Analyst: "Poor reviews and quality are beginning to tarnish the EA brand"

Note that i do not really mind release delays. I usually pick my games 6 to 12 after release when they drop in price. I'd prefer a perfectly polished game that comes 2 years after it was first promised over a just in time good but not super duper game anytime.

And i really hope the whole business eventually switches to that stance, release only a third of the current numbers but make all games really worthwhile.

 

Agree about the hockey, it is pretty good this year. And I Agree about Madden and you can toss NCAA in there as well. I said this right from the start. One of these days the sheep will realize what they are buying but until then EA will keep putting out this crap.

I know people wanted a commentary change, but a RAIDO broadcast! It's horrid. And please please PLEASE EA, go play some of the 2K games and actually learn about how to implement presentation into a football game. People can try to trash the 2K series all they want, but the presentation in that game was pretty dam sweet.

Has anyone at EA ever watched a football game?

 

I think a lot of what pisses some of us gamers off, especially us older ones is we remember when EA stood for innovation and quality in the early years. I mean when I first bought Madden back in like what 88-89? It was not for just the madden name but it was for the fact that it was the best football game with the most features and most fun. I mean EA had games like Archon, M.U.L.E., The Pinball Construction Set, The Racing Destruction Set and many many more. Now we get recycled trash and wholesale license buying just so they can run the property through the mill. Personally, I have had an EA boycott and it has worked well for me for the last 3 years...


EA needs to change, in a big way and fast..

 

Ah, I vaguely remember those days. I also remember when EA used to give a lot of credit to the game developers (even photos on the box etc.). Nowadays the brand is all important, and I think they would avoid giving any credit at all if they could get away with it.

 

Clearly not, they keep having the non goalies picking up the ball and keep stopping every 10 feet... Nothing like football at all

 

That's what I say. Madden 07 broke previous Madden sales records, so it's obviously not a series screaming for improvement, at least not from a publisher's POV. The only way they'll change is if people quit buying games.

 

I played lots of NHL 94 with a Gravis back in the day. That's a pseudo-SNES.

Never said it was. To me it just felt right. I love playing hockey and this was the first game (and last one for a while) that really made me feel like I was skating with the puck. Some of the NES games felt like piloting hovercraft with the way players floated around.

To each his own...

 

And now relatively poor reviews of FN3 PS3. What is EA doing?

 

Getting the sequels out in time for christmas?

It works for them. That more experienced gamers with more refined tastes can't stand their practices apparently doesn't pose a problem to EA's business. We can scream all we want but the games sell, to a demographic that values things differently.

 

EA wants to be first out the door is all. The worry that quake wars would step on their franchises toes made them rush 2142 out as quickly as possible.

I don't think EA is the devil, I just think they are a poor company. They treat their employees poorly, they focus on short term profits. They buy up innovators and then purge their own in the pursuit of quick profits. They basically are riding a collapsing house of cards and they just use their profits to buy up IP to support them for another round. It just seems a shortsighted business model is all. There doesn't seem to be the polish, or passion in the games.

 

Eh, yeah that major demographic is a shame.

 

Hi, longtime viewer, infrequent poster.

I think anyone comparing Madden to NFL 2kx needs to remember that Madden is was ultimately built around an arcade/simulation model while the 2kx game was built to be a straight simulation. I always thought the 2kx game was a little clunky and dull overall but in terms of on-the-field action it beat out EA's deep bomb passing model when they were going toe-to-toe. Even now, Madden really hasn't caught up completely as it's missing things like true gang tackling, which was featured in 2k5 a few years ago. Yes, I think EA produced a more rounded game in 2003 and 2005 but I can see why people would say 2k5 was better since its focus was actually the football itself.

Now I used to play a lot of EA games dating back to the Sega Genesis and while they used to crank out some solid titles there were also some stinkers that have been forgotten with time. Does anyone here remember how bad Triple Play baseball series was? It was terrible, but they trashed it and came back with a fantastic MVP Baseball series. The 2005 version now seems to have taken the title from High Heat as the most fondly remembered deceased baseball game. And even though they lost the MLB license they still cranked out NCAA Baseball this year which was equally solid. Just an example of EA actually producing a good video game which ignores the fact that many of their other series' are garbage at the moment.

NHL 2007 for the 360 is a great looking game with interesting new controls and absolutely no AI. As mentioned, it did come out on time for the start of the hockey season though. How does a company allow itself to churn out what is ultimately an unfinished game? Isn't its product a representation of itself? This year's NBA game is an abortion from everything I've heard. I do truly believe that EA's game-making decisions are often heavily influenced by marketing but that only makes it even odder that they would allow such a bad game to hit the market. Surely the name of that series has been brought down by this year's effort.

Last year's 360 version of Madden was another example of the same - it looked fairly good but anyone who played it realized that there was only half a game there. The current-gen version was just another regurgitation of the 2005 game with a poorly implemented vision cone feature. Full options to disable features please, not just on offense. Even this year's version wasn't quite right as it was missing any sort of in-game presentation and felt like it hadn't been play-tested. Yes, it produced a rather solid game of football on the field but the constant cut-scenes without a disabling option, the lack of presentation in the form of overlays or game information, the decision to go with a radio announcer (hi, I have surround sound, simulating the sound of a radio is not something I care to hear out of my speakers), curious errors such as random shots of a support beam during play selection, and lack of options such as a full player editor (meanwhile every 2k game allows editing of everything) really made the game feel shallow. Sure they sold tons of copies of the game for all the consoles and I can't say it was bad but it just doesn't seem as "magical" as it did a few years ago.

