Madden NFL 23 Play Now Live Update Won't Arrive Until Week 10

[Von Dozier]

Quote: Originally Posted by CM Hooe

People including myself have speculated elsewhere that the feature may have limited support this year due to either (or possibly both of): 1 - limited access to Brandon Gaudin and Charles Davis to record new commentary to go with the Play Now Live content. Historically, Play Now Live includes new commentary from these two every week talking about the goings-on in the real life NFL. It is possible that as Gaudin and Davis have seen their NFