"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."
I think it's far from insignificant in this case. We're not talking about Chicago to Atlanta. We're talking Canada to US. If you have QA, focus testing, artist, engineers, designers, and marketing people growing up in a culture that is much more passionate about the sport, you'll see the different. Just look at NBA Street versus Live. Street is based off of the Live codebase, yet Street, for being an arcade game, was WAY more of a polished basketball game than Live. By far.
Bad example dude because all of the NBA Streets were developed by EA Canada http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_Street_Homecourt. Perhaps it wouldve been better if you compared NBA 2k to Nba Live. Nba 2k games are made by Visual Concepts which is a California based developer.
1. Even if you played the demo one time, the problems should have been quite apparent. Since you admittedly stated you didn't play it often, how can you make the assessment that it would have been good enough to try? Because NHL and FIFA was good? It was that line of thinking that started them on the path that lead ultimately to their failure.
2. Ever consider that putting development of the game in a culture more in tuned with basketball COULD help it. Not saying it will, mind you, as Florida is a football crazy state, yet Madden still doesn't know a front from a coverage... But the chances are good.
3. Finally, EAC has had the Live series from the get go. In MY opinion, there were elements of the game that were great representation of the game. But there were many that were FAR from it. In all that time, the dev team, it seems, never even attempted to address these elements. So in MY opinion, while Live 10 was the biggest step forward I'd seen in a long time, EAC's version of basketball was a failure. When competition came along, the numbers showed as much. In short, they had years to get it right, and they didn't. It was time to move on.
So why should you be disappointed at all? There is no basis for it.
1. I buy at least one video game a month, and sometimes two. October's must-buy was Fallout 3. However, I was also interested in NBA Elite 11 based on my limited exposure to the demo. [I think I need to clarify that I only played the My Player mode, which is what I was most interested in.] It was try-worthy in my book. Based on the demo, which I tried for like 10 minutes (which is about as long as I try any demo), and yes, the strength of EACanada's other games: NHL and FIFA.
2. EACanada is based in Vancouver. Vancouver had an NBA franchise for quite a few years. Moreover, you talk about America's "basketball culture" as if we're talking about America and India. We're not. We're talking about America and Canada. Basketball may not be the number one sport in Canada, but it's not the number one sport in America either. Canada's number one sport is hockey, obviously. But football and basketball are both quite popular there as well. It is just as likely that the people working on NBA Elite at Tiburon care little about the NBA because they prefer football and baseball as it is for someone working on it at EACanada to care little about the NBA because they prefer hockey and football.
3. NBA Elite seemed like EACanada's big reset button on the basketball series. They even admitted there were a lot of things that Live just didn't get right that they were trying to do with Elite. If Live was so bad that EA decided that they didn't want EAC making basketball games any more, then Elite development should have started at Tiburon.
I'm not trying to say that Elite needed to be released. I'm not trying to ignore the major glitches that I've since learned about. But what I am saying is...I don't care enough about basketball to the point that I need to own a basketball video game (like I am with football). With EACanada, I knew the game had potential to be great (even if Live never was). Now that it's in Tiburon's hands, I know it will be average at best and never better.
And how do I know?
Because I've played NCAA Football for as long as I can remember, and it always seems average. I enjoy the game based on my love for college football, and perhaps that love for college football alone. I spend all day Saturday watching college football, the on Sunday, I go to ESPN3 and catch replays of the college games I couldn't watch on Saturday.
Meanwhile, I'm an average at best soccer fan. I don't necessarily have a favorite team, and I'll watch a match like every other week or so, tops. Usually I just wait for big match-ups and watch those (like Saturday's Milan-Juventus, which I likely won't get around to watching until late Sunday night). But FIFA 11? I put countless hours into the game. It's just so enjoyable. The game plays right, both in the game and in the career modes.
So the point is, for me to purchase a sports game, I have to either truly enjoy the sport, or have a reasonable expectation that the gameplay is at least as enjoyable as any of the non-sports games I own. In most cases, sports gameplay is not on par with non-sports gameplay. In my experience with EACanada? It is.
It's fine to get off the "location argument" but it's an interesting point. I don't think sroz's post deserved a yellow card. It was a well written and passionate post. Sports and sports gaming can often be passionate topics of conversation. Has OS become so sterile and fragile that any passionate post must immediately be stomped out and warnings handed out? That yellow card was way too touchy imo.
You can probably find tons of posts on a daily basis that are more "inflammatory" than that one and they go by unpunished and rightfully so. Heck, in this thread alone there were a lot of shots taken at the Tiburon and Madden football dev team and I didn't see any warnings handed out either. I don't want them too but man this place is getting WAY too sensitive.
It's fine to get off the "location argument" but it's an interesting point. I don't think sroz's post deserved a yellow card. It was a well written and passionate post. Sports and sports gaming can often be passionate topics of conversation. Has OS become so sterile and fragile that any passionate post must immediately be stomped out and warnings handed out? That yellow card was way too touchy imo.
You can probably find tons of posts on a daily basis that are more "inflammatory" than that one and they go by unpunished and rightfully so. Heck, in this thread alone there were a lot of shots taken at the Tiburon and Madden football dev team and I didn't see any warnings handed out either. I don't want them too but man this place is getting WAY too sensitive.
Im not sensitive to this stuff we'd had a talk about this at length elsewhere, but first off you know a post is usually infraction worthy when it starts off the way his was (which he pre meditated), secondly going off about races of people and stereotyping is against the TOS whether you or I ilke it or not.
The worst part is he did the exact same thing he tried to rail against.
Notwithstanding his point, he could've gotten his passion out there without even bothering with all of that.
That said, if you see some stuff here that seems like its infraction worthy report it please.
A warning is nothing, in the scheme because another mod could've seen that and banned him from this site completely.
Im not sensitive to this stuff we'd had a talk about this at length elsewhere, but first off you know a post is usually infraction worthy when it starts off the way his was (which he pre meditated), secondly going off about races of people and stereotyping is against the TOS whether you or I ilke it or not.
The worst part is he did the exact same thing he tried to rail against.
Notwithstanding his point, he could've gotten his passion out there without even bothering with all of that.
That said, if you see some stuff here that seems like its infraction worthy report it please.
A warning is nothing, in the scheme because another mod could've seen that and banned him from this site completely.
Call my post whatever you like: insulting, silly, stupid, long (God was it long) but pre-meditated it was not. I came on and read some of the posts and they riled me up. I SHOULD have walked away and came back with a more thought out response, but I didn't. Instead, I was thinking with my heart and not my head and put some emotion in my post. It's very unlike me to do so but I did. I mentioned what I'm about to say is likely to get me in trouble because I had a feeling what I was going to say was going to insult someone. But I had no idea what my exact response would be.
I got a warning, which didn't really surprise me. I will say this though: based on my non-existant infraction history, my positive contributions to the forums for years and my relatively long time member status, I can't say that a part of me wasn't disappointed that I wasn't given a little more leeway and a verbal warning, like I've seen many times before all over these forums (i.e. Mod: "that's enough of the Canada vs. America talk. Next person gets an infraction".) instead of the yellow card I got. Even more disappointed that nobody else got one. Apparently, it's ok to insult my country and insinuate the people living in it can't make a good basketball game (uhh, that'd be a generalization) but it's not ok for me to stand up for my country and say something back about yours. Fine. You've made yourself clear and though I thought that action taken against me was a bit over the top when you look at the big picture, it'd be absolutely ludicrous if someone banned me over what I said. Members who just signed up a few months ago, not years like me, get away with far more on a daily basis.
Having said all that, I want to apologize to anybody who was truly offended by what I said. That is not me, you can check my track record. I respect alot of the members here and if any of you that live in the States were put off by what I said, I hope you know I regretted that part of my post the moment I cooled down. Far too late to edit it at that point, so there it sits in all it's glory. Upsets me every time I look at it.
What I won't back down on is everything else I said. I stand by the fact that I think the Live series was on the verge of greatness after Live 10. I stand by the fact I think EA's series sits where it does now in no part because of the devs working on it and in large part because of the people put in place to make decisions that lead those dev teams and their producers. I stand by the fact that I think the suggestion that this series is being held back in some way by being developed in Canada is simply crazy talk (and offensive). I stand by the fact that what EA did to those 100 or so people simpy for doing what they're told is disgusting and completely unjust. And I stand by the fact I truly believe Live 11, with Mike Wang, ReAnimator et al at the helm would've been an outstanding product.
This series has officially hit rock bottom when just a short 11 months ago, respected members of this community (including Da Czar himself) made it clear Live 10 was their game of choice and fantasized about this series' future. In the end, nothing will make those that were laid off feel any better about their lot in life. But the amount of money that EA left on the table as a result of their decision to: guillotine Live, go with Elite's direction, the subsequent cancellation of Elite and now the seemingly never-ending road back to respectability with moving the game to a studio that is probably going to have to start from scratch SIX years into a console generation...well, eventually, karma will bite some very important people in the behind and I, for one, will not have an ounce of sympathy for any of them.
Let me say this, Ive watched you post here, even felt if i were ever asked that you'd be on the list of guys id recommend as being a mod.
That said, the history of your posting has nothing to do with the fact that you broke the TOS. It was infraction worthy for said reasons and I said premeditated because you knew for a fact you were about to come off with an insulting rant.
Given the severity of the TOS on this site, a warning is plenty of leeway, because anything else is a straight out ban, among other things like deleting your post.
Im not against any of your points, you can go back and check my feelings on the entire event. I think I mentioned last year with the departure of Mike that this series was in danger of ending up like the NCAA bball game... lo and behold.
Now what I just did with that warning was serve notice to everyone that all of that garbage wont be tolerated in here, so from this point if anyone is banned then there is no excuses as to why you are trying to justify the conversation when I made it clear that its off limits.
One thing you guys need to understand is that if there is an issue, its better to report it and let us handle it rather than trying to play vigilante poster. I think that is fair considering it saves you the trouble of dealing with trolls and helps us stay aware of the problem posters on the site.
No I dont agree with everything people said in here, but one thing is apparent, EAC has been a complete fail this gen when it comes to basketball.
That has nothing to do with country as much as the particular company making it.
...No I dont agree with everything people said in here, but one thing is apparent, EAC has been a complete fail this gen when it comes to basketball.
That has nothing to do with country as much as the particular company making it.
You and I obviously don't view Live 10 in the same light, which is ok. I thought it was great, you probably didn't as you say it's been a complete fail on this generation of consoles, so that would include Live 10. You yourself didn't make the whole "country" argument but others did and I took offence to it. All water under the bridge at this point. When all is said and done, I just want to see a great alternative to the 2K series in one of the few sports where competition is still an option in the sports video game world. I thought Live 11 would be that game and I'm sure myself, EAC, Mike Wang and many, many members on here would have loved to see the direction the series WAS headed in last year given a chance to fully mature.
You and I obviously don't view Live 10 in the same light, which is ok. I thought it was great, you probably didn't as you say it's been a complete fail on this generation of consoles, so that would include Live 10. You yourself didn't make the whole "country" argument but others did and I took offence to it. All water under the bridge at this point. When all is said and done, I just want to see a great alternative to the 2K series in one of the few sports where competition is still an option in the sports video game world. I thought Live 11 would be that game and I'm sure myself, EAC, Mike Wang and many, many members on here would have loved to see the direction the series WAS headed in last year given a chance to fully mature.
I liked Live 10
I made a couple of hefty mix videos plus did that massive tweak project by myself. I dont think you were around here alot when Live 10 dropped...especialy pre patch
I made a couple of hefty mix videos plus did that massive tweak project by myself. I dont think you were around here alot when Live 10 dropped...especialy pre patch
This is mostly true, I was more lurker than poster when Live 10 dropped. Played a ton of 2K10 but the more I played that game, the more the warts began to bother me. As the season went on, I played more and more Live 10. Still do now. The player control is light years ahead of even 2K11. Where I think Live 11 would have improved the most is some of those 2 person collision animations. In fact, if they were so hell bent on implementing the RPT system, this area of Live should have had the overhaul first and then brought into other aspects of gameplay in subsequent years. Not all at once.
