Unification of Control Schemes Between Madden and NCAA a Good Sign

One somewhat overlooked change for this year that will affect the more dedicated sports gamer comes with EA Sports choosing to utilize the same control scheme in NCAA Football 13 as Madden NFL 13. In the past the two games have differed quite significantly with their controls to the extent that it had become hard to bounce from one game to the other comfortably.

While this has a few downsides (Madden switching back to the right stick kicking to match NCAA for example) it represents an indication that the company is more starting to consider the experience of consumers rather than caring only about differentiating the products. Though the number of people who actually buy both games  is actually lower than one might think they shouldn’t be discounted because they represent the more passionate crowd that often drive perception by generating word of mouth whether positive or negative. This apparent shift in focus can also seen with the news of gameplay improvements which has been practically the same for NCAA as Madden given there is a central gameplay team working on both.

The way EA had split features between Madden and NCAA in the past had shown their goal was to try and create reasons for people to buy both of them – believing they couldn’t be too similar – rather than worrying about the experience of those that do or others who have gone away from it out of frustration. Bringing the control schemes together though is taking a step forward towards creating better experiences rather than generating additional talking points for the marketing.