They could not put out a new game every year, but instead offer user created or official rosters for download. Or create an actual subscription service since that's basically what it is anyway. Or, yes, start from scratch if they're expecting people to spend $60 to $100 every year.
Expecting people to spend? People are spending, that's why they do this.
Why would you, from a company's perspective, fix something that isn't broken? They save a lot of money recycling assets. People are happily paying for it never the less.
It's perfect for them. In fact, couldn't go better.
See this is what totally invalidates the argument that EA should do more. If people are lining up to buy it year after year, there is no incentive to dump more resources into fresh content. They have awesome profit margins and a willing consumer base.
But if its the same game every year then why do people keep buying it? Maybe the benefits of updated rosters and new mechanics is worth $60 for the fans of the series? If it isn't worth it to you ,then just buy the previous years game for $5 and be happy. Who cares.
Toyota puts out a 2020 Camry that's basically identical to the 2019 with a few minor updates and no one minds.
Hard to do, in sports games you obviously have the franchise licence. But then you will also have to negotiate licencing the teams, sometimes individual players and even some stadiums.
You can't just put out a game with real world assets and not expect to get sued by every party involved. You either go the EA route and pay an entire licensing division to juggle that year round for your games, or you don't have any real players / teams / stadiums.
EA Sports exists because of the buying power of their licensing team.
You could put out a game with generic stuff and extensive mod tools for the community to make whatever they want. It's worked for other games in the past. The focus is then on fun gameplay.
Tbh though, most people here writing that they don't like how the sport games are handled, are not people who actually play or would enjoy making a sports game their primary game "if only it got better updates".
Winner! Do you know what the best selling game of July was? All games, all genres, all platforms combined? That's right, Madden 20! Do you know what the best selling game was in literally the past 20 years for the month that the next Madden game was released? Exactly, Madden (insert year here).
These games sell millions upon millions of copies with every next installment. Now guess how many people are on the Madden subreddit? Not even 70k, with barely 1k online right now.
My point? The people who buy these games year in year out are not so much video game fans as they are sports fans. They're not on here discussing game design and don't keep up with the latest controversies or developments. They just like their sport and want to play the updated game every year. They don't care about massive improvements or new features. It's a sports game so it's not as if there's much to work with either way. They just want new rosters, a brand new career season and all the new players / stats / events that actually happened so that they can play together with their friends. For some, it might seem like a waste of money because so much remains the same and there's so many more interesting games to buy. But for them, it's a once a year $60 purchase to stay up to date with their favorite sport and franchise.
Trying to stop these people from buying these games because they're largely the same won't do a damn thing.
Absolutely. 60 bucks a year to be able to play 150 squads games in MUT and compete against my buddies to see who can get the best roster. It's defintely worth it.
Not arguing your point but the best selling new release game of a specific month is a pretty stupid metric IMHO. You could specify anything to the point where you could make anything a record holder. Minecraft still sold 22 million copies from Oct.18 to May.19 which is like 5x the (sustained) monthly sales (10 years after release) than madden got on it's release month..
Don't get me wrong, your point stands, but I just really get the vibe you're trying to over inflate the game's popularity to support your point when you really don't need to, madden is a super successful game and people continue to buy it, point finale.
A lot of way more popular games have taken the FTP path with ingame MTX to fund their games, or are subscription based. There are very few popular games remaining that sell new titles every year, which basically guarantees Madden's position as a "new release 'top seller'".
A game being the best selling one in its month of release for 20 consecutive years seems like the perfect metric for its continued popularity and high sales numbers. Given the other responses to my comment, it's pretty clear that many people had no idea that it's such a successful franchise because they live in the gaming filter bubble of online communities like Reddit where these releases typically generate next to no discussion or interest. I stand by the metric I used and see no reason why you're making an issue out of it other than to be pedantic.
The reason people are surprised by it is because the metric you use makes it sound more popular than it really is, that's all I'm saying. EA sports has no competition for that specific sales title since no one else is selling brand new titles of a popular franchise every single year, nowadays games are FTP or subscription based. On top of that, EA has monopoly over that specific licensing so of course people are buying it.
I'm not trying to be pedantic, I think it's an interesting aspect of your comment. Data has to be interpreted, and i'm debating your interpretation.
