Moore talks casual, Wii focus for EA Sports

Most sports use pretty simple real-life gestures. I think that simple gesture-based controls would make me want to play more sports games, as long as the controls are done well. I know that some people are going to say,"If you want sports to be realistic then go play an actual sport." But it would be nice to play a game of baseball when I live in Utah and it just dumped 3 feet of snow in the last 2 days. I'm just saying.

As long as they bring NCAA Football, NASCAR, Arena Football and maybe an indoor lacrosse game to the wii in the near future, keep the family play coming. I just want those games with the option of regular controls

Ick, just what the hardcore community was afraid of. I just hope that this game ideology stays on the Wii.

"an quick"

Sports games can definitely use a dose of simplicity. Yes, sports games are more realistic than they were 20 years ago. But are they more fun? I don't think so. For example, Baseball Stars for the NES was completely unrealistic. But it's the best baseball game I've ever played.

This has epic flame war potential.

Let me see... 96 comments, I think. I haven't seen Fernando around today, though, so maybe not.

"But do these dumbed-down controls end up dumbing down the gameplay?"

Shit no. EA Sports games are so stale these days that at this point I'll welcome ANY change.

How about PES with RTS controls?

Im not a fan of sport videogames, but I want to try this soccer game.

http://www.ene3.com/archives/020574.html

Gimme a hollar when EA's exclusive NFL license has expired.

I'll be playing ESPN NFL 2K5.

if they want to put the cash in casual then they have to aim games at their instal base. i dont want to play football with a mii. its just a silly idea. NOW Wii shuffle board that's more like it. wii croque will deff do well. yea pretty much what everyone has been doing mini games. stick to that. their fun easy for gramps to master and safe for little jimmy to play.

dumbed down controls?
the only time i've ever had fun playing a sports game were with very simple controls
look back at the original NFL Blitz or NHL Hitz
I loved those games because they were silly fun and simple

To go with the cop out rout, I think there is room for both. It is analogous to arcade vs. simulation in the racing genre. Both have their place and cater to different targets of the gaming community with legitimacy.

The difference here I suppose is that both styles exist in a single game? If anyone can do it successfully it would be EA and I for one am rooting them on. Nothing wrong with making something that could get my father at least into playing the game.

i dont think it will "dumb down" games since this family play thing is actually just an option. you can play madden the old skool way or just click on the option to use the family controls if you want simplicity.

I don't consider myself a casual player, but when it comes to sports games, I prefer more over-the-top yet simplistic games.

Most of the reason is that when my friend and I play NFL Blitz 2001 or something, its a game that neither of us have really played much before. His cousin left it at his house so it kind of became his, but he never played it, excpet maybe once or twice to try it out. But I've never played it aside from the demo of a PS1 version in a store a looong time ago. But when we got bored of Melee one day, we decided to play Blitz, and even though neither of us had much experience with it, the game was neck and neck the entire time, and we both had a LOT of fun, from the one button tackling and passing mechanisms to the ability to run around and hit people after the whistle is blown. We kept playing it, usually we'd play it more than we'd play Melee when I was at his house.

But he has a couple of Madden and NCAA games, which he plays a lot on his own and online, so he knows how to do everything. But I've never played a Madden game seriously before, I tried once at a different friends house but didnt like it. So it ended up being him slaughtering me, and me having no idea what to do. And he'd tell me "You gotta hold the analog stick left and hit this to do that when he does that but only if he isn't doing this" (not in those exact words). But there was just way too much complicated stuff for me to have fun with it without having played the game extensively in the past.

I know about football, I'm not a noob or anything, its just the Madden games in particular, you have to do everything so specifically. It makes it more realistic, which is great for the hardcore audience, but for people like me that only want a football game for multiplayer fun, as well as casual gamers all around, it hurts a lot.


It's probably different for casual gamers, but for me, it's not the simple motion controls that win me over. They do help to make it more fun, but the main thing they have to do is make it easy to pick up and play. You can do that on any console, with or without motion controls. Blitz is probably my second favorite multiplayer game for Gamecube. Even.... g-g-girls (yes, that's right, we had girls over there) who didn't know anything about football or video games could learn how to play Blitz within about 10 minutes, you just have to hit a button to pass, a button to tackle, and use the analog stick to run.