The game flat out doesn't feel finished or polished but that's the case with many of their games. Tiger this year on the 360 was good - too bad it was still missing a number of the current-gen features like a swing creator and now game-play sliders. Is it that hard to add a editable modifier for something like distance? Another "B" game, good but not great. Then there was that fiasco with privacy and Battlefield 2142 too which wasn't exactly good press. All in all, it seems like they're making too many safe or self-serving decisions and leaving the game player out in the wind, which would seem like a good business model if ultimately the consumer didn't have a heart and mind to win over.

 

...yards, 10 yards. Although I suppose you could be right if they always run and never get any decent distance.

 

EA = Eternally Average to me. I can't fault them from a business standpoint, but I don't buy their games unless my kids want one or ... Lord of the Rings ... weakness ... must ... resist.

I bought Madden 07 for my kids and couldn't believe the lack of control, the crappy commentary, and the hacked online play, compared to NFL2K series. I did enjoy Burnout for about 10 hours, but there's not much depth to that game really.

I don't avoid their games like the plague or anything, but they never seem to meet my 9/10 or forget it criterion. They always seem to put out 7.5-8/10 games. Not really worth my time IMO.

 

I know exactly how everyone feels in this thread. I can give the perspective from a Battlefield point of view. I purchased he latest in the BF franchise, BF2142. I was actually waiting till Quake Wars came out because I know the type of "quality" EA has. The only reason I bought BF2142 was to play with my friends. Believe it or not, since so many people buy the EA games, it is more than likely in order to play games with friends, you will most likely be purchasing an EA game. I had the same chance with BF2 to buy it and play with friends but I opted not to. It just wasn't my cup of tea and I hated how darn arcadey and egregious the guns and tactics were in that game. My idea of a good WW2 shooter is Red Orchestra and someone was trying to get me to play BF2.

Another issue you will see implemented in a lot of the EA games is the "fairness doctrine". In order to properly achieve game balance you must make everything fair. That means in BF2142 you can't cook grenades, instead you must have a 5 second timer so people have a chance to run away. All the weapon unlocks you get as upgrades can't be better. They have to be different with some very slight improvements, or be so terrible no one in their right mind would use it. Or, the unlock can only be good for very specific scenarios and in every other one it is terrible. Things like this are riddled throughout the whole game. Bases are built so the attackers and defenders have equal opportunity to capture or defend. Anytime anyone gets an upperhand or a certain kit isn't as good as the others, they release a patch to "fix" the problem. Balancing is completely subject to what others think is fair and not what is intellectually sound.

Then are the bugs. There are reports I hear from Beta testers of this game stating they reported exploits and bugs in the Public Beta test and Private Beta test that were never fixed in the final game copy. If you haven't played BF2142 it feels very much like a Beta test. The game concept is great, and it is a good preview of what is to come. It still needs considerable polish and working to be a final game. Even if the game was completely bugless and exploitless, it still isn't enough for this game. This game feels just like BF1942 that I played years ago.

The game has poor execution on the future setting. The game is more like modern combat misconstrued with a 2142 setting. It feels like BF:2 in so many ways and then here and there, almost as a whim, they decided to include futuristic gameplay. This feels more like a mod to BF:2 then its own game. Actually no I take that back, even a futuristic mod for BF:2 would, I don't know, be a bit more futuristic.

Things like this just show the poor execution of DICE in developing this game. So, lets take a look at what EA might have done to make this possible. Maybe, they twisted DICE's arm to release the game early and implement the "fairness doctrine".

Remember though, EA isn't the only one that doesn't things like this. Just look at ATARI and NWN2 that was just released. I attribute this games problems due in part to the development process. Obsidian switched their main lead in the middle of game development and had to scrap parts of the game they had been developing for months(horses in particular). This only makes me think there were a lot of hiccups during development that affected the overall quality of the game. So, it seems EA isn't the only one that can play this game. Though, I have a lot more confidence Obsidian will actually fix their problems. Their already released patches are going in a great directions.

 

I've been buying football games every year for about 15 years, the last 5-6 years, Madden on the PS2.

It's had gameplay, AI and realism problems for years and in the last couple of years, the trend has been going the wrong way. Plus they don't push the technology.

Why do I keep buying? Because it's NFL and it has a huge following. There have been years when people are lined up on release day. You see the mystique, with some kids picking up Madden because their older brothers, cousins, uncles, even fathers played the game.

I've bought NFL2K, GameDay and others. But if you want to play multiplayer online, nothing else has the same kind of following.

EA's sports games business model is more like an annuity for them. So they will hit those release dates and not make severe changes. Only chance we had of getting radical improvements was at the start of a new generation and looks like that chance came and left already.

They're not going to make big changes to the core now, just add back the features they have in the PS2/Xbox games into the next gen ones.

It's interesting that at E3 2005, they made some noise about the Criterion engine for next gen in the Fight Night demo. Also remember the concept video for Madden? Remember the promise to exceed that?

But they also licensed Unreal Engine relatively recently. Have they lost faith in Criterion Renderware already?

 

I noticed on the back of Madden 07 for PS3 (and presumably the other versions) it says "The #1 Pro-Football Game Franchise!" That was worth a chuckle...

 

They were getting beat by other titles in football as well until they signed exclusive deals with the NFL and NCAA which now bars anybody from making a competing game. There is little surprise since this happened the quality of the product has come way down.

I for one havent bought a new version of NCAA football in 2 years and wont for the near future.
Oh I also wont be purchasing anymore Battlefield expansions after that craptastic Battlefield 2. God that was one of the worst GUI implementations ever! I cant believe even after patching that POS when I go to change a key it wont tell me which one I am conflicting with, just the "key already in use".