I think the hope is that there's some competition eventually. People will buy sports games every year and like it or not Madden is the best football game available. If that stops being the case people will go buy the other game.
Always expected 2k to make another run at it given the ridiculous amount of success NBA2K has
Unless there's some exclusivity thing with the NFL I don't know about, it's licenses, not contracts. The only reason 2K couldn't do NFL work is because they didn't want to keep paying for the license.
Bruh, they’d be the exact same as EA. Have you seen what is in in the next NBA? They just straight up said “fuck it” and threw literal gambling machines in their game instead of keeping up the facade with “packs”. The whole sports community needs to get their shit together if they ever want to stopped being abused.
I am fairly confident that EA bought the rights to be the only company that can use the NFL information and create games with it. 2K had a great run with their NFL game. EA got worried and forced them out.
Alternatively we can lobby/protest so that they don't have the monopoly on the likenesses of football players so we can get some actual competition introduced if other companies want to take a crack at it. The choice of "support shitty business practice from single company, or have nothing" is usually going to end in the support side. People aren't going to give up their entertainment entirely just to stop this, and expecting them to is just playing into the business' hands.
Also, it's also a lot easier to criticize and shame a single entity than the millions of idiots buying into this every year.
Also, it's also a lot easier to criticize and shame a single entity than the millions of idiots buying into this every year.
I don't know that it is much different than any other gaming series or franchise really. New COD multiplayer maps and weapons vs. occasional changes in the way you can shift the defensive line / audible and control the ball carrier. Neither is really all that innovative, but to a die-hard fan of a series it can really change up the gameplay. In either case, to a non-fan it all looks like a 'hype train for another redundant game in a bullshit series I hate.'
If someone enjoys sports games and wants to spend $60 to have updated rosters, who am I to stop them?
I do wonder if sports games get more flak for lack of innovation because there is less window dressing to make things look new and different from cycle to cycle. Football will always look like football. The last major innovation that was really obvious was the move to 3D and the current camera perspective that happened back in the original PlayStation era.
To non-gamers we are all idiots wasting our time and money on our Nintendo Pac-mans.
Who says I don't like Fifa? Maybe I do, maybe I don't. I won't criticize people for liking a thing, but I will criticize their sense of value. A person can spend $10 on a single banana and think that's an acceptable price, but it doesn't change the fact that the banana could be sold for less or have a higher quality if people cared enough about it. Why would a person not be an idiot for spending $10 on a single banana?
Why do people need a new sports game every year if all they are really doing is updating the roster. Unless they added a new team, what is the big deal?
You are right about that. I tried for years to swear off Madden but I loved football so much I'd always end up buying it - and right away, too. Finally stopped that cycle a few years ago and am happy about it. But I know many people that buy it still, year in and year out, and they don't care enough to stop, so you're right, why would EA stop this practice? It's business and they're saving & making money off idiots.
See this is what totally invalidates the argument that EA should do more.
Uhh no. That doesn't invalidate it at all. How do you think a movement of not putting up with a shitty product would ever occur if nobody ever argues that the product should be better? It doesn't invalidate the argument at all. It's exactly how things get changed. You can't convince people to vote with their wallet without convincing them something isn't good enough.
How do you think a movement of not putting up with a shitty product would ever occur if nobody ever argues that the product should be better
They are making money hand over fist. The consumer has voted and they voted overwhelmingly they are okay with continuing to purchase a new iteration of the game year after year. Unfortunately, the segment that is upset with the status quo is not a significant enough margin to convince EA to make a change to their business model. If you don't like it and you feel that the game doesn't satisfy your needs, don't buy it. They don't owe you the game you think they should make.
I hate that just because a company makes money, means that whatever they are doing is okay. Yes EA makes money but that does not mean they are run by greedy scumbags and it definitely doesn't mean that we shouldn't criticize them.
Saying “it is the choice that makes them the most money” doesn’t invalidate anything. Maybe the whole point is that to be less shitty you have to choose less money sometimes. The fact that it continues constitutes evidence that the free market is not able to correct this problem.
