He acknowledges that they don't use many of the same resources, but, that said, they all use two very important ones which are money, and time.
EA Sports is focusing on things that while nice, will be much less important after the first few games. I'm not going to notice someone taking a selfie in the crowd, and honestly, i don't care to. I want the crowd to sound like they do, and jump up and cheer or boo when they should. A guy taking a selfie is a useless little extra.
The gameplay has been stale and has yet to look like it's really changed in any of the videos. I'm glad the crowd looks nice, and it would be nice to let that soak in, if i knew that the gameplay was going to be a big step forward. Every video i've seen from EA released to the shakey videos of two guys struggling to form a play have shown me things that lean towards the Gameplay being the same thing it was last season, possibly with tiny refinements, while things like all of these little features that don't affect the overall gameplay get an entire video, and development time. Sure, the guy who animated the crowd probably has little to nothing to do with handling the AI for CPU team pressure in the neutral zone, or the way your team sets up and moves on the powerplay, but he could likely have been used to create some improved goalie animations.
It just sucks when you want the game to be good, and instead of hearing about, oh i don't know, Be a GM, defensive AI improvements, the way teams and players play differently, anything that would breathe new life into the series, we get an entire video on crowds and shiny ice. It's frustrating, and it's gotten more so this season, compounding all the other frustrating released from EA.