NBA Elite 11 News Post

NBA Elite Being Moved to Tiburon, EA Canada Hit by Layoffs (Not Confirmed Yet)

09:30 PM - October 27, 2010 by uponablackstar

According to some 1up sources, Tiburon will now be handling the NBA franchise. Nothing has been confirmed, as of yet.

Quote:


	"History looks to be repeating itself at Electronic Arts. Sources tell 1UP that Tiburon will now be handling the NBA franchise. The report follows a tweet from 3D Realm's George Broussard, who says that EA Canada has laid off more than 100 employees. Broussard also said that he has heard rumors of "large scale layoffs" at EA coming soon. EA Canada was responsible for the development of NBA Elite 11, which has been delayed indefinitely. The studio also handles the NHL series. Need for Speed developer Black Box and EA Canada were consolidated in 2008. If the reports are accurate, this would mark the second time in EA history that an important sports franchise has been transferred to Tiburon following a failure to launch. The first instance came when Visual Concepts failed to complete a PlayStation version of Madden NFL 96. The project was handed to Tiburon, which has been responsible for the series ever since."

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# 21 kjeebs9 @ 10/28/10 11:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jWILL10


	Wow. Wow. WOOOOOW. EA just keeps on sticking it's foot in it's mouth. In exception to NHL 11 and FIFA 11, this has been a HORRIBLE year for EA Sports. Note to the suits: let the devs make the game, not you. This is what's wrong with gaming and music these days: the suits think THEY'RE the stars, and THEY know what's going on, but they don't. In fact, they're more out of touch with the masses than ANYONE. So, we get hit with these gimmicks that they think will draw over the Wii/casual gamer crowd, but end up alienating loyal customers. This exact same thing happened at Infinity Ward, minus any game-cancellation. The suits though Infinity Ward was expendable, and that they can have a game of similar quality with Treyarch. So, IW got the boot. Now, while Activision may end up getting the last laugh anyway, EA will not. Personally, I think we're seeing the collapse of EA Sports before our very eyes...

Yessir...Its like there's a lot of Al Davis and Jerry Joneses running things over there.

# 22 Boilerbuzz @ 10/28/10 12:55 PM

This is a good move in my opinion. I'm sure the guys at EAC can find work. Ubisoft is hiring and some of those guys are already interviewing there from what I hear. Some of the team can also transfer within the company. So, I think the people will be OK. No offense to Canada, but I've wanted Live out of EAC for a long, long time. It was time for a change and change was only going to come with this reset. Tiburon's football sucks in my opinion, but their tech and Tiger Woods is pretty good. What I do know is that there are smart guys there. They just need to find good basketball people and put them in a position to truly drive the game. Otherwise, you'll have the same issues - non-basketball people making a basketball game.

And EAC isn't going anywhere. They have Jam, Fifa, and NHL on the sport side alone.

And for the record, EA didn't own VC. VC was pretty much fired as a non-first party developer for EA.

Of course none of what we say really matters if this isn't confirmed...

# 23 blues rocker @ 10/28/10 01:43 PM

this is what's wrong with America. The executives make a terrible decision which ruins a perfectly good product, then they blame the hard working people who were following their orders. they get rid of the workers...meanwhile the executives (who are truly the ones at fault) get to keep their jobs and probably get a raise.

# 24 LucianoJJ @ 10/28/10 02:02 PM

I feel sympathy for anyone losing their jobs. Layoffs are terrible, no matter who, no matter when. EA Canada has proven they can make good games like FIFA and NHL. I don't find fault with Tiburon's workers, either. The games' engines are in place, a roster update is all we are really entitled to now, right? Let someone write new code in some third world country, because those guys are cheaper.

The only answer for the higher ups is to cut heads. Everyone out there with an MBA wants to do more with less, and tries to scare workers into doing better jobs, or else heads will roll, while they roll in expensive cars with huge bonuses. If enough American (and Canadian) workers get sacrificed, this economy is never going to bounce back.

