I mean, after Madden 30 billion, when do people get tired of advanced roster updates?
I could say the same thing about highly derivative cRPGs and MMORPGs.
Well we did see the crash of MMORGs so in this context it would be “soonish”.
Or FIFA? That genre will be around for a long time, and will make a lot of cash for a long time. Some people buy consoles merely to play sports games.
All of those franchises enjoy ever-expanding global sales numbers. Madden continues to grow sales in non-US countries where football was (previously) less popular. FIFA continues to grow sales in the US where international soccer was (previously) less popular.
And in expanding tech markets in Asia, Africa and even South America, the audiences for games related to these three incredibly popular sports is readymade.
It’s a great formula, mechanics you know with an ever updating roster. People get very attached to certain players, so that constant influx of new blood has a built in and ongoing audience.
When I was at EA, Madden & the NBA game were in pretty sharp decline. Offset by FIFA’s incredible growth. So this already happened, at least once anyway. How those games are doing these days I cant say.
But as @Navaronegun mentioned there was a lower limit. For some core sports fans the Playstation or Xbox is “The FIFA machine” or “The Madden machine”. While the audience for consoles is aging, there are probably more than enough core sports only players to sustain the business for some time.
I’m only dimly aware of these games, but hasn’t there been some mild controversy in the recent past with FIFA and some kind of DLC/in-app-purchase/loot box thing? I think I remember some Eurogamer headlines touching on that.
I don’t know the state of things now, but I could imagine a big enough misstep in design in that area could always hurt the franchise and reduce sales.
Sales of Madden diminished by one about a decade ago when they stopped making it for the PC.
I had a thousand-post franchise story on the old Madden Mania site for Madden 2006 about a custom-created Canadian team who joined the NFL when an asteroid hit Cleveland. The following season EA took away the ability to have a custom team in franchise mode, (because of some spurious salary cap reason).
Then PC users finally cracked EA’s file structure and we could take control over things like in-season skill progression, new player draft pool generation, injuries, CPU coaching ability and so on to make the game really great. So EA then stopped making it altogether.
I try not to mention anything I like about FIFA, so that EA doesn’t know what to break next.
Hallelujah, it’s back on PC for the first time in 10 years! About time.
WAIT WHAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!
Is this a late April Fools joke? Will this be “Madden Madden 12” so it’s 7 generations behind the console version?
How do the newer Maddens play? I haven’t played in ages and found the last ones I did try (early 360/PS3 era) to be too slow-paced for my liking. During the PS2 era, I was able to play 5/6 minute quarters and have roughly the same number of possessions and stats as a real NFL game (could get 300 yards passing and/or 100 yards rushing, realistic scores, etc.). Seemed like I would have to play 10 or maybe 15-minute quarters for that to be true in the 360/PS3 era, and I don’t have the time or patience for that. Beyond stat-nerdery, the slower gameplay wasn’t nearly as fun for me.
Yeah I just heard this is coming back to PC! I’ll grab it on sale for sure, just to enjoy a few superbowl match up games.
I wonder if it will play better/look better on a high end PC vs. console?
PC Gamer didn’t really talk about that aspect much. They gave it a 75.
Yes sir! You didn’t read the article. ;)
Yes, I said 4K resolution and 90 frames per second. Madden 18 suffered from some frame rate issues on the consoles, but Madden 19 on modern PC hardware doesn’t whatsoever.
I got Madden on the PC. My first Madden game for more than a decade.
The Dolphins are the 31st and second-worst ranked team in the game. I’m offended.
The worst ranked team in the game is the Jets. I’m delighted.
It looks nice.
I also bought it on the PC. But it doesn’t unlock until 11pm tonight. So tomorrow I’ll try it.
I hear it looks nice.
Edit: The last iteration of this I picked up was 5 years ago, so no, I’m not a yearly sports game type. I’m sure it’ll all be new to me.
I mean…I have no idea how they’ll be able to keep Pochettino past this year, if this is how things are.