NBA Live 10 is not all that if you think about it. The dynasty mode is unplayable. And the fact they made the dna shooting ratings based off shooting percentages screwed the game too. A player could go two for two for the whole season in threes and shoot lights out in the game. And there was morphing. The ai needed tweakig too
So, does this mean yet another reboot and yet another change of direction? Ugh. If this really does happen, I'll be waiting for them to scrap everything that was planned for Elite 11 and give us the "3 year plan" talk once again. I can't even begin to understand what EA's executives are trying to accomplish.
EAT may use a whole different process. They might treat nba live/elite like they do madden. They are not really known for scrapping gameplay. If they put something good in the game they go with it and add other things to it here and there. We probably wont see too many 3 yr plans by them. Madden is stale now but its playable.
This does not sound good at all. Is EA's NBA move to Tiburon a good or a bad thing guys?
That depends. Tiburon is so hit and miss. They FINALLY made an NCAA football this year that is comparable to their best efforts on last gen, the last 2 Tiger Woods games have been pretty good and their MMA title is praised for it's gameplay. Madden, on the other hand, has yet to approach what they did with the series on the PS2 and Xbox.
But the issue isn't whether or not Tiburon can make a good basketball game. The issue is the timing. We are closer to the end of this console generation than the beginning so to send the game off to another studio, who will either have to learn what EA Canada were trying to do with Elite 11 very quickly or scrap it entirely and start from scratch, doesn't seem like a winning strategy. IMO, it would only have been fair to allow EA Canada to see this through and THEN if the game is still lacking, it'd be justifiable to move the game. At this point, Tiburon is in a very compromised position to make this game competitive by the end of this console generation, let alone next year.
I don't think we are close to the end of this generation of console gaming. I really think that this generation will last 3-4 years longer than in the past. Costs and losses were so high early on I just don't see a big push for a new console. Maybe Nintendo since the Wii is so weak but I don't see a new MS or Sony console any time soon. Tiburon has plenty of time to fix the game for this generation.
I think that the physics software must be in universal use right now. So moving NBA franchise is looking to be difficult to swallow , but may end up being good for the game. We will have to see at least they get two years to develop for this game.
I don't think we are close to the end of this generation of console gaming. I really think that this generation will last 3-4 years longer than in the past. Costs and losses were so high early on I just don't see a big push for a new console. Maybe Nintendo since the Wii is so weak but I don't see a new MS or Sony console any time soon. Tiburon has plenty of time to fix the game for this generation.
I agree anyone calling for new consoles to fix the current issues are shortsighted. So getting a new console in theory should fix current issues, but new ones arise. Yea that make sense. MS and Sony put alot of money into these systems and are going to get there money worth. Plus at this point what new innovation could they add more memory maybe gpu , but that's costly ask sony.
I agree anyone calling for new consoles to fix the current issues are shortsighted. So getting a new console in theory should fix current issues, but new ones arise. Yea that make sense. MS and Sony put alot of money into these systems and are going to get there money worth. Plus at this point what new innovation could they add more memory maybe gpu , but that's costly ask sony.
I wasn't calling for a new console, simply stating we're closer to seeing one than not. That's based on past history. PS1 to PS2 was 5 years (it was 4 years from PS1 to Dreamcast), PS2 to PS3 was 6 years (again, less time if you look at PS2 to 360, which was 5 years and even LESS time if you look at Xbox to 360, which was 4 years). From the outset, I had a feeling that this console generation was going to be longer than any before, mainly because of what rudy mentioned above, which were the huge losses MS and Sony incurred at the start of this generation.
My point was, we're not THAT far from new consoles so this wasn't the best move for yet another reset, especially when you didn't give the last studio a chance to see the latest reset all the way through.