I woke up yesterday $60 short. The money was promised long ago to a western sports game franchise called EA Sports. The money went to the Madden football game. I’ve been buying the game since the early 90’s, and year after year the game impresses. This year I failed to be impressed. What I wanted out of Madden 13 and what I received were so tragically far apart that I may be close to the point where I step away from the franchise forever.
Video Games and textbooks share a common financial strategy. They rely on the ability to release new versions of the product in order to maintain the profitability of the line. The difference is that Video Games need to offer something relevantly new–beyond the new players–in order to avoid players sticking with the old version. Madden impresses every other year. Apparently it takes that long to roll out a significant upgrade in complete form. I’ve accepted that, and as such muddled through Madden 12 with all the glee of a kid about to get a visit from Santa in a few months. Santa came yesterday and dropped off that coal.
Gameplay isn’t the problem. I can see improvements there in locomotion and play reading. No, the problem is the all inclusive franchise/coaching mode. To start, you cannot move players up from the NCAA game in career mode. I spent weeks prepping a kid from High School to Heisman only to realize belatedly that my career stopped there. Weak sauce.
This is the big problem I have so far. This game was always a continuation of the college game as it is in real life. Now there is no importing of draft classes nor career continuation. Madden effectively tore out the connectivity that really made the game fun in replay. Sure, we can pull in random drafts built from the floor up by madden folk, but that isn’t what I asked for. I wanted a chance to construct my own thing, to live out that dream i failed at in real life. This didn’t go down the way it had and or the way I wanted.