Last month I started a survey for the community on which were the most important features that they wanted to see added to Madden's franchise mode (CFM). My goal was to get as many votes as I could from the widest audience base possible. I posted the survey on Twitter, various Facebook Madden groups, Operation Sports and the EA Sports and PX1 forums. The results from that survey are below along with my takeaway from what the community said during the process.
Community Engagement
The feedback that I received on my posts the most was not about what features people wanted to see in CFM. A significant amount of the feedback was "what's the point of a survey? They don't listen anyway." and "There's been dozens of surveys over the years. They should know what we want." Right or wrong, this is the perception a significant portion of the CFM community has towards Madden. This attitude is indicative in the response numbers to the survey.
From the links I posted on Twitter and Facebook, I received 393 responses. From Twitter alone, the impressions of my three tweets were 4,862 (Facebook does not keep non-paid post impressions). That's less than a 10% response rate not including Facebook. On Operation Sports, my post received 2,233 views yet received exactly 100 votes (including from the EA forums). The community as a whole seems largely disengaged with the product (although they may still be buying and playing it) and they do not seem to trust the company to listen to and deliver on their wants and needs. Hopefully this is an area that EA can improve on going forward.The community may not always get the things that they want (for various reasons), but hopefully they can at least feel heard and that their patronage as a community is important.
Community Requests
The top two most requested features across all platforms used in this survey were Improved free agency (65% of responses) and a coaching carousel including offensive and defensive coordinators (63%). The next five most popular features varied by platform by which was most important but all five consistently stayed in that second tier group with right around 50% of responses. Those features or improvements were the ability to import a draft class (52%), improved CPU play calling (51%), improved CPU draft logic (51%), improved game planning (49%) and improved commissioner tools (47%). Of note, improved commissioner controls received 47% of the vote yet only applies to the online part of the CFM community (whereas all of the other options apply to both the online and offline communities). When the poll was mostly focused on online leagues (Twitter and CFM based Facebook groups) the responses were typically over 60% in favor of improved commissioner tools.
What was also interesting about this survey is that the community as whole does not seem to value the depth in CFM that a lot of users might have expected (myself included). The survey allowed users to vote on as many options as they wanted. However, the average user voted on only six items with only two (improved free agency and a coaching carousel) being significantly popular with the vast majority of respondents. This kind of plays into EA's pre-Madden 18 strategy of adding about three major new additions to CFM each year. The community as a whole largely does not seem to need more than that to keep their interest.
Community Satisfaction
While the community does not seem to need a significant upgrade to CFM every year based on their responses, the majority of them are not satisfied with where the mode is currently at. Of all of the community members who responded, 61.46% said that they were either somewhat or very disappointed with CFM over the past three years. Judging by the items voted on, it does not seem that the community as a whole needs more than a few major features each year. Yet, the community as a whole is largely unsatisfied with the product. This ties into the community engagement. The CFM community does not need a lot, but they do need to feel heard and that they (and their money) are important to the company.
Paid DLC in CFM
The results here were not surprising. The vast majority (67.76%) of the community is not interested in paid, downloadable content for CFM. That's does not, though, mean it is not viable in the mode. It just means that EA has to be very careful to make any attempt at DLC in CFM completely optional and be careful not to inundate users with too much DLC at one time. Although not included as options in the survey, add ons like being able to commissioner more than one online league and time savers like XP for coaches could do very well for the franchise (as long as they are optional and able to be banned from online leagues) much like they did for NCAA Football. That could be a good place to start as most users are already familiar with that approach and would allow additional revenue to flow into the mode adding more features and resources down the road.
Conclusion
While it was disappointing to see such a large percentage of the community take a passive approach to giving their feedback, it was encouraging to see so many others participate and let their voices be heard. The results were somewhat surprising as I thought more users wanted a much deeper franchise experience than what we have currently. However, the community largely is saying that if they get their top three feature requests every year with improved tuning and bug fixes for what currently exists and feel that their voices are being heard and that they are important, the majority of users can and will be fairly happy.
Community Engagement
The feedback that I received on my posts the most was not about what features people wanted to see in CFM. A significant amount of the feedback was "what's the point of a survey? They don't listen anyway." and "There's been dozens of surveys over the years. They should know what we want." Right or wrong, this is the perception a significant portion of the CFM community has towards Madden. This attitude is indicative in the response numbers to the survey.
From the links I posted on Twitter and Facebook, I received 393 responses. From Twitter alone, the impressions of my three tweets were 4,862 (Facebook does not keep non-paid post impressions). That's less than a 10% response rate not including Facebook. On Operation Sports, my post received 2,233 views yet received exactly 100 votes (including from the EA forums). The community as a whole seems largely disengaged with the product (although they may still be buying and playing it) and they do not seem to trust the company to listen to and deliver on their wants and needs. Hopefully this is an area that EA can improve on going forward.The community may not always get the things that they want (for various reasons), but hopefully they can at least feel heard and that their patronage as a community is important.
Community Requests
The top two most requested features across all platforms used in this survey were Improved free agency (65% of responses) and a coaching carousel including offensive and defensive coordinators (63%). The next five most popular features varied by platform by which was most important but all five consistently stayed in that second tier group with right around 50% of responses. Those features or improvements were the ability to import a draft class (52%), improved CPU play calling (51%), improved CPU draft logic (51%), improved game planning (49%) and improved commissioner tools (47%). Of note, improved commissioner controls received 47% of the vote yet only applies to the online part of the CFM community (whereas all of the other options apply to both the online and offline communities). When the poll was mostly focused on online leagues (Twitter and CFM based Facebook groups) the responses were typically over 60% in favor of improved commissioner tools.
What was also interesting about this survey is that the community as whole does not seem to value the depth in CFM that a lot of users might have expected (myself included). The survey allowed users to vote on as many options as they wanted. However, the average user voted on only six items with only two (improved free agency and a coaching carousel) being significantly popular with the vast majority of respondents. This kind of plays into EA's pre-Madden 18 strategy of adding about three major new additions to CFM each year. The community as a whole largely does not seem to need more than that to keep their interest.
Community Satisfaction
While the community does not seem to need a significant upgrade to CFM every year based on their responses, the majority of them are not satisfied with where the mode is currently at. Of all of the community members who responded, 61.46% said that they were either somewhat or very disappointed with CFM over the past three years. Judging by the items voted on, it does not seem that the community as a whole needs more than a few major features each year. Yet, the community as a whole is largely unsatisfied with the product. This ties into the community engagement. The CFM community does not need a lot, but they do need to feel heard and that they (and their money) are important to the company.
Paid DLC in CFM
The results here were not surprising. The vast majority (67.76%) of the community is not interested in paid, downloadable content for CFM. That's does not, though, mean it is not viable in the mode. It just means that EA has to be very careful to make any attempt at DLC in CFM completely optional and be careful not to inundate users with too much DLC at one time. Although not included as options in the survey, add ons like being able to commissioner more than one online league and time savers like XP for coaches could do very well for the franchise (as long as they are optional and able to be banned from online leagues) much like they did for NCAA Football. That could be a good place to start as most users are already familiar with that approach and would allow additional revenue to flow into the mode adding more features and resources down the road.
Conclusion
While it was disappointing to see such a large percentage of the community take a passive approach to giving their feedback, it was encouraging to see so many others participate and let their voices be heard. The results were somewhat surprising as I thought more users wanted a much deeper franchise experience than what we have currently. However, the community largely is saying that if they get their top three feature requests every year with improved tuning and bug fixes for what currently exists and feel that their voices are being heard and that they are important, the majority of users can and will be fairly happy.
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