Chris' Blog: Are Madden Sales Slipping?

[RaychelSnr]

You may recall the news story last week from CNBC which declaratively stated that Madden sales were weak this year. The evidence used was early price drops from retailers and weak pre-orders for the title. Not the most concrete evidence for sure, but far from the worst you could use.

But with that in mind, we can start to frame some real non-biased ideas on where Madden and NCAA's sales really are right now. So with that said, let's take a look at the best evidence we have and figure out where both Madden and NCAA are when it comes to sales.

Read More - Are Madden Sales Slipping?

[Vanman2425]

Re: Chris' Blog: Are Madden Sales Slipping?

Great news! I hope they do slip. I'm holding out for the first time since 92. Taking a hit on the bottom line is the way EA Tiburon is going to up its game (pun intended).

[Senator Palmer]

Re: Chris' Blog: Are Madden Sales Slipping?

It's something of a double-edged sword, though. I think the disconnect is that many around here feel that the game as it is now is aimed at the casual crowd wheras Ian and Crew will swear on a stack of bibles that sim is and has been the aim of the past few development cycles. If the sales do dip then obviously changes are going to be made. The rub is how are the decision-makers going to read the situation? Are they going to see this as a sign that the game needs to cater to the hardcore gamers and move toward more realism, or are they going to scrap the current approach and make the game more arcade-like to appeal to the casual gamer?

Just my guess, but with a cash cow like this, catering to the masses is always going to win out... i.e. just look at the sacrifices that where made this go-round with franchise mode and such.

[StormJH1]

Re: Chris' Blog: Are Madden Sales Slipping?

Something is wrong with those stories. I went to GameStop and WalMart expecting to see Madden at $50, and it wasn't marked down either place. Walmart is like $48 online, but still $60 in the store. GameStop has it at full price both in the store and online, and their manager I talked to had no idea what I was talking about.

As much criticism as Madden deserves (for the exclusive deal, annual releases with little change, etc.), I think some reviewers have been a little bit unfair/inaccurate in the reporting of the changes in the new game. Yes, a lot of the changes are the type of thing that will make it more accessible for a casual player, but that doesn't mean a veteran Madden player isn't also interested in playing games in less than an hour! Also, while franchise and some of the "hardcore" game modes were untouched (bummer), the move to a dual analog control scheme (if done well) benefits everyone, not just casual gamers who don't want to press 13 different buttons.

I feel a little bad for the Madden team that their sales figures are hurting at the same time that they're finally making an effort to improve the quality of the game. One thing does not necessarily lead to the other. There are all kinds of economic factors at play, not to mention the fact that once you get 4 or 5 iterations of the same title into a generation, the "wow" factor slowly fades away.

[Gotmadskillzson]

Re: Chris' Blog: Are Madden Sales Slipping?

Madden sales will never slip far enough to make EA change how they do things. Main reason being is that they are the only licensed football game. They have no competition. With that said, people will ALWAYS buy Madden.

Sure some diehards will not buy it, but majority of the people will always do it. Same reason why people still buy Jordans and Dell. When you the only game in town, you can do what you want to do.

Best believe EA already made a profit off of Madden 11 already in the 1st week of release. Why ? Because it is Madden, a household name, the only game in town.

[Vanman2425]

Re: Chris' Blog: Are Madden Sales Slipping?

It's something of a double-edged sword, though. I think the disconnect is that many around here feel that the game as it is now is aimed at the casual crowd wheras Ian and Crew will swear on a stack of bibles that sim is and has been the aim of the past few development cycles. If the sales do dip then obviously changes are going to be made. The rub is how are the decision-makers going to read the situation? Are they going to see this as a sign that the game needs to cater to the hardcore gamers and move toward more realism, or are they going to scrap the current approach and make the game more arcade-like to appeal to the casual gamer?

Just my guess, but with a cash cow like this, catering to the masses is always going to win out... i.e. just look at the sacrifices that where made this go-round with franchise mode and such.

