) just around the corner, do you?

[MauxFaux]

Awww...c'mon now, grumpy gus. We know you like to stand out there in the rain and shake your fist at the world and tremble with impotent rage, but even you know Madden doesn't suck. Maybe the high 80s average metacritic rating is deceiving, and maybe the 6 million people who bought a copy of Madden in some form last year lack your trenchant insight into the true nature of football, but clearly it doesn't just suck. Oh sure, it's got problems and there's always room for improvment, and the 360 version struggled to be a launch title, but suck? Really?

Tell ya what I'm gonna do. If you want...if you're willing to debase yourself, I'll get you a copy of Madden 07 at employee pricing on any platform. $20 bucks is all it takes, even for the 360 version. I'll even ship it to ya for free! Ya can't be that. And you know that little jpinard inside, the little football-videogame-lovin' kid that you smothered with a pillow, would like to play it too. Think about all the EA hate threads you could start if you had you very own copy! I'd even get one for chet, but the extra mouse clicking in Madden PC so infuriated him that I don't think he wears my friendship bracelet anymore.

So there ya go. We're guessing 7 million people will buy a copy this year, and think how honestly you could sneer at them if you had your own copy! Then we could be pals. You don't want to be sitting at home with a lump of coal with Maddenoliday (http://www.maddenoliday.com/app/content/shell) just around the corner, do you?


um... Madden sucks!

How do you want me to get you that $20?

[chet]

Jim, I was making a joke about "jpinard vs the suits" , but I think you just proved his point. Especially mentioning the 360 version (metacritic 74). It sells well because it is madden and the only game with the real players, not because it is a good football game. Some years it is, some years it isn't and I bet that doesn't influence sales.

Chet

[Dave Long]

Just as an aside, they were talking Madden on the Dan Patrick Show today. It was kinda funny because Doug Gottlieb was filling in for Dan and he was saying how the Madden videogame is more synonimous with Madden than his broadcasting career, commercials, etc. while Keith Olbermann simply couldn't put the game anywhere near that high on his list of things that made Madden such a name. (Madden's getting inducted into the Hall of Fame again for broadcasting...)

I agree wtih Gottlieb. If you grew up in the videogame generation, you know Madden because of the game and not so much because of TV. I think the game is partially responsible for the dominance of football on the national radar because before the videogame, less people understood the X's and O's for football and found it extremely difficult to watch because they couldn't understand it. Madden makes the strategy and the execution of that strategy much more accessible to everyone.

Anyway, I e-mailed the show with all that today. I wasn't able to listen to hear if the e-mail made it on the air. It really showed the generation gap with videogames though. If you're over 40, you're probably just outside of the videogame generation and you've got a very different view of the media landscape because of it. It's going to be really interesting to see how games enter the larger TV/radio newsmedia in another ten years or so.

[scharmers]

videogame schmideogame

"BAM! TOUGH ACTIN TINACTIN!!!!"

that's how I get my Madden on

[Dave Long]

It's "BOOM!"

[scharmers]

It's "BOOM!"

No, isn't Madden that furry little guy who has his own cooking show? ;)

[Jim Preston]

It sells well because it is madden and the only game with the real players, not because it is a good football game.I dunno about that. Around 2001 with the launch of the PS2 there were several NFL titles (Madden, 2K2, Fever, Primetime, and non-sim titles like Blitz and Backyard football) and Madden typically outsold the entire competition combined on an order of around 3-1. That gap widened every year after 01 and continued to do so until the 05 products and 2K's half-priced offering increased their sales by about four-fold, and in turn led to the now infamous exclusivity deal.

So I don't agree that Madden's growing sales are the result of its exclusivity, as it's sales have grown roughly 20% every year since 01. But what I will agree with is that Madden's success and popularity is largely due to a kind of cultural tipping point rather than direct result of game quality. For whatever reason Madden became one of those breakout games the extended out of its genre and developed a following among the wider, non-hardcore audience - just as Halo and GTA enjoy a much, much wider audience than any one expected and became widely known at a cultural level.

However, I'm not sure why jpinard is so bitter and loathes the game, and the people who make, market it, and buy it.