Some people might say games like that with no depth to the gameplay mechanics suck, but for a quick-paced multiplayer game that anybody can play and have fun with, its perfect. Me and my friend and once in a while some other people would have hours of fun, playing game after game of Blitz, and the games would go either way, neither of us had a clear advantage. But once we played Madden or NCAA, I would really have no idea what to do, and we wouldn't even make it through one game without getting bored.

If they could bring the simplicity of Blitz into a Madden game, and manage to implement fluid motion controls, they could do really well with it on the Wii. but if they want to take a Madden game, give motion controls to functions instead of buttons, its not going to appeal to the casual, and most core players would probably rather play with the buttons, as they're more precise.

I have'nt played Madden since it beacame so complex back in the PS1 days. Too many buttons not only on offense but playing defense was mad complicated by making each of the twelve buttons have a different function. Simplify the game EA, I just want to tackle,and hit on defense;pass, and run on offense... With a spin move here and there.

I'd say EA Sport's dev teams are already casual enough with their lazy ports/updates.

Casual games FTWII!!!

The wii-mote would make a perfect hockey stick, and the nunchuk used to control the player. Heres hoping for NHL 09 on the Wii

It just struck me. How unthinkable would it have been 1 year ago to suggest "One day Peter Moore will talk about developing broad-focus titles for Wii."

The times, they are a changin'

"We need to do better on the Nintendo platforms, and we intend to do that."

I find that interesting. EA have just recently announced a new football (note: 'soccer') game to coincide with the European Championships this year. It is not being released on either of the Nintendo formats.

Family Play was great in NBA Live, fantastic I'd say. It made the game playable by my family, a first! Plus the free throw shooting with the Wiimote felt good.

Family Play was horrible in Madden. I was disappointed as I figured Madden = better than NBA Live. In single player that's true. However, the Family Play leaves most of the players in Madden doing NOTHING most of the time. Only the QB gets to play every down. Everyone else has to hope the ball gets thrown to them, and then all they can do is straight arm opponents...which = no fun.

In NBA Live players can decide to shoot, or pass or drive. It's just enough to keep you always involved and let me teach my kids about 'team play' after they had decided that whoever had the most points at the end of the game was the winner b/c that is the MVP of the game (even though we lost horribly b/c they shot every time they touched the ball). NBA Live = horrible single player, great family game.

Haven't played FIFA yet, but I think Family Play is a step in the right direction :). It just needs more thought to make it a consistently good step.

The issue of depth is silly. It's opinion and nothing more. Mine is that I like my family games shallow, my single-players deep and my co-op both deep and shallow.

EAsy to play. Hard to master.

I don't want too simple, but don't have a need for all the features and options in a Madden game. I don't use half the moves or plays etc.

Really they have to take the game and reduce the controls and plays to those that are actually different from one another. You don't need jump, spin, juke, stiff-arm, etc when they all basically do the same thing. You don't need 10 running plays that are nearly identical.

I don't like the Family play stuff on their existing franchises. It's a band-aid type approach. They really need to rethink sports games for the more casual/arcadey market. Rewind the clock 10 years or more back to the early days of Madden to see what I'm talking about.

I tried the Family Play controls in Fifa 08, and they were much too simplified. However, the normal controls are too complicated, and rely too much on button pressing instead of gestures. Some middle ground would be nice.

I'm sorry, but I'm totally in favor of this. The Madden series, for instance, has so turned me off lately its beyond funny. Here I am, by all definitions a hardcore gamer, and I can't figure out the controls on a mainstream sports title. There are only 5,000 plays in your playbook, 8 different receivers in each play (which you select by pressing a different button), there's a button to jump, to juke, to dive, to jostle . . .

A simplified set of sports titles with more intuitive controls (like tiger woods '08, which feels just like swinging a golf club if you ask me) is just what we need.

Someone needs to supply me with a large-resolution version of that picture. It absolutely requires photoshopping.