I think they tried to get the casual gamers this year with "simpler, quicker" BS. It apparently is not working, and hopefully, take that as evidence as
A.) They didn't get the casual gamers to buy in and
B.) They turned off some loyal fans by trying to make the game "simpler."

[Vanman2425]

Re: Chris' Blog: Are Madden Sales Slipping?

Madden sales will never slip far enough to make EA change how they do things. Main reason being is that they are the only licensed football game. They have no competition. With that said, people will ALWAYS buy Madden.

Sure some diehards will not buy it, but majority of the people will always do it. Same reason why people still buy Jordans and Dell. When you the only game in town, you can do what you want to do.

Best believe EA already made a profit off of Madden 11 already in the 1st week of release. Why ? Because it is Madden, a household name, the only game in town.

Be that as it may, if they're not making as much money as they hoped, changes will be made, hopefully for the better.

[Tyrant8RDFL]

Re: Chris' Blog: Are Madden Sales Slipping?

I think there are other factors in declining Madden sales and other gamers overall, but I think this one in particular is the main killer.

Pre owned games. Many are willing to wait to buy a pre owned copy of any title, and this right here is killing the gaming company. Now for stores that sell pre won games. There are making a killing. The profit margin is huge. Much larger than selling the title new.

They have to find a way to slow this down. I dont think they can, but at this point you can get games used from stores like gamestop, and through sites like amazon, ebay, and craig's list.

I believe if the sale of pre own games did not exist in major retailers. Then sales would be very high.

Now there is only one franchise that does not get affected by this , and its Activision with the COD series. I guess your product has to be so insane that gamers can not wait for a pre owned copy.

[RaychelSnr]

I think there are other factors in declining Madden sales and other gamers overall, but I think this one in particular is the main killer.

Pre owned games. Many are willing to wait to buy a pre owned copy of any title, and this right here is killing the gaming company. Now for stores that sell pre won games. There are making a killing. The profit margin is huge. Much larger than selling the title new.

They have to find a way to slow this down. I dont think they can, but at this point you can get games used from stores like gamestop, and through sites like amazon, ebay, and craig's list.

I believe if the sale of pre own games did not exist in major retailers. Then sales would be very high.

Now there is only one franchise that does not get affected by this , and its Activision with the COD series. I guess your product has to be so insane that gamers can not wait for a pre owned copy.

I'm pretty sure that's the intent of making people pay to play online if you didn't own the original game. But you are right that used games are selling like hotcakes right now, but they don't exactly lead to monster profits. Ask Gamestop how record used game sales helped them miss earnings forecasts....they aren't as profitable as you'd believe

[wheelman990]

Re: Chris' Blog: Are Madden Sales Slipping?

Madden wont change. They build one engine, and swap things in and out for the next 6 years until the next gen consoles come. That wont change regardless of sales. They make a killing spending nothing on developing the game per year...its ALL MARKETING

Honestly, I know what they do. They spend money for developers to come in the first year, build a engine, and then build mini programs to tweak, and change things in the future...like a template...

Then they just hire kid developers the following years to tweak and change things with the templates in place.

Thats my belief, and thats what I have personally saw. there really hasnt been any huge changes. Player models, shinny helmets, different camera angles throughtout the releases, and a few others have been it.

To me locomotion is just tweaking the cut and start speeds....not really anything huge, but EA makes it sound like a state of the art breakthrough technology feature...

[Dewie12]

The only hope I have for Madden is if EA either

1) makes the game for the PC

2) realizes it can appease sim gamers by giving us more options to customize the experience for ourselves.

The first option may be effected by sales but the second is simply EA making a decision to open up its game for the USER's to dictate their experience. EA is not very good at that.

[rooney8]

Re: Chris' Blog: Are Madden Sales Slipping?

Madden11 sales are up 5%??????

