EA needs to hire a "ghost team" for Madden development

[Zombiecakes]

I don't think EA-Tiburon has a good long-term strategy when it comes to console development on a yearly release cycle.

In fact, their track record of moving Madden from older consoles to new consoles is almost hideous considering they currently approach it by stripping down the game to bare-bones basics and shipping it so that it merely "functions". It happened with the shift from Last-Gen to Next Gen (Madden 06) and even more recently with the new Madden 3DS launch.

I think what EA needs is to put together a "ghost team" to work beside the current Tiburon team. What I mean is a group of developers that works behind the scenes on new stuff that takes several years to develop while the current team just tweaks the current stuff.

Right now, they have 1 team (I assume - just Tiburon?) and all they do is tweak the previous years' game engine with minor adjustments year-to-year. We only get incremental updates for Madden and it's obvious that the yearly release cycle is simply not enough time for Tiburon to give us sustained, high-quality improvements for the game.

What they need to do is the get a group of people to build a new engine, from scratch, while regular team just keeps tweaking whatever is already out there. This way they can meet their NFL license contractual agreement AND have stuff in the pipeline being worked on in the dark that can be added once it's finished.

That's the only way you'll see Madden progress on a quality level. Over the past 3 or 4 years, EA should have had a ghost team working along side EA-Tiburon working on stuff like a true physics gameplay engine and a true broadcast presentation for the Madden series. A better audio broadcasting engine. Things like that. Also, at the first HINT of a new console from Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo/whoever, they should have the ghost team working on building Madden for those specs and getting all the current features prepared for those platforms. That would give them a couple YEARS to work on it, rather than just several months to throw something watered down together. And in the meantime, Tiburon can focus on just keeping the current engine updated and adding minor features on their own. Let the ghost team develop the core engine and then let Tiburon tweak it year to year.

Unfortunately, this will not happen until EA feels the NEED to. I mean, why should they alter their current system? That would cost extra money - lots of new salaries to pay to start a ghost team... but Madden sells like hotcakes every year without that level of development. So why should they change anything? As long as people keep buying Madden every single year, EA has absolutely no reason to change their incremental formula.

I really think a ghost team is needed based on the current setup.

Just my 2 cents. Maybe they already have a ghost team? And maybe that team just isn't that good? Who knows. Just speculating.

[Exonerated]

In terms of a simple cost benefit analysis. It simply wouldn't be viable.

This isn't like COD where differences in games in ok.

The risk of creating a completely new game whilst also making the same game, to sell at the same price is not worth it.

And then it might not even be better.

It is what it is.

[Zombiecakes]

Quote: Originally Posted by Exonerated

In terms of a simple cost benefit analysis. It simply wouldn't be viable. This isn't like COD where differences in games in ok. The risk of creating a completely new game whilst also making the same game, to sell at the same price is not worth it. And then it might not even be better. It is what it is.

I think they could juggle it though.

Like, have the ghost team that spends 2 or 3 years on projects for the game - new engines and new features. Then they toss it to Tiburon, who fleshes it out and prepares it for shipping every year.

It's basically a pipeline issue, from how I look at it. They have nothing in the pipeline - they simple work on Madden as if it was a MMORPG - every year, they add a new update to it and ship it out. It's the same game, same engine, same gameplay - they just make some minor adjustments here and there. But at the end of the day, it's just the same game.

They don't seem to have time or enough staff to run a "research and development" team that works on protoype code for Madden. Forgive me if I'm taking it for granted or trivializing this, but it seems like the "pipeline" stuff right now is just little side projects that guys like Ian and Phil work on during their lunch breaks. (Sounds harsh, but that's how it looks)

When Backbreaker was first demo'd back in...2007?... the Madden ghost team should have immediately went into physics mode and started fiddling around with and building their own engine. Even if Backbreaker was no real threat, EA had an opportunity to watch, learn and adapt their game to make it more interesting. And from a SALES point of view, they could grab back the people who left Madden for Backbreaker, however relatively few it may have been - money is money afterall. If you can pull back in a hundred thousand former, disgruntled Madden customers looking for something new, why not?

If anything, a new physics engine would have been something new to sell to Madden fans. Think how crazy and excited this place would have been if EA announced they were working on something that huge for Madden?

But it doesn't seem like they ever had any intention of putting that in their pipeline. They kinda just blocked it out and pointed to their sales history to justify NOT doing anything that drastic.

As if they were afraid of scaring people off by tuning up the game to that level.

I mean they gotta take a chance at SOME point, right?

[silence1206]

Quote: Originally Posted by Exonerated

In terms of a simple cost benefit analysis. It simply wouldn't be viable. This isn't like COD where differences in games in ok. The risk of creating a completely new game whilst also making the same game, to sell at the same price is not worth it. And then it might not even be better. It is what it is.

Not sure what your point is. AFAIK, all COD games have used a highly modified Quake 3 engine. So they essentially just keep heaping new features on top of an engine that's over 10 years old.

Anyways, I like the OP's idea. There's a real life example from the PC hardware world, when Intel released the "Netburst" (P4) CPU's. They though it was going to be the bees knees until AMD came out with the Athlon 64 CPU and mopped the floor with Intel. But, Intel didn't just say "well, we're dropping AMD's x86 license so that they can't compete with us anymore". Essentially, they already had, to use the OP's term, a "ghost team" that was working on the "Core" architecture CPU's. And it was the innovation brought through the development of the "Core" architecture, which was a complete departure from anything involved in "Netburst" that helped Intel reestablish complete dominance in the consumer CPU market.

I'm a fan of anything that signals the return of real innovation in football gaming.

[J-SKI]

madden sells because its NFL, not because its a good game.

[Zombiecakes]

Quote: Originally Posted by J-SKI

madden sells because its NFL, not because its a good game.

I could argue it would sell MORE if it was a better NFL game!

[roadman]

I like the idea too, but it would be a tough sell for the suits who laid off a ton of people a year ago.

As far as the RTP, Ian mentioned in a podcast that is something they are looking into the future.

[Hooe]

Quote: Originally Posted by J-SKI

madden sells because its a good NFL game.

Fixed. Bad NFL games such as PS2 NFL Gameday didn't sell in the past and there's no reason to believe they'd sell well now. Granted a bad Madden wouldn't completely tank like Gameday did since now Madden is the only thing on the market NFL-wise, but Madden doesn't get a free pass.

Further, to say that Madden isn't "a good game" is being wholly unfair. It doesn't match the greatness of some of its peers in the sports genre, but it's functional, has a fairly robust feature set (predominantly in the online area), and by virtue of being a sports game has great replay value.

Comparing it in relative quality to other games on the market, I don't think anyone here would argue that Madden NFL 11 is worse than recognized "bad games" from 2010 such as Naughty Bear, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2, Prison Break, Power Gig: Rise of the Six String, or Tony Hawk: Shred. Those are "bad games". If you'd rather play any of those aforementioned, more power to you, but the vast majority preferred Madden 11 over them.