[fuzzyslug]

So I don't agree that Madden's growing sales are the result of its exclusivity, as it's sales have grown roughly 20% every year since 01. But what I will agree with is that Madden's success and popularity is largely due to a kind of cultural tipping point rather than direct result of game quality. For whatever reason Madden became one of those breakout games the extended out of its genre and developed a following among the wider, non-hardcore audience - just as Halo and GTA enjoy a much, much wider audience than any one expected and became widely known at a cultural level.

However, I'm not sure why jpinard is so bitter and loathes the game, and the people who make, market it, and buy it.

Its sales are result of the Madden name being synonymous with football, largely a result of being the best football game around by far until the 2K series got a couple years under its belt. In 1992, Madden was groundbreaking. In the early nineties, it was the best way to play football while sitting in front of a TV. It's football's version of Coke and the recent exclusive deal with the NFL means it'll remain so for a long, long time.

There are some good reasons to hate Madden -- that exclusivity deal is surely one -- but most of what you hear is folks being trendy. They either don't get football as a videogame or feel it is super awesome cool to hate that which is popular.

Preordered: July 30th

[scharmers]

In 1992, Madden was groundbreaking.

Dude, 1988 is on the phone. Cinemaware wants their football game back.

[Shmtur]

I dunno about that. Around 2001 with the launch of the PS2 there were several NFL titles (Madden, 2K2, Fever, Primetime, and non-sim titles like Blitz and Backyard football) and Madden typically outsold the entire competition combined on an order of around 3-1. That gap widened every year after 01 and continued to do so until the 05 products and 2K's half-priced offering increased their sales by about four-fold, and in turn led to the now infamous exclusivity deal.

To get off the point about sales (and, y'know, talk about the current madden, not what it used to be) the game as it stands now is neither revolutionary nor evolutionary (though that last could be arguable). There's a reason you can easily find complaints that all it is is a roster update from year to year. When it comes to comparing the most recent Madden to the one before it (I'd love to compare the Madden we're about to see, but I know nothing about it, so it's not really possible) the only real change was the godawful QB vision thing. This isn't really proof of anything, but I can easily recall hearing nfl players talking about hey, I guess it's more realistic, but it takes some of the fun away.

What really needs to happen is some sort of groundbreaking addition to the gameplay (so adding Tony Bruno or the ESPN license or whatever doesn't really count here). One way of doing so? Instead of NFL Head Coach being its own separate game, make it a new option in Madden. That would be the natural evolution after the addition of the franchise mode; the player would be coach, general manager, and player on the team.

As it stands now, it's hard to see what's really being added to the game to make it anything more than the aforementioned roster update. Feel free to correct me on that last point with whatever (if anything) is being added to this year's madden, though.

[Xaroc]

I think the biggest problem with Madden is they don't bother to fix things like the easy passing game, too difficult running game, and poor animations. These are the basics. I could care less about superstar mode or other side BS. Hire the guys who made 2k5 and get them to show you what it looks like when someone gets hit or tackled or steps through a narrow gap in the line. There are tons of people who will just line up and buy Madden, that doesn't make it good. Now that it is exclusive they are going to really have to prove it to me. I skipped it last year, I can skip it again if it isn't good.

[jpinard]

I think the biggest problem with Madden is they don't bother to fix things like the easy passing game, too difficult running game, and poor animations.

<<<That>>> and unrealistic stats are my biggest gripe in a nutshell. EA's reviews have been riding on roster updates and fluff for too many years. How many other games could release barely edited game (action) content and still get decent reviews? Not many. Titan Quest got points marked off because it was too "Diablo-Like". When is Madden going to start getting points chopped off for never truly improving gameplay? And adding a new block with X-Y-X- Shfit-X isn't decent gameplay. And adding another impossible-to-control "quarter-back options in 2006 and the new blocking thing for 2007"... They "could" have a great game if they fixed the gameplay.

Jim, whatever gave you the impression I don't own the game(s)?

Note: Maybe the generation gap-thing is the problem. I cut my teeth on Front Page Sports Football and Cinemaware's TV Sports Football. I loved them. I also played quite of a bit of 2k Sports XBox fb and thought it was head and shoulders above Madden. There's been a lot of "better" football out there. But until EA stops building upon a broken foundation I don't have a lot of hope for the franchise. See, in any other football game I've played, I never had my opponents endgame runnings stats equal -5 ypg like Madden. Every year, same old running awfulness. I wanted real NFL games where they get 50-150 yards per game on the ground... does that seem like to much to ask? Or am I supposed to just clam up and eat what's fed to me?

[Jab2565]

I've tried on 3 seperate occasions to like madden, each time I hated the game more. I also see the same game each year mentality, that qb vision thing just felt stupid to me. The thing is that the year espn 2k5 was out, I bought that and somewhat enjoyed that. Even though I could never get the training stuff to work in my favor.

The game just looked and played better then madden imo. I've seen people at Eb say that madden is the only video game they play each year, which is pretty weird to me.

[Alex Dolce]

That gap widened every year after 01 and continued to do so until the 05 products and 2K's half-priced offering increased their sales by about four-fold, and in turn led to the now infamous exclusivity deal. I don't know about that. A lot of people (myself included) bought 2K's game because it looked better, played better, and was all-around a lot more fun than Madden. I do agree that it led to the exclusivity deal, because Madden just wasn't up for the competition. I'm sure the price difference had an impact on sales, but I'm also sure that it wasn't quite so drastic a reason as one may be inclined to think.

Football fans tend to be football fans. I know I owned both Madden and 2K's games...I just played the latter a whole lot more, which us why I was unhappy with the exclusivity deal. EA knew that the deal would crush future offerings from 2K (and anyone else, for that matter) and people would be forced to play Madden, which wouldn't be a bad thing if the latter was as enjoyable as the former.

Hopefully the new Madden will be great. I have my fingers crossed, but NCAA left me a little less than optimistic. I could almost overlook the flaws of the 360 version of Madden 06 (although not enough to keep the game) since it was hurried to make the console's launch. However, playing NCAA (and also not keeping it, but giving it away the same day I purchased it) and seeing how it isn't much different from the 360 Madden 06 is disconcerting. Higher price, fewer features, the one big feature I enjoyed with last year's NCAA completely gone, lackluster graphics, same animation and clipping problems as always, etc...all of that just makes me worry that Madden 07 won't be anything new.

Well, they've made a big to-do over the "real grass" or whatever, so that might be neat. I'm not sure what it will add to the gameplay or why having a flat plane was so bad (well, ok in Madden it was never very pretty, but with good art 2K showed that it could look like....well, like grass).

You know what I'd like, and what I keep waiting for because it seems obvious to me? I can only think that it must be much more difficult to accomplish than I could ever imagine which is why we don't already see this feature, but I would really like to see tackle animations go away. Why, in the years since we saw the first ragdolls go down in a FPS, do we still have canned tackle animations in our football games?

Of course, you wouldn't want your ball carrier to go all jelly boned limp the second he gets hit and the ragdoll triggers, but surely there's a way to put some constaints on the physics to take into account the guy trying to hold onto the ball. Call me crazy, but I just think little things like this would be a much more effective use of the "power of the next generation" than making "real grass" by shoving some Unreal Engine 1 level planes on the Z axis and putting a grass imagemap on them. Of course, I've only seen this revolutionary grass in brief glimpses during a couple of quick video spots I've seen of the game, so maybe it's much more detailed and intricate than what I've described. The point remains, however, that I just don't care.

Stop polishing the helmets to an insane luster and making the grass grow and just make a better game - one with the same features across all platforms. I'd think people would start getting tired of paying more money for a "next-gen" version of the game with a stripped down feature set because, for some reason, shinier helmets cost more money to develop.

[Alex Dolce]

Wow, that was unusually hostile for me...either I'm more passionate about football games than I thought, or I'm over my legal caffeine limit for the day.

[Jim Preston]

Well, as Chet has recently made clear to me, I don't mean to suggest that Madden's sales are simple proof enough of the game's quality or superiority. I was only trying to respond to jpinard's general claim that the game "always sucks." I tried to respond with an equally general claim that it gets high review scores and sells millions of copies every year - so while Madden may not be as good as it should be, it strikes me as hyperbolic to simply say it sucks in the face of annual positive reviews and record sales.

As for some of the other points, let me first say that I don't work on the Madden team, and I'm not trying to play the role of public representative. These comments are simply my own, not EA's in any way. I think Xaroc's post gets to a lot of the heart of the matter. While Xaroc's concerned about the "too easy pass game, and too difficult running game," I find a lot of the guys at Maddenmania and OperationSports complain about how difficult the passing game is (especially with Vision Cone left on) and how easy it is run for big yards. One of the main challenges of sports game design is that most gamers come to it with a built-in expectation on how the game should actually play, after all we're all already sports fans.

To give you an example, I prefer a ground-oriented, short-pass game with long drives that wear down the defense. One of my problems with Madden (and the 2K series) is that it doesn't do a good job of modelling fatigue in my opinion. Both games do a great job of reproducing low-level tactical football (e.g. taking advantage of player mismatches), but I've yet to play a football game that let you truly execute a game-wide, high-level strategy. (The same goes with my other love: hockey. I prefer to wear down the defensemen through relenetless dump-n-chase, cycle-down-low hockey, that leads to low scores and usually a single back-breaking third period goal due to fatigue. I just can't seem to find that in any hockey game, whether its EA's or Kush's.)

But here's the rub: another hockey fan expects end-to-end action with lots of one-timers and big hits. That really is hockey to him, and he regards my version as a bad imitation of the "real" thing. The solution to this problem of expectation in the past has been to simply surface the controls we use to tune the game in the form of sliders. This way players can tailor their experience a little more. But even with sliders, its hard to account for player ability. Raising the game's difficulty is the next easiest thing to do, but some players have told us they only play on default, and others are concerned that going from one difficulty setting to the next is too dramatic a leap in challenge.

There's only a finite amount of time you can tune the game, so there are bound to be people who just don't "fit" with a particular game, and really enjoy the "feel" of another one. This is just regarding gameplay, though. The underlying stats engine is also always getting tweaked, and like an enormous Escher print, moving one variable can break the illusion. I have no doubt that jpinard is probably right about some of the stats, but every year the franchise engine gets worked on. Just like every year the graphic engine gets worked on. This year the focus was on the grass on the 360. People want you to stop "polishing the graphics and fix the gameplay" as if those two things were the result of a single resource being applied in only one of two directions. The artists have to work on something, so why not improve the visuals?

Finally, as for the lack of a truly revolutionary feature, that is also a constant source of debate. Like every other sports developer we're essentially making an episodic product that attempts to simulate the real world. It's not a new game every year, just as football as sport doesn't really revolutize itself every year. New mechanics are tried (vision and precision last year), but I think the goal is constant refinement rather than complete overhaul. So, yes, I think it is largely the same game every year, but I think that is true of almost all sports titles, and even most sims - I can't think of what was revolutionary about PGR3's driving sim other than its fantastic graphics and some interesting new modes, which is precisely what we try to add every year.

Finally, since I've gone on too long, some quick comments:

- Rag doll is easy to do, but mixed animations (a running cycle contues while a player gets tackled) is very tricky and can be very expensive
- Likewise cloth dynamics like stretching jerseys are really tricky
- No one wanted a price war in the games market. Not the NFL, not the retailers, not EA. None of these groups really likes the idea of narrowing the spigot of money that is annual football revenue. Take 2 tried a very bold tactic with giving away a great game at less than half retail, and it didn't sit well with a lot of people. Take 2 was in on the bidding for exclusive NFL rights along with a lot of people. While exclusive licenses hurt consumers, Take 2 is not an especially big fan of free competition either, as evidenced by their MLB deal
- That last comment wasn't really that quick
- I apologize to jpinard if it sounded like I suggested he doesn't know anything about football. To criticise the game is one thing, but to criticise all the promotion I find a little baffling
- I like shiny helmets :)

[John E. Motion]

jeus.


Jeus ex.
jeus ex machina.

[fuzzyslug]

I don't know about that. A lot of people (myself included) bought 2K's game because it looked better, played better, and was all-around a lot more fun than Madden. I do agree that it led to the exclusivity deal, because Madden just wasn't up for the competition. I'm sure the price difference had an impact on sales, but I'm also sure that it wasn't quite so drastic a reason as one may be inclined to think.

The more casual user had no reason to try anything but the tried and true until the price of the 2K games dropped through the floor. I know several Madden devotees that never tried the NFL2k series until the price change.

[Alex Dolce]

You're probably right. I came to 2K's line through the Dreamcast though, so the price difference didn't mean much to me. Word of mouth and positive reviews probably helped as well, but in the end I've no doubt that the price difference did influence a lot of people who would have otherwise purchased only Madden. I just don't think it's fair to say that it's the only reason, or even the main reason, as to why the game sold so incredibly well.

[Erlend Grefsrud]

Layers? I'm like an onion ... er no wait. That's Shrek.

Actually, that's Ibsen's Peer Gynt.

If people feel comfortable spending money to see programmers, modellers, animators and sound designers reading their prepared lines, complete with stock jokes and forced little laughs to warm the viewer to them, then let them. I feel vaguely assured that they will not make the same mistake again if the quality of the preview is anything like the "Behind the scenes" DVD that came with Halo 2, or for that matter: The Making of The E3 Trailer for Halo 3, which is ... just too much.

It'll be on YouTube before you know it. Then we can all point and laugh.

[Alex Dolce]

I don't know, I thought the Halo 3 making-of went along way towards illuminating why Halo 2 ended up as mangled as it did.

[Erlend Grefsrud]

How so? Since the Halo 3 mockumentary provides substantial, no, indisputable evidence that Bungie is pouring resources into all the wrong places?

[Alex Dolce]

Well there's that, and the too many Chiefs and not enough Indians angle, a little sprinkling of lack of solid management and team leadership, unclear and poorly defined goals...it's a crockpot filled with disastery goodness!

[Erlend Grefsrud]

Lest we forget: A good amount of misunderstanding towards what made Halo a great game in the first place.

Hint: It was neither the corridorlicious spaceship-o-ramas nor the torrent of bad decisionmaking and half-arsed solutions they chose to dub The Flood. I wonder if that's a tongue-in-cheek reference to the hailstorm of shit Bungie must have endured after the MS acquisition ..?

[jpinard]

Jim - very nice post. I don't post at MM too often, but I've been there a long time... through several forum re-births. With sliders some of the running/passing can be alleviated to the users play-style - but the problem is beneathe that... it's the stastical foundation - which none of us can touch. How long has it been since Tiburon has bothered to fix that? If you look at MM and other places people are constantly pissed at how awful the stats are. For a player there's only a couple stats which mean much of anything (hello speed!) and much of everting else is meaningless. This also means when you simulate games, the statistics at the end of the game/season are always out of whack.

See here's the catch and what bugs me about Tiburon so much. If they got the stat engine fixed, then the player who wants mega-passing and no running can do that in the sliders. The guy who wants insano football with no realsim? He can do that with the sliders. So I totally understand your argument about how you can't please everyone... but Madden can come pretty darn close if they fixed the foundation. They can appease the simmers and they can appease the lugs that care for nothing except the big pass and plugging people. Heck, if Tiburon thought the non-realis crowd was too dub to even adjust sliders - they could have presets that they select and they're adjusted for the player. Ex. "Big-Ass Football" would set wr to max catch ability, max out player speeds, no fatigue, max blocking, max qb accuracy...

But Jim, as you mentioned... it's about refining what they have. And so far they've done nothing to refine the entire sim/stat structure of the game. It's broken... it's been bad for years and years... if Tiburon fixed that part of the game there'd be a lot of happy people. What I don't get is why Tiburon doesn't bother fixing the one thing many fans have complained about for years? It seems to be they just "don't get it". Tiburon made "Head Coach" for the serious sim crowd and the thing we'd hoped would be fixed most - was just as totally screwed as ever (if not worse). That tells me they don't have programmers taltned enough to adjust/fix the sim & stat engine - or they're insanely out of touch.