GM Connected's Failure Wasn't NHL Fans' Fault

[RaychelSnr]

Reading into producers Sean Ramjagsingh's and Andy Agostini's statements on why GM Connected wasn't included in the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of NHL 15 or NHL 16, the underlying message coming out of EA Canada seems to be, You (the fans) asked for it. We (the developers) built it. But you didn't play it. So we axed it.

Read More - GM Connected's Failure Wasn't NHL Fan's Fault

[shogunofharlem3]

Great article!!!!

2k also offered Flex Scheduling so you could play any games in any order. I know that sort of defeats the purpose of playing a season but at least games got played. Have 4 games vs. one guy? We used to bang them out in one night. less scheduling and more results.

The speed of the mode is what killed me. I will say though, playing coop with my buddies was great but now looks like that option to coop with my buddies in a season online is gone.

Not sure sure about this opening thought. Could have done without that analogy I think.


"EA saw their child emerge from the womb with multiple birth defects, brought her back home from the hospital, locked her in their basement for a few years, and then tried explaining with a straight face that she died of natural causes, when a neighbor asked them "How's little Connie doing these days?" at a town meeting."

[Broke Box]

GM Connected was a victim of HUT's financial success.

Great article. I hope they give it another shot. They could learn a lot from their friends on the Madden team.

[speedtrucker]

you are dead on. I hate this excuse that EA and other put out that it is our fault that we don't play broken modes more. I guarantee you that EA will not offer the metrics for the womens team usage in FIFA 16 because it will spike and then fade away but EA will continue to push the rosters and teams out especially if they can spin it into the FUT model.

with connected careers almost all of my buddies and I play our sports games this way. there are 2 or 3 of us that do not play online at all, even FUT/MUT is against the CPU. there are 3 or 4 of us that spend 50% of their sports gaming online, H2H and FUT/MUT and then there are 1 or 2 that play every mode of their game.

we've had NCAA ODs that went 15+ seasons with the max 12 users, Madden CCMs that have been 10+ strong for 3 to 4 seasons, older 2k online associations that went 3+ sesaons with 4 users. yet in NHL13 it was so painful that we made it to the halfway mark with 5 users and by the playoffs we were down to 2 users. not because of lack of want but lack of patience, everything was painfully slow to work through and infact our season still sits with my buddy and I at game 7 of the Western Conference Finals when we both faded and gave up.

even now our Madden 15 CCM is 4 users in season 4 but it is because we have enough control of the CCM that we can effectively move forward when we want to. not because the game is punishing us for trying to invest time in it. heck 1 of the other users and I have a separate online CCM for just us 2 that we burn through for fun when our other CCM bogs down due to work or travel.

it would be one thing if EA were listening to the masses about broken features and there were changes made and the mode still was being used very little... but that is absolutely not the case.

[Wolverines05]

I dont play EA's hockey games, but this articles is amazing!!!

[jpollack34]

Great article. And nice to see someone stand up for gamers. EA sound like Sepp Blatter, deflecting responsibility when it's ultimately their own incompetence that's to blame.

And even if it isn't incompetence (which I believe it is), all it shows is that they still rely on pie charts and graphs to make decisions... in other words the completely wrong way to go about making a game.

Either way EA look very bad in all this. A PR disaster.

[TDKing]

Re: GM Connected's Failure Wasn't NHL Fans' Fault

Good write up ! Lack of custom season length and custom sliders hurt the mode for me.

[jpollack34]

Enough of the Corporate Speak. It doesn't work anymore and we are all tired of it. You know why modes are lacking; We know modes are lacking; so just be open and honest about it. You want to drive people towards Ultimate Team because that ensures more profits, thus ensuring you can be around for future versions.

Just be open and honest. Corporate speak doesn't work anymore.

[garyjr33]

All of this is very true. There were so many things missing from this mode and the menus were so laggy. It was ridiculous. I love playing an online season with my buddies but we never did it b/c the mode was unplayable.

[actionhank]

Re: GM Connected's Failure Wasn't NHL Fans' Fault

This line of thought drives me insane. All i heard about GM Connected was that it was slow, and didn't work well. I never tried it, and wasn't really into online play at the time.

But, if I could get a community of guys like the people here at OS, i feel like a really fun sim-type league could be thrown together.

EA just seems to look at only the numbers, and not the reasons behind them. Sure not a lot of people will play a game mode that is poorly executed. But if you don't even try to improve it, then why bother in the first place? GM Connected could be huge. I would love to take control of the Blues (or whoever else) and have an actual live community to play in.

[blueandwhite]

Really great article that touches on lots of key points.

I was in a very active league that made it through three 82-game seasons in NHL 13 and two seasons in NHL 14. Had an absolute blast playing games, but the real fun was building a roster, making trades, doing all the things that GMs do. We had lots of GM turnover, but had a core group of about 20 guys that were committed. The other teams filled in easily enough. Very rarely did we have more than 4-5 CPU controlled teams. Obviously we were the exception rather than the rule.

The mode had obvious limitations (the no game-to-game fatigue particularly egregious) but that didn't stop me from enjoying it. Negotiating trades with other league members via Twitter direct messages was just too much fun.

The lack of GM Connected in the PS4 version is a huge, huge sore subject for me. I acquired my PS4 (and traded in my PS3) for the expressed purpose of moving our league to next-gen. Then it didn't happen.

I was angry when the mode didn't make it into NHL 15. Now just disappointed to see that it won't be in 16. There's already a GM mode in the game. And there's already an ability to play online games. Is it really that difficult to combine the two? It's not as if it hasn't been done before.

[zoom zoom]

Dead on. It was, by far, the worst designed franchise mode in any game I've ever played. It was terrible from top to bottom. Yes, I played in a league that didn't make it to 20 games in NHL 13. It was too painful.

I wish, wish, wish, wish that developers for sports games would include simple online league modes. Lets draft or sue real teams and play in leagues of 6-12 teams if we want. We can have 10-20 game seasons.

Seriously, I played with a group of guys in APFB 2K8 in which we finished 5 seasons. Sure, each season was a complete restart, but it was 10 games and championship. Rinse repeat. We loved it. We even help offline drafts for the bronze, solver, and gold players we used so that no one used the same players.

We don't need a bunch of AI teams. Hell, we don't really have to have a ton of free agency and stuff. I mean, options to have those are great. But we definitely do not need full season lengths. I have a group of friends that would like the crap out of NHL if we could run a 6-12 team league of 20 games.

[Cletus]

Re: GM Connected's Failure Wasn't NHL Fans' Fault

The funny thing is that EA didn't need to really add a lot. If you allow people to play with custom rosters in an online season, the people that want to play will find a way. The NHL series shows how much fans of a series can do with so little. There are online seasons of Tecmo Super Bowl but yet the guys that want to play a season of NHL with custom rosters can't.

[canucksss]

Re: GM Connected's Failure Wasn't NHL Fans' Fault

Corporate BS, IMO. If they REALLY LISTEN to their fans, how come no player/team differentiation (i know it sounds like broken record or cd); group "hugs" when a teammate score; NZ pressure, and now player edit?

Yea you dont want your team spread thin, and you just decided to concentrate with HUT so you could squeeze more money.

[Hongkongphooie]

We are going on to our 5th season in GM connected mode on NHL 14. Hopefully they will not disconnect their servers anytime soon. It is the only mode we play. May consider moving on to NHL 15 on last gen console. No GM connected on next gen then no hockey for us. GM connected mode or bust.