# 25 jadert @ 10/28/10 02:13 PM

I don't mean to go against the grain here, but lets stop with all of this �managment this and management that� rants. Ultimately, it was David Littman (creative director of NHL series) who approached management with his idea of changing the �Live Series�

Here is an excerpt from a gamespot interview:

GameSpot: How did you come to be on the NBA Elite 11 project?
David Littman: NHL and NBA have been working together for a while since a lot of features are similar such as Dynasty mode, Season mode, and Online Team Play. But we wanted to take it one step further. NHL has been incredibly successful over the last few years, and the NBA franchise could greatly benefit from the learnings we have had on NHL. I had a vision and design for what I thought the NBA game could be both on and off the court and brought that vision to a few other people at EA. We got a prototype up and running, and it really caught on internally.

The management team trusted him with his vision and it failed. Now we can talk about the three year plan, but the fact is that developers (graciously) came on this site and had the ultimate confidence in this flawed product. I didn't post (because I didn't want to be negative without playing the demo) but I was thinking that if the producers thought that this game was going to revolutionize basketball, then maybe either they were crazy or I was crazy. So I didn't post about it.

Now, after the fact its easy to blame the management, but the developers stood by their product and to this day will defend the animations, unrealistic jumping, graphic quality and other areas. And that's before we get into the Jesus Glitch.
So I understand your frustration with EA, but lets not make it seem like the developers aren't to blame as well as the management. Even if they are nice enough to interact with us on a regular basis.....

# 26 Pared @ 10/28/10 02:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blues rocker


	this is what's wrong with America. The executives make a terrible decision which ruins a perfectly good product, then they blame the hard working people who were following their orders. they get rid of the workers...meanwhile the executives (who are truly the ones at fault) get to keep their jobs and probably get a raise.

The irony of your post is that all this happened in Canada.

Or did it? We don't even have confirmation. Hmm...

# 27 Hooe @ 10/28/10 02:32 PM

As much as I hate to see developers lose their jobs and I hope they all land on their feet elsewhere, this is an known and accepted consequence of working in the commercial sector. You don't finish a product, the money to pay you for producing that product disappears. EA had to offset the loss of not releasing an NBA game somehow.

# 28 sroz39 @ 10/28/10 03:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jadert


	I don't mean to go against the grain here, but lets stop with all of this �managment this and management that� rants. Ultimately, it was David Littman (creative director of NHL series) who approached management with his idea of changing the �Live Series� Here is an excerpt from a gamespot interview: GameSpot: How did you come to be on the NBA Elite 11 project? David Littman: NHL and NBA have been working together for a while since a lot of features are similar such as Dynasty mode, Season mode, and Online Team Play. But we wanted to take it one step further. NHL has been incredibly successful over the last few years, and the NBA franchise could greatly benefit from the learnings we have had on NHL. I had a vision and design for what I thought the NBA game could be both on and off the court and brought that vision to a few other people at EA. We got a prototype up and running, and it really caught on internally. The management team trusted him with his vision and it failed. Now we can talk about the three year plan, but the fact is that developers (graciously) came on this site and had the ultimate confidence in this flawed product. I didn't post (because I didn't want to be negative without playing the demo) but I was thinking that if the producers thought that this game was going to revolutionize basketball, then maybe either they were crazy or I was crazy. So I didn't post about it. Now, after the fact its easy to blame the management, but the developers stood by their product and to this day will defend the animations, unrealistic jumping, graphic quality and other areas. And that's before we get into the Jesus Glitch. So I understand your frustration with EA, but lets not make it seem like the developers aren't to blame as well as the management. Even if they are nice enough to interact with us on a regular basis.....

You're being too nice to management, IMO. Those guys are paid to make decisions. If I go to my boss with a revolutionary, crazy new idea on how to do something that was working anyways, and he decides to go along with it, gets all my co-workers on board with this vision, and it fails miserably, is it my fault for suggesting it, my co-workers' fault for doing their job or my boss' for going with the idea? At the end of the day, it's my boss' job to decide what works and what doesn't and if he decides one of his employee's ideas is good and it fails miserably, the blame should fall on him I would think.

# 29 Tomba @ 10/28/10 04:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jadert


	I don't mean to go against the grain here, but lets stop with all of this �managment this and management that� rants. Ultimately, it was David Littman (creative director of NHL series) who approached management with his idea of changing the �Live Series� Here is an excerpt from a gamespot interview: GameSpot: How did you come to be on the NBA Elite 11 project? David Littman: NHL and NBA have been working together for a while since a lot of features are similar such as Dynasty mode, Season mode, and Online Team Play. But we wanted to take it one step further. NHL has been incredibly successful over the last few years, and the NBA franchise could greatly benefit from the learnings we have had on NHL. I had a vision and design for what I thought the NBA game could be both on and off the court and brought that vision to a few other people at EA. We got a prototype up and running, and it really caught on internally. The management team trusted him with his vision and it failed. Now we can talk about the three year plan, but the fact is that developers (graciously) came on this site and had the ultimate confidence in this flawed product. I didn't post (because I didn't want to be negative without playing the demo) but I was thinking that if the producers thought that this game was going to revolutionize basketball, then maybe either they were crazy or I was crazy. So I didn't post about it. Now, after the fact its easy to blame the management, but the developers stood by their product and to this day will defend the animations, unrealistic jumping, graphic quality and other areas. And that's before we get into the Jesus Glitch. So I understand your frustration with EA, but lets not make it seem like the developers aren't to blame as well as the management. Even if they are nice enough to interact with us on a regular basis.....

Thank you for posting this.
Littmann oh Littman you!

# 30 Tomba @ 10/28/10 04:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sroz39


	You're being too nice to management, IMO. Those guys are paid to make decisions. If I go to my boss with a revolutionary, crazy new idea on how to do something that was working anyways, and he decides to go along with it, gets all my co-workers on board with this vision, and it fails miserably, is it my fault for suggesting it, my co-workers' fault for doing their job or my boss' for going with the idea? At the end of the day, it's my boss' job to decide what works and what doesn't and if he decides one of his employee's ideas is good and it fails miserably, the blame should fall on him I would think.

hmm that's subjective. It actually goes further like why did they hire guys like that in the first place maybe?

# 31 jadert @ 10/28/10 05:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sroz39


	You're being too nice to management, IMO. Those guys are paid to make decisions. If I go to my boss with a revolutionary, crazy new idea on how to do something that was working anyways, and he decides to go along with it, gets all my co-workers on board with this vision, and it fails miserably, is it my fault for suggesting it, my co-workers' fault for doing their job or my boss' for going with the idea? At the end of the day, it's my boss' job to decide what works and what doesn't and if he decides one of his employee's ideas is good and it fails miserably, the blame should fall on him I would think.

In no way am I saying that blame shouldn't be placed on management. All I'm saying is that the developers should also shoulder some responsibility as well. The vision they presented to management seemed great, but the execution (role of developer) was horrible. Think about it, they even sold us on this new direction (controls, controls, controls). Then the demo came out and they continued to defend the product as if it was a
viable $60 game. Management was the one to say.....HELL NO! We are not going to sell this game...you guys aren't ruining our brand (well, more than it already was).

Now we are hearing about "layoffs". Does anyone believe that some of the developers behind this game are the ones that got the axe?

# 32 atlwarya @ 10/28/10 05:30 PM

Well i dont care who's making the games as long as it turns out to be good and if EA Canada is unable to do that year after year then they dont deserve the franchise plain and simple. I dont care how long it takes to build upon an engine I want a good game now. Its funny how some of you are saying EA Canada shouldve been given more time to improve the game but havent we been doing just that this whole time and they still havent delivered.

# 33 rudyjuly2 @ 10/28/10 06:02 PM

Can't they just bring back Live 10 and continue off that code? Perhaps Elite 11 was just a bad dream - like that one season of Dallas?

# 34 ryan36 @ 10/28/10 06:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rudyjuly2


	Can't they just bring back Live 10 and continue off that code? Perhaps Elite 11 was just a bad dream - like that one season of Dallas?

yeah, I think we're seeing that they didn't HAVE to reinvent the wheel. I wonder if all the criticism for their football title being stale, has led them to try to innovative things in their other titles- which ironically didn't /don't need such drastic makeovers?

# 35 sroz39 @ 10/28/10 06:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jadert


	In no way am I saying that blame shouldn't be placed on management. All I'm saying is that the developers should also shoulder some responsibility as well. The vision they presented to management seemed great, but the execution (role of developer) was horrible. Think about it, they even sold us on this new direction (controls, controls, controls). Then the demo came out and they continued to defend the product as if it was a viable $60 game. Management was the one to say.....HELL NO! We are not going to sell this game...you guys aren't ruining our brand (well, more than it already was). Now we are hearing about "layoffs". Does anyone believe that some of the developers behind this game are the ones that got the axe?

What are your expectations of the devs? Do you think that they are in line with what EA expects of them, as far as talking about their game? As much as we'd love to have devs come in and tell us "guys, Elite 11 is just not ready for commercial release. Wait it out till 12, unless you really want NBA Jam that's bundled with it", is that a reasonable thing to expect them to do? They'd be out of a job 5 minutes after they said that! EA expects them to talk up their game. Though a dev saying the game he worked on is awesome isn't going to sway me into buying it, you better believe that if a dev came in and said not to, I wouldn't. And it's for that reason you would NEVER see them say something like that.

Bottom line, Littman went to EA and said "this works in NHL, it will work with Live" and the suits ate it up, because despite earning the highest reviews since moving to the current gen of consoles, the sales lagged 2K's by a wide margin. So, without paying any mind to the process of what it takes to get the game from what it was in Live 09 to what it became in Live 10 (truly remarkable, really) they ditched Wang's vision for Live less than two years after hiring him away from 2K and went with this new vision. They also failed to see the bigger picture, because yeah, Live 10's sales weren't comparable to 2K's but that's a result of breaking the consumers trust over and over again with sub-par titles. The buzz was beginning to come back with the release of Live 10 but that wasn't good enough so they went and tore the franchise down completely and reset the series. With the cancellation of Elite 11 and (probably) another reset of the series under Tiburon, how long is it going to take to gain the consumers' trust again? How long before the Tiburon game even approaches Live 10 in quality?

Somebody deserved to lose their job. Problem is, the good soldiers at EA Canada that worked on this game and bought into the Elite vision (really, what choice did they have) are the ones paying for it, not the handful of execs who completely and totally blew it with their decisions post-Live 10 release.

# 36 Boilerbuzz @ 10/28/10 06:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LucianoJJ


	I feel sympathy for anyone losing their jobs. Layoffs are terrible, no matter who, no matter when. EA Canada has proven they can make good games like FIFA and NHL. I don't find fault with Tiburon's workers, either. The games' engines are in place, a roster update is all we are really entitled to now, right? Let someone write new code in some third world country, because those guys are cheaper. The only answer for the higher ups is to cut heads. Everyone out there with an MBA wants to do more with less, and tries to scare workers into doing better jobs, or else heads will roll, while they roll in expensive cars with huge bonuses. If enough American (and Canadian) workers get sacrificed, this economy is never going to bounce back.

I'm sorry, I have to say this is the one of the WORST statements I've seen on OS. This is completely asinine. I certainly hope you nor a loved one has to struggle trying to find a job because their job was outsourced. I'm amazed anyone could think such a thing. It's stupid. Some dude in India doesn't know jack-**** about basketball. Why in the world would I want him making a basketball game?!

# 37 Boilerbuzz @ 10/28/10 07:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pared


	The irony of your post is that all this happened in Canada. Or did it? We don't even have confirmation. Hmm...

You beat me to it. Yes, the decisions were made in Canada.

# 38 Boilerbuzz @ 10/28/10 07:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sroz39


	You're being too nice to management, IMO. Those guys are paid to make decisions. If I go to my boss with a revolutionary, crazy new idea on how to do something that was working anyways, and he decides to go along with it, gets all my co-workers on board with this vision, and it fails miserably, is it my fault for suggesting it, my co-workers' fault for doing their job or my boss' for going with the idea? At the end of the day, it's my boss' job to decide what works and what doesn't and if he decides one of his employee's ideas is good and it fails miserably, the blame should fall on him I would think.