___________Madden 11 ________ Madden10
360 _______ 554,617 __________ 584,845
PS3 _______ 459,688 __________ 374,429
Wii ________ 92,313 ___________ 99,094
Ps2 ________ 62,011 __________ 139,100
PSP ________ 42,212 ___________ 58,214
Total _____ 1,210,841 ________ 1,255,682

So I guess you just took the 360 and Ps3 numbers. The Ps3 numbers went up nearly the same as the Ps2 went down and every other platform dropped. Now those figures for M10 are two days of sales where as M11 is five so lets try and adjust them. M09 sold roughly 16% in days 3,4 and 5. So I have Madden 11 two days sales at 1,017,106 and Madden 10 1,210,841 and Madden09 1,406,364. So I have M11 sales are down 16%. The game industry is down 8% this year so Madden is doing worse then it should especially considering how hard retailers have been working to sell it.
These are my take on Maddens sales and I could well be wrong. However they have not gone up 5% unless you only count two paltforms which is silly since the Ps2 death will always boost sales of the PS3. My predication for Madden sales this year on all five platforms. 6.2m down from 6.8m last year and would be worse except for early price drops.

[maddenps2]

Re: Chris' Blog: Are Madden Sales Slipping?

Madden wont change. They build one engine, and swap things in and out for the next 6 years until the next gen consoles come. That wont change regardless of sales. They make a killing spending nothing on developing the game per year...its ALL MARKETING

Honestly, I know what they do. They spend money for developers to come in the first year, build a engine, and then build mini programs to tweak, and change things in the future...like a template...

Then they just hire kid developers the following years to tweak and change things with the templates in place.

Thats my belief, and thats what I have personally saw. there really hasnt been any huge changes. Player models, shinny helmets, different camera angles throughtout the releases, and a few others have been it.

To me locomotion is just tweaking the cut and start speeds....not really anything huge, but EA makes it sound like a state of the art breakthrough technology feature...

Agree with you for the most part.

[RaychelSnr]

Re: Chris' Blog: Are Madden Sales Slipping?

Madden11 sales are up 5%??????

___________Madden 11 ________ Madden10
360 _______ 554,617 __________ 584,845
PS3 _______ 459,688 __________ 374,429
Wii ________ 92,313 ___________ 99,094
Ps2 ________ 62,011 __________ 139,100
PSP ________ 42,212 ___________ 58,214
Total _____ 1,210,841 ________ 1,255,682

So I guess you just took the 360 and Ps3 numbers. The Ps3 numbers went up nearly the same as the Ps2 went down and every other platform dropped. Now those figures for M10 are two days of sales where as M11 is five so lets try and adjust them. M09 sold roughly 16% in days 3,4 and 5. So I have Madden 11 two days sales at 1,017,106 and Madden 10 1,210,841 and Madden09 1,406,364. So I have M11 sales are down 16%. The game industry is down 8% this year so Madden is doing worse then it should especially considering how hard retailers have been working to sell it.
These are my take on Maddens sales and I could well be wrong. However they have not gone up 5% unless you only count two paltforms which is silly since the Ps2 death will always boost sales of the PS3. My predication for Madden sales this year on all five platforms. 6.2m down from 6.8m last year and would be worse except for early price drops.

For all intents and purposes, the only sales that matter for the game people at OS care about is the PS3/360 version. Wii sales do not effect development direction on those platforms, ditto with PSP, PS2, iPad, etc.

But yes, according to VGChartz sales are down overall on every platform, which will hurt EA's bottom line, but it won't effect the development on the larger consoles.

Also, some good points on the release time and whatnot. I'd say you'd need to weight your numbers to be more front heavy, because sales aren't proportional and evenly spaced for each day -- if anything they'll drop by a few percentage points over time. But even still, it's likely if you compare launch days and whatnot, Madden probably is down a bit. We'll know more when the new numbers come in. Good post though!

[RumbleCard]

Re: Chris' Blog: Are Madden Sales Slipping?

The idea that casual gamers make up the large majority of Madden purchasers is a huge misconception. A casual gamer would be someone who say buys NHL11 because they heard it was good but had never really purchased a hockey game before.

Most Madden buyers have previously owned installments of the game. Hence the huge numbers and larger than life following. If it didn't have such a massive following it would produce goddy numbers year in and year out. Buyers want the experience...they want "sim"ulated football. It really comes down to execution. And that's really where Madden has fallen short.