EA Boss Riccitiello Put the Kibosh on NBA Elite 11 (Kotaku)

[Steve_OS]

In what will probably amount to being the closest we will ever get to deciphering the curious cancellation of NBA Elite 11, Kotaku's Stephen Totilo recently got a chance to sit down with EA head honcho John Riccitiello and get the boss' take on what exactly happened with Elite during its development cycle.

There are a bunch of interesting nuggets to dig through within this fascinating interview, but it's interesting to note that Riccitiello had the final say when it came to ending Elite 11's existence.

Quote:

“There aren’t many decisions that are essentially squarely on my desk," said Riccitiello. This was one.”

Clearly Riccitiello's ban hammer is strong, but the most intriguing part of the interview might have to deal with the actual deadline chaos surrounding Elite. Everyone (including me) has a theory about what what was the final straw for this game, but EA has been adamant that the demo itself was not the final straw, but rather people knew even as the game was being printed that there were issues that might halt the game's release.

Quote:

"We’re in the middle of a nail-biter. The demo goes out. We final the game. We do an internal review. We’re not happy. Interaction between the label and sales organisation says the game is likely to be a 60 [on Metacritic] or something along those lines essentially for the fact that it wasn’t finished. What do you do?"

Read the entire interview to see everything there is to offer, just try not to snicker while reading this Riccitiello tidbit.

Quote:

"To be honest with you, I don’t want to sound self-satisfied, but I’m pretty proud of our ability to make that decision. Because, I don’t think the consumer was served badly by buying 2K. It’s a good game. And I think we’re better served. We were originally going to put Jam in our package. By separating it out people got to see what a good game that is."

Oh, and you should still bet on NBA *insert name here* by EA Sports releasing in 2011.

Source - How A Big Video Game Was Killed (Kotaku)

[JohnDoe8865]

Thanks for posting.

[khaliib]

The fact is that 2k's basketball game has made a greater gap between the EA's product, and he knows it, but will only say that it is "Good".

I once told a competitior he was good, and he said thanks, then said "Check-Mate"!!!!

[Shinyhubcaps]

Kinda surprised that EA had to make a decision between releasing an unfinished game and not releasing anything... and they chose not to release anything? Haven't they been releasing crappy, unfinished games for years? I bet that NBA Jam has something to do with it, and in any other year, that wouldn't be the case. They get their $60 shelf title, but it wasn't NBA Live/Elite. Any other year, they release the unfinished NBA Live/Elite to inflate their sales.

[Hova57]

The key word in all this is competitor . That's what forced this to really happen if there was no competitor then they would probably have released it.

[Bondgirl0072]

Thanks for posting this Steve. Competition matters in everything.

[BobbyColtrane]

"We're EA Sports, for Christ's sake."

Lmao new sig.

[Pared]

He's absolutely right. It was a good decision.

What we saw early seemed to be what they would have released. And that wouldn't have done the job in this genre.