I'm pretty sure Littman wasn't one of the people let go.

# 39 Boilerbuzz @ 10/28/10 07:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sroz39


	What are your expectations of the devs? Do you think that they are in line with what EA expects of them, as far as talking about their game? As much as we'd love to have devs come in and tell us "guys, Elite 11 is just not ready for commercial release. Wait it out till 12, unless you really want NBA Jam that's bundled with it", is that a reasonable thing to expect them to do? They'd be out of a job 5 minutes after they said that! EA expects them to talk up their game. Though a dev saying the game he worked on is awesome isn't going to sway me into buying it, you better believe that if a dev came in and said not to, I wouldn't. And it's for that reason you would NEVER see them say something like that. Bottom line, Littman went to EA and said "this works in NHL, it will work with Live" and the suits ate it up, because despite earning the highest reviews since moving to the current gen of consoles, the sales lagged 2K's by a wide margin. So, without paying any mind to the process of what it takes to get the game from what it was in Live 09 to what it became in Live 10 (truly remarkable, really) they ditched Wang's vision for Live less than two years after hiring him away from 2K and went with this new vision. They also failed to see the bigger picture, because yeah, Live 10's sales weren't comparable to 2K's but that's a result of breaking the consumers trust over and over again with sub-par titles. The buzz was beginning to come back with the release of Live 10 but that wasn't good enough so they went and tore the franchise down completely and reset the series. With the cancellation of Elite 11 and (probably) another reset of the series under Tiburon, how long is it going to take to gain the consumers' trust again? How long before the Tiburon game even approaches Live 10 in quality? Somebody deserved to lose their job. Problem is, the good soldiers at EA Canada that worked on this game and bought into the Elite vision (really, what choice did they have) are the ones paying for it, not the handful of execs who completely and totally blew it with their decisions post-Live 10 release.

I couldn't agree more with this post. It's said that the people losing their jobs are the people that had no control of the situation outside of their execution. But let's not get it twisted. Some people in dev did have enough power to step up and say - "This is wrong.". It would SEEM that Wang was one of them. They chose to not listen to him. Luckily for him, he had an alternative and went back to VC. Others don't have that luxury, so I give them the benefit of the doubt.

# 40 sroz39 @ 10/28/10 07:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boilerbuzz


	I'm pretty sure Littman wasn't one of the people let go.

My point exactly. Littman shouldn't get the axe for proposing the idea, that would be silly. Nobody would ever come up with anything revolutionary, fear of losing their jobs and we'd be stuck with the same ol' same ol'. Nor should the workers, in this case the dev team, get any repurcussion. They simply followed orders from the top, tasked with an impossible under-taking when not 5 years earlier, EA made the decision NOT to develop NHL 06 on the 360 to give the dev team more time to introduce the revolutionary Skill Stick. Truth be told, in normal circumstances, even the boss (in this case, the suits at EA) should get the axe because if you discourage management from taking chances, the cycle of reduncancy would set in just the same as if you fired the employee for coming up with the idea.

However, these were NOT normal circumstance. After years of lagging behind the 2K series in quality, Live 10 finally was competitive and in some key aspects (player movement, dribbling, DNA, plays) trumped 2K10. The game was FINALLY on the path of ascension. The sales did not immediately follow and so when Littman presented his Elite vision, the people in charge of making these decisions SHOULD have said "come back to us in a few years, we're going to see this thing through". But no, they cast aside what Mike Wang and the devs worked so hard for like it was no big deal, and went with this idea instead. Everything is still ok up to that point though.

But the moment this game got cancelled, somebody had to pay, obviously. In no way should that have been any of the devs. There is not a dev team out there that could have pulled off what these folks were asked to do, yet here they are, the scapegoats of a terrible decision made by someone else. Under THOSE circumstances, yes, someone deserved the axe but it was nobody outside of the room where the decision was made to go ahead with Elite.

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