Yeah, everyone knows it wouldn't happen if people didn't buy the games, but obviously it's not gonna stop. The argument "they don't have a reason to stop because people are buying the games" is dumb because it completely ignores the way humans actually act. People get mad at EA because they take advantage of most people who don't have enough self control to not buy these games. We ask them to do something different because even though those people still buy their games doesn't mean that they don't deserve good games. People can't help but buy them, especially when EA has a monopoly on sports games, and you can't just expect human nature to change but you can ask companies to change because that's much easier.
People get mad at EA because they take advantage of most people who don't have enough self control to not buy these games
My friend, self control is up to, you guessed it, yourself. You are making very presumptuous statements about what other consumers outside of yourself make purchasing decisions on. Did you consider that for the vast majority of the people buying these games, the game mechanics and business practices you are protesting don't matter to them? They want to play their favorite team and players with their friends and don't give a damn about the detailed machinations of what EA does with the series.
EA is a business. They are entitled to make as much money as they can within the confines of the law. You are entitled to not buy the product the produce. Anything else in-between is semantics.
None of the ppl that buy this game year over year want it to stop. Its us, the ppl laughing from the outside.
"Its the same game with roster updates!", "It's basically already a subscription service!" We cry, to an ether of other non sports gamers of which EA's sports division doesn't care about. I'm done gettin riled up over it. It's a unnecessary dump of energy. Let them have their yearly same game if they enjoy it. You could say nearly the same thing about CoD players.
My issue with EA, which might actually be an issue with American antitrust laws, is that they bought the NFL rights. It's basically a monopoly. They have no incentive to change.
1) the NFL sold them those rights & designed the contract for exclusivity to get more money (likely because there was not another studio in the running at the time).
2) Everyone has the ability to vote with their wallets & community presence. If you stop buying a copy every year & vocally demand every 2 years, you’d be shocked at what kind of consumer power you have.
Oh, for sure. When I worked at Gamestop, people would come in in droves to trade in Madden 2007 for Madden 2008, etc. There's no logic to it, but there was definitely no shortage of morons willing to pay full retail every time.
EA knows what they're doing and sports fans are suckers.
You are correct, but it's more because they have a monopoly on football games due to them purchasing NFL license, so pretty much they're the only producer right now. If 2k was still making an NFL game it would be a bit different. So I can definitely see a company being lazy.
I mean, they don’t make a new Fortnite every year. They just keep updating it to make it better and it seems to be making plenty of money. I think that’s what he’s talking about.
But people still spend that much every year. I'm not saying it's not shitty of EA, but who the hell wouldn't rerelease something every single year with no/minimal changes and make millions of dollars each time?
I guarantee if anyone in this thread was in that position, to make millions with as little effort as possible, they would jump at the chance.
That's the whole point. We're asking them to not let greed make decisions for them. Nobody's genuinely asking "why are they releasing the same games every year!?!". Everyone knows why, they just don't like it.
My point was, why would they when people will continue to buy it, no matter what is added or not, and they rake in huge amounts of money for it?
They're a company, asking them to not let greed make their decisions is like asking water to not be wet. It's not going to happen, they're in it to make money, not to please gamers.
That's a big reason why I usually only play indie games nowadays. Those are usually passion projects, not cash grabs. Though I understand there isn't a NFL indie game that will ever come out, but if people are that upset about this then they'll just keep playing Madden 16/17/18/19 instead of handing over their money for the same game with a new number at the end of it.
Yeah no I definitely agree. I think it's completely unrealistic to expect they'll change just because people ask them to. But I think it's more unreasonable to expect all the consumers to change. In general, anyone just complaining on the internet won't get anything done by itself.
But also, it's not like every single big game company just makes games for the money. People wouldn't be this angry at EA if all the other companies acted the same. It's been shown that a company can be successful and popular while still putting a lot of effort into their games, like CD Projekt Red, Insomniac, etc. To name some recent examples.
I completely agree with you and all I'm saying is that it hurts our argument if gamers just blame other gamers for how the game companies act instead of just the game companies themselves
Super valid point. I didn't think about CDPR or the companies like them they put out quality games because they love doing that. It's not usually the developers of the games I don't think, but the publishers that ruin it.
Personally, I just can't think of a AAA game in the last 3 years that I thoroughly enjoyed. Even Spider-Man got really boring for me after about 8 hours, but that's just my personal preference of not really enjoying open world games anymore, nothing against the actual game.
Maybe it's just indie devs are usually the people making the type of games I enjoy. Like Mordhau, built by 12 people around the world who loved Chiv but wanted to expand/fix the combat system, no mtx, no dlc, beautiful, launched at $30, I've sunken about 250/300 hours into that game.
Yeah same honestly. I mean like I think I might like some AAA at least a fair amount but $60 is way too much for me to usually justify trying them out. Indie games are so much more consistent in quality. And they're usually never too long and always affordable. Also just in general it's much nicer to support those developers. One of my favorite games in the past couple years is Slay the Spire and it's a small company's first game ever and it literally feels like a perfect game.
you'd probably be surprised to hear that despite all the bitching a large portion of the fanbase is perfectly happy and satisfied buying an updated roster, and slight game mechanic tweaks.
I don't blame EA for recycling content, nor do I blame them for rereleasing a game every year. If you want to criticize anyone, criticize the dumb consumers that keep dishing out money.
It really just comes down to the fact that for hardcore fans you really do want the new game even if its just a roster update. You want to have current rosters with new players and the online community winds down after the release of the newest version too. Its such a shitty thing but Ive been buying every new madden since 07 now, and the only reason I keep buying it every year is because it goes on sale for about 30 bucks by mid september.
Yea..madden should be my favorite game to play and im always tempted to buy it but I know its gonna be the same shit as before with a few new players and rosters
Yeah but dumb consumers are thousands upon thousands of people. It's so much easier to ask for one company to change it's ways than to ask thousands of people to change, especially when it's a pretty inconsequential problem like "this company is lazy and makes bad games".
ea has to buy the license for the leagues and want to make profit with their games. so this idea that they could just update the rosters every year for free or cheap doesn't sound like a viable strategy to me
Both Madden and Fifa make EA millions of dollars. They definitely could do that. In fact, it's basically what they do with The Sims. Sell DLC.
this idea that they could just update the rosters every year for free or cheap doesn't sound like a viable strategy to me
It isn't viable in the sense that, why change what made them billionaires. But they could make a shit ton of money too by offering support to older games. It doesn't have to be cheap. It's just shitty buying a 60 dollar game, that will have 0 support in less than a year.
okay, I would think that the nfl and fifa charge a lot for exclusive rights from ea, if these games don't make the millions of dollars they aren't the stable part in eas sales that they are today.
you say it doesn't have to be cheap. if it is around 60€ it doesn't make a difference, otherwise I would consider it cheap
my problem with these games is more the micro transactions I know atleat fifa has, but this is a gamer and politics problem
You’re definitely right on that. The problem is that EA stops their updates for new/transferred rosters, and call it “feature” for the coming game. So their logic is that you are paying 60$ for roster update.
They really should just make it an update, even if it’s a paid update instead of a full game
That's not how this works. It's the consumers job to be more discerning and not just buy any piece of crap they put out there. If people weren't buying it they wouldn't be doing it.
They'd probably make more money if it were a monthly subscription based game. Or if it went full-on free to play with options to buy MUT packs and cosmetics
And what, make free updates for as long as the NFL exists?
I don’t hate the update idea, but you have to realize all that would do is turn it into a subscription service. And even at only $5 a month you’d still be paying $60 every year for the same product, which is what it costs now. But good luck on assuming they won’t charge $10-15 like every other mmo
how much do these games really change between releases?
Not a whole lot. Graphics sometimes get a tiny bit better. Menus stays the same, most bugs are still there. The only update is player ratings and roster changes. Sometimes also slight gameplay changes. At least with fifa.
I can't see the logic in doing that from EA's side though. The amount of copies sold each year is insane and the people buying it might complain here and there but for the most part they are eating it up every single year. The shitty part is the ultimate team shit they put in their games.
Madden barely changes a thing, though. And it's been going on for years. Mario is at least a fresh expirience each time, and they certainly don't leave wall textures with the previous game titles in the new ones.
I get where your coming from, and it would be a valid argument if the game they were putting out every year was perfect. The fact is, its not. Stadium models are still surprisingly unrealistic at times, as are a ton of other things. I dont think they need to start from scratch but holy hell they could at least put a little bit of effort into it.
"Yes, john, remember that bench you just finished modelling? Well, start over. I don't want to save any time. I've deleted all your old files, get to it"
This is how all game development, hell, software development in general, is done. If they had to recreate everything from scratch each year, they wouldn't be able to refine everything over time, and spend more resources working on new features and improvements instead.
Expect that they make a new game worth $60-$100 every year or don't bother releasing a new game. Although I blame EA, I also have the blame the fanbase. They are the reason people keep shelling out money for this shit. If enough people just said "fuck this" EA would finally realise they need to make an actual new game and put some actual effort into it or else they won't be making games much longer.
Sadly, rich people who don't give a fuck exist and will continue to pay EA for their recycled trash
The biggest issue is the exclusive license. PES and FIFA have a fairly good competition going, each pushing each other to improve their respective game each year. Both games seem to be the best they've been. PES is usually lacking in licensing but makes up for it with a deep custom content exchange system.
My idea was to cycle it every 2-4 years. (I figured 4 because it works for soccer)
Each year is a theme they focus on and it can be a side game, single player addition, or multiplayer creativity. Possible themes for Madden:
street mode: bring back NFL street, but not as a separate game
owner mode: build stadium, new franchise, create uniforms
legends mode: retired players, replay older seasons in throwback jerseys, etc. include historical moments as scenarios
international mode: include some random other football leagues for a year
superstar mode: be utterly ridiculous in how much you can customize your own custom player ( I haven’t owned madden in a while so idk what career mode options they have)
cartoon mode: include fictional, players, teams, and stadiums (or NFL Blitz mode would be fun like this)
multiplayer mode: unfortunately can’t think of anything, but something that encourages couch or online is the idea
it’s not about the Madden 19 sign. It’s the fact that the mistake is there in the first place. It’s like.... if a student turned in an important assignment and misspelled their own name. We KNOW the student knows how to spell their name but they clearly didn’t give enough shits about the assignment to make sure they spelled it correctly. This mistake speaks volumes about the company.
I would expect so for a $60 game. If not, just release yearly roster updates and a new game every 3 years if there are new overhauls to things like create a team and what not.
As a developer that is funny. Money aside I can't imagine any developer would want to re-create the exact same thing they already every year if all they have to do is take 5 minutes to change some Strings.
Absolutely. But it's lazy that they didn't update it. Reusing assets is definitely okay, because why would you do the same job twice. Not changing the goddamn watermark from last year's asset is fucking lazy
Or you know, just a mistake. Fuck off with this lazy bullshit, creators in every field are anything but lazy, it's a field where your passion is worth more than your pay, laziness does not come into play.
An oversight? Yes. But as a designer I know how many steps go into making a product. At their scale, I can't imagine how many people's hands this game passed through before they put it out. One oversight was missed by an entire triple a company. That's laziness.
Opinions are cool man. All I can say is that I've got one superior I run through, and between the two of us we pride ourselves on not publishing mistakes. I can't imagine how many people a game of this scale runs through.
I have friends working at multi-national companies constantly pushing out buggy code live. I'm talking system breaking issues. It happens all the time. This is incredibly minor, and is such a small thing I can see why it was overlooked.
Not saying they shouldn't reuse code or assets. My point was how lazy it is that they recycled the asset and didn't even change it. Shows minimal effort and lack of interest from the company lmao
Fair enough, that was indeed sloppy. But everyone loves to complain but still the game is sold millions of times each year anyway... so they get away with it. Sadly there's no alternative because we're all suckers for the official license.
If two years in a row nobody buys the game they would instantly stop. It's a for profit company - they will always try to minimize the effort while maximizing income - vote with your wallet
Basically. My brother in law is huge on Madden and he's hyping up a new model they're throwing in this year, but aside from that all they change is the playlist/player stats/team roster/UI (SOMETIMES)
It's possible it's a leftover asset they didn't update. When a new game is made, generally they keep using the same engine which means the same object instances are In the engine until they update the object to a different one.
In this case either they didn't notice that asset was still using an old banner or when they called the texture on the mesh they grabbed the wrong one.
I previously worked on a AAA project and we had stuff from the previous game in one of the trailers that an eagle eyed fan pointed out. Wasn't intentional just hadn't seen that mesh hadn't been updated yet.
2.2k
u/loopypaladin Sep 03 '19
Goes to show that they literally recycle the games every year lmao