Many on NCAA Team Blindsided, Then Escorted Out of the Building

[RaychelSnr]

My Press Row Podcast colleague Owen Good penned a heart-wrenching read over at Kotaku about what the past few days have been like for an EA Football employee.

Several members of the NCAA team, including 15 year veteran Jeff Luhr, were let go yesterday as EA sought to bring both the NCAA and Madden teams together for future Madden iterations.

There are some interesting nuggets within the article, the most notable is that EA was planning to perhaps introduce a serious customization element into next year's game to allow for custom stadium building, custom uniforms, team's, etc. in a way that's never quite been done before in sports gaming.

Also, there was some talk of doing some enhanced storytelling within dynasty mode to spice it up a bit.

Needless to say, we hope that vision eventually gets to come to light on next-gen consoles. For now, head on over to Kotaku to read Owen's excellent piece.

[outkaz79]

I feel a kickstarter project coming on with those ideas mentioned within the article. I hope. I would support it

[prowler]

That is so tragic. Despite all the negative things I've said in the past about EA and NCAA, I wish those guys nothing but the best and hope they land on their feet.

Game development can be a cruel mistress.

[huntt26]

Very sad. Even sadder was reading the fully customizeable idea they had been working on for NCAA 15. Basically TeamBuilder on crack. Update uniforms, stadiums by layer. Would have been insane.

[poloelite]

I'm about to go and read the article, but I've been saying for years that they need to just introduce innovative customization tools and get the blood off of their hands. Within weeks the online community would satisfy gamers with an authentic game and EA would hopefully have no real legal liability.

[brent3419]

man it just breaks my heart how this happened. i know we hate some games but i dont want people to lose jobs over this

[Step2001]

Wow - well, that should rule out any future patches for NCAA 14! Bummer, would have purchased it after patches.

[The JareBear]

I find this very sad, I can't help but read this and just....sympathize or empathize, whichever is more fitting, as I know that feeling of being let go from a job for situations that were out of your control. I'm pretty harsh when it comes to critiquing the current state of EA football, but I never wanted any of this to happen to these guys.

I hope everyone finds a new role somewhere else, and very soon. Good luck to all of them. Sincerely.