NBA Live 14 Executive Producer Talks Priorities, Synergy, Commitment & More

[Steve_OS]

EA Sports has posted an open letter from NBA Live 14 Executive Producer, Sean O’Brien. He has worked on EA Sports basketball titles for over a decade, with his last stint ending in 2010, as Producer of NBA Live 10. He has made his return to NBA Live 14 and has posted his journey back, as well as his plans for the next-gen title.

Listed below are some of the items of interest, but make sure you read the entire open letter, right here.

Priorities.

Quote:

...My first priority was to focus on core gameplay. We needed to capture the essence of half-court basketball, providing 1-on-1 isolation both in the perimeter and the post, the 2-on-2 chess match that is the pick and roll, while still offering the gamer the opportunity to push the basketball in transition and have the control required to get the ball into the lane to either take the ball to the rim or find an open teammate if the defense collapses.

The talent.

Quote:

...One of the things I knew I wanted was the best locomotion and player movement engineers in the company. I was fortunate enough to recruit Gary Paterson (shown above) as my Senior Creative Director, who previously worked on FIFA and was the architect who delivered physics to that franchise. Gary felt that we needed to innovate with dribbling and that no game had truly captured the control required when the gamer was dribbling the basketball.

Synergy Sports Technologies.

Quote:

...This is the data they use in order to prepare for upcoming games, finding the advantages or insights needed to try and gain the advantage on their opponent. I want NBA LIVE to be relevant to the NBA fan throughout the entire NBA season, providing data and content updates that keep your gaming experience fresh and in lockstep with everything that's going on in the real world NBA. I want to remove subjectivity from how we rate players and have that data provided by Synergy Sports to completely drive how the game plays. I'm really excited about being able to update our game within an hour of something happening in the NBA.

Commitment.

Quote:

...What we're doing isn't easy and I'm really excited about the progress we've made. I believe that our direction is the right one. The ball is in our court and we need to execute. No more screw ups and definitely no more excuses. ...I understand the skepticism and if I were you, I'd be skeptical too…or maybe cautiously optimistic. I'm not asking you to pre-order the game based on the E3 dribbling demo and a blog post. I'm simply asking you to give us a chance and we'll let the game do the talking. Something that I'm sure is long overdue in your minds (and ours).

[JODYE]

Well, they are certainly doing and saying the right things up to this point which is good, however we've heard the "commitment to authentic basketball" bit before.

There is some optimism to take away from E3 and the rave reviews their tech demo received. Glad he also acknowledged that it's an uphill battle to compete with 2k and that there should be skepticism.

Again, it's still wait and see for now.

[Jano]

Quote: Originally Posted by Sean O'Brien

I understand the skepticism and if I were you, I'd be skeptical too…or maybe cautiously optimistic. I'm not asking you to pre-order the game based on the E3 dribbling demo and a blog post. I'm simply asking you to give us a chance and we'll let the game do the talking. Something that I'm sure is long overdue in your minds (and ours).

Now that's exactly what I want to hear some acknowledgement of how bad things have been and some small form of humbleness (is this a word or what? lol). The part about the E3 demo was great to me because in year's past they would have been all jazzed and touting how "this will be the best basketball game evarzzzzz!!"

I appreciate O'Brien being real and saying that we shouldn't be that impressed with something as simple as a dribbling demo.

[ffaacc03]

Agreed with the above comments ...

One of the parts I loved more was this:

Quote:

I'm also really proud of our partnership with Synergy Sports Technologies. They are a great partner and I feel privileged that we have exclusive access to the same data that all 30 NBA teams use for scouting teams and players. This is the data they use in order to prepare for upcoming games, finding the advantages or insights needed to try and gain the advantage on their opponent. I want NBA LIVE to be relevant to the NBA fan throughout the entire NBA season, providing data and content updates that keep your gaming experience fresh and in lockstep with everything that's going on in the real world NBA. I want to remove subjectivity from how we rate players and have that data provided by Synergy Sports to completely drive how the game plays. I'm really excited about being able to update our game within an hour of something happening in the NBA. We're going to be making an enormous investment into this connected experience.

If implemented correctly and propperly updated, this should do wonders for how the game plays, hopefully they have a good chunk of animations to go along with it and do propper justice to such effort.

He seems to at least have researched on what things are fans most critical of 2K: a biased, infrequent and selective roster update approach that even negates the stablished formulas and scales, that it is based on pure subjectiveness, which then results on such unbalance, that the game is far from an authentic NBA videogame simulation experience.

I am usually someone who gets hyped by videos than by words, but have to admit that there is something, some tone, some "I dont know what" about his letter that has got me interested enough to really give Live an honest chance ... looking forward to "see" whats up with it in the comming months.

[youvalss]

If only they had this attitude in 2007...

Better late then never, I guess. I Hope it reflects on the game. Can't wait for some 5 on 5 gameplay videos.

[ccoaxum]

Quote: Originally Posted by youvalss

If only they had this attitude in 2007... Better late then never, I guess. I Hope it reflects on the game. Can't wait for some 5 on 5 gameplay videos.

i agree better late then never, hope they work hard and give us a decent game, so live 15 will not even be question of rather ppl wnt to play it.

[BizDevConglomerate]

I love it. I also love that the posts are positive. I'm so use to seeing cats talking bout Sim this and sim that. But it looks like cats are gonna be patient and see what Live brings.

I've always been biased towards EA. only deviating for games live gameday/gamebreaker, 2k5 , 12,13. Bball. Ea looks like they are going hard moving forward. All of the sports games look good. The main thing I'm looking at subjectively are the Cameras. They don't effectively update the angles. They haven't changed in years. 2k ball gives you so many options. The graphics can be great but if the cam isn't at the right angle, the look and feel is thrown off IMO.

I can't wait tho! Live looks like its back. I also like the Synergy addition. It's a huge stretch but if they implement player enthusiasm into signings, drafts, and expectations with living worlds that would be dope. IJS. #neversatisfiedhuh

[Sirs]

Nice to hear the lead guy from live 10 is back. So many great features in that game.