NBA Live 14 News Post

Sean O'Brien Issues Apology for NBA Live's Quality, Promises Improvements

04:28 PM - November 22, 2013 by The 24th Letter

Let's face it, it's not often you see a gaming company not only apologize for a lackluster release but also vow to make tangible improvements to the product before the next version releases.

NBA Live 14 Executive Producer Sean O'Brien is doing just that, commenting on the rough week the folks at EA have had with the largely hugely negative feedback on NBA Live 14 and vowing to improve the title.

"We hear loud and clear that some of you are disappointed in various aspects of NBA LIVE 14, and I�m sorry if the game doesn�t live up to your expectations," O'Brien said. "Looking at your feedback, we have laid out a plan to make NBA LIVE 14 a better game as quickly as we can."

The plan to improve NBA Live 14 will involve Twitch Live streams to teach the skills that will help make the experience with Live 14 a better one by teaching about the gameplay mechanics within the game as well as blogs on the EA website. Currently there are three new posts on the Live website: a controller guide, perfecting your style, and levels of dribble.

O'Brien is also promising tangible improvements to the game. Graphics and animations will see "drastic and immediate" improvements in the coming weeks and months within the game.

With such a negative reaction thus far to Live 14, it is definitely a good sign that EA is ramping up to improve the product post-launch with so much support. This bodes well for the series' future, but this also puts EA behind the 8-ball to truly improve the Live experience sooner rather than later.

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Member Comments

# 41 Fist Of Kings @ 11/22/13 10:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Klayups


	It's good of them to acknowledge shortcomings and it's good customer service to promise results on this years version but this could have all been avoided by being truthful in the beginning not hiding content. Perhaps then feedback could have been given prior to people spending $60 to beta test a game. Clearly it wouldn't have been good business to do this, obviously. However the fact that this is even a business practice that is followed or seen as a good idea is the real problem. Be honest and upfront with your customer base...especially when $ is involved. Hiding and being half truthful only makes things worse.

Yeah, info on Live 14 was so hard to get that a lot of us thought the Kyrie Irving/Deandre Jordan clip was in game footage.

# 42 thmst30 @ 11/22/13 10:47 PM

Quote:


	Graphics and animations will see "drastic and immediate" improvements in the coming weeks and months within the game.

How is that even possible? I call major BS on that. The size of patch to replace the art files in the game and introduce new animations would be massive. I can't imagine they have the capability to basically release a 2.0 version of an entire game via a patch.

# 43 coolcras7 @ 11/22/13 10:49 PM

Here are the facts EA is not going to continue to support Live 14 if it does not make a profit, Sean and make all the promises he wants but EA is run by guys in suit.

# 44 ngreatshark @ 11/22/13 10:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blackceasar


	This is what I DON"T get and clearly O'Brien and his Live team DONT GET IT.. I mean it sounds like he's saying "well everything else suffered so you can have authentic game play and THATS WHAT WE GAVE YOU PEOPLE!"... when in reality.. he didn't give the Live fanheads authentic gameplay and contorl at the cost of visuals and animation. At this day and age of "next gen" and that marketing gimmick "infinity engine" or whatever they are calling it, the ANIMATIONS alone play a huge part in the gameplay. You are controlling 3d models of people to score points and how they move, react, etc plays as ABSOLUTE MAJOR ROLE IN THAT!!! WTF? You aren't making Defender or Donkey Kong here dudes. Your animations go hand in hand with the game play in this next gen day and age of physics affecting gameplay. And "foundation for the future?" If you are selling just a foundation then why do you expect people to pay full price for it??? Its like you fools are home builders, and you poured some concrete and stopped there and want me to drop a couple hundered thousand on that????? because I know its a "good foundation"... where's the rest of the home if you want me to pay full price? You think I'm gonna roll up on your concrete foundation you just poured and say "Daaaamn Sean.. that's some awesome concrete you poured.. what? 200k full price for the home? Sold.. here's my money". Then he goes on to say... What? 12 months? You killed your last game like 2+ years ago... 12 months? Really? If you guys have only been working on this thing for the past 12 months, you should have spent the 12 months prior to that when you weren't working on this game playing 2k12 and 2K13....and no.. NOT to copy the game.. but to research it.. look at it.. see WHY I gets great reviews, and why people like it..and why people dont complain about dropping 60.00 on it. Are you so big and mighty of a company that you think you are too good to admit someone else is putting out a better product then you,and you need to figure out how to actually do it BETTER or at least just as good without making the exact same game. Either you and your team there are full of yourselves and delusional about what you think is a great basketball game and refuse to admit someone else has been stealing market share from you in this genre year after year.. OR... you all are just flat out lazy and HOPE there's not too big of a blacklash... Either way.. you people have really no excuse. You have come out and admitted what we all already knew, they your game is just not good, or even just OK... at least not OK enough for ask people for 60.00.. you ADMITTED this basically which makes you guys look even worse because you are all grown adults. If you know your game is bad.. why didnt you try to make it good before putting it out????? So let me point out one more talking point statement he had... Huh? What??? The "first chapter??" Most intelligent people would assume the first chapter was when you guys did the nobel thing of scrapping your last game and starting over to make a better game.. ummm.. 2 years ago. First chapter? Ooooh.... let me move on from my "foundation" metaphor and talk about "chapters"... A can see Allen Iverson right now.. "chapter?... CHAPTER??? .. man.. here you are asking me to pay 60.00 for a full game and you wanna talk about chapter".... Man.. so basically its like you wrote the next Harry Potter, and I ordered it off Amazon, paid you full price and when I got my book..it had like 20 pages in it.. you know.. A CHAPTER... Just get out of basketball, or at least come back when it's truly time. There's nothing stopping you from making a bball game that's not this awful.. you know it and we all know it... so really..what IS the excuse? Excuse me while I drop the mic, and clear up that hard drive space on my PS4....

Well said sir

# 45 alexthegreat @ 11/22/13 10:57 PM

Took them long enough

# 46 bigsmallwood @ 11/22/13 11:06 PM

So...no game for 4 years...and all we get are horrible graphics..massive legacy issues...and just all around terrible gameplay. This is straight disrespect from EA to the fans of the series. There is no way that ANY game should be this horrible after a 4 year hiatus. Wow....smh

# 47 ngreatshark @ 11/22/13 11:17 PM

why apologize...

# 48 MannyFresco @ 11/22/13 11:18 PM

You know, to be honest...This is very lame in my opinion. I know on OS we try to be respectful towards companies, unlike those kids on IGN. Let me just give EA the business tonight. First of all, 3 years is the time that you had to develop this game. 3 damn years. That is a lot of time for a company that has tons of money. Second, you went the whole 2013 without showing progress on what you were working on. A couple trailers is never enough. Third...you released the demo along side the release day which in all my years of playing games is the most awkward thing I have ever seen. Fourth...which ties into my first point. Why the hell didn't EA release this game on XBOX 360 or PS3?? would have made way more sense. It really makes them look bad when they were working on ONE version of the game and still messed it up. 2k Sports was developing two games at once in a single year. I had to get that off my chest because I am very disappointed that this games is bad because I used to be a live guy that has moved on with the great 2k series. There is still a piece of my heart that still wants to play some live. This BS of an effort just killed it for me.

This apology is a just a scam because they couldn't hold the game back again so they figured, lets just release it and apologize for it. I have no hopes for LIVE 15. Last live game that was good was Live 10 only because they stole 2k's programmer for one year..then he went back to 2k with all of EA's knowledge. SMH

# 49 King_B_Mack @ 11/22/13 11:29 PM

Just for the record, it's 4 years, not 3. NBA Live 10 was released in October of 2009.

# 50 Vni @ 11/22/13 11:33 PM

Why charge full price for this game? It's just too late to be sorry but nice try EA.

# 51 ngreatshark @ 11/22/13 11:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmood88


	Meanwhile, the developers are on twitter telling people that the game is for "sim" gamers and that the people who gave it bad reviews don't know much about basketball.

Yeah clearly we don't know what we are talking about, we just need to learn basketball and learn how to use there more sim than ever game mechanics

# 52 allhailben7 @ 11/22/13 11:41 PM

Now they have no excuse for how bad the game is, which was atrocious by almost anybody's opinion... But they did not really have 3 years to develop the game. Sony only started giving out/selling development kits in the middle of last year (xbox, I don't know).

It's a bad game and there's no excuse, but don't say they had 3 years to work with the new technology.

# 53 allhailben7 @ 11/22/13 11:48 PM

The biggest problem I have is--if he truly believes himself--why did they even have to sacrifice anything? They only used up 9 GB of space. WTF?

Seriously, it's not like it came down to "do I put in this or that," they didn't even use a 4th of the space! They could have gone for actual gameplay, a decent physics engine, 2k graphics, and anything else that basically 2k has.

Their problem is not that they sacrificed anything, it's that they took a minimalist approach.

# 54 King_B_Mack @ 11/23/13 12:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by allhailben7


	Now they have no excuse for how bad the game is, which was atrocious by almost anybody's opinion... But they did not really have 3 years to develop the game. Sony only started giving out/selling development kits in the middle of last year (xbox, I don't know). It's a bad game and there's no excuse, but don't say they had 3 years to work with the new technology.

To also clear the record, because I hear this a lot. When people say that, they aren't talking about this one specific game.

After Elite was cancelled the decision was made that they would sit out making an Elite/Live 12 and focus on coming back for 13. Instead of taking the time to work on 13 the entire time after Elite was cancelled they did pretty much nothing in 2011 until around October or November where the first thing they did then was waste time looking through the Elite code for things to keep from a cancelled effort. They didn't even put a full team together until around December of that year or January of 2012. They then proceeded to pull the same hide and seek stuff they pulled this year until the footage leaked out of that garbage between Miami/OKC and the fact that they were making a digital only game that was supposed to be a glorified beta test too. They lied then claiming that the code for Live 10 had been thrown out and they tried to pretend like the Elite code was trashed too. Fast forward to today and it's the same old song and dance. Only difference is the NBA probably put a boot in their *** that made them release this game. Dudes had the nerve to be in here throwing out those "*****" arguments when people were point out the red flags and similarities in approach that we've repeatedly seen from them.

So while no, they haven't been working on this particular game for four years, EA has had four full years to get its **** together on the basketball court and has done nothing with it.

# 55 Boilerbuzz @ 11/23/13 12:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by magicman32


	I have a question. How can they have a bounce tek demo at e3 to promote the game but not have a practice mode in the actually game? That demo at e3 impressed me. The graphics didn't even look bad. It also wasn't slowed down. The actual game looks and plays horrible. How did they go from that e3 demo to total ****. Smh In regards to the apology and improvements I'll have to see it to believe it. [/url]

You must have romanticized what you saw. Because what it saw was pretty much consistent with what we got. The only thing missing was defenders getting in your way and you wanting to do more than just dribble.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

# 56 Boilerbuzz @ 11/23/13 12:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by allhailben7


	Now they have no excuse for how bad the game is, which was atrocious by almost anybody's opinion... But they did not really have 3 years to develop the game. Sony only started giving out/selling development kits in the middle of last year (xbox, I don't know). It's a bad game and there's no excuse, but don't say they had 3 years to work with the new technology.

This is no excuse. There is quite a bit of work that can be done without actual hardware. Any software company worth a damn is capable of making software independent of hardware as much as possible. It's called cross-platform development. And considering the hardware is an "off the shelf" architecture, even more could have been done. This REALLY is no excuse.

Guys, the thing that sticks out to me with this apology is that Wilson gave the same apology after Live 13 and Moore gave it after Elite 11. Also, any work they do on Live 14 hurts Live 15 as well. The 15 dev cycle is already cut into as it is for every sport title! Frankly, I think they need to minimize losses and Live 15 is up in the air. That's what this is all about.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

# 57 yungflo @ 11/23/13 02:20 AM

I like the part when he apologizes, then say we aren't playing the game right, instead of admitting, the game is broken...entirely. BounceTek ain't saving that. But Like my man OG, Obrien is keeping it dairyfree lol

# 58 bubba4 @ 11/23/13 04:13 AM

Hmmm. They hid the game until release, and now they're sorry they released it. They apologized 3 years ago for their basketball game. They obviously don't know how to make a basketball game. This is what all these apologies are all about.

# 59 Jano @ 11/23/13 05:45 AM

I'm not in the camp that says EA shouldn't have released this game.

They needed to get a game out there it's been too long since their last game. At least this way if the big boys at EA wants to discontinue the series for good this time they've got more than enough reasons. No more cancellations to hide behind.. the sales and fan support will speak for themselves.

I think the apology letter was a great idea for sure. Though statements like this

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sean O'Brien


	We felt authentic gameplay, control and the connected experience would provide the best foundation for the future. As a result, game visuals and animation polish suffered.

Are a bit perplexing... isn't animation polish a part of authentic gameplay in a basketball simulation?

Anyways EA isn't going to be gaining many fans with letter's like this. I just hope that this letter is the start of improvement.

Just improve your game EA and take your lumps along the way like a champ and not a chump...

# 60 Gramps91 @ 11/23/13 07:51 AM

I really hope EA can deliver, until then, there's always 2k to go to, and EA if you buy the NBA license you have NO IDEA how pissed I will become.

With all that said, good luck, I honestly would like a solid game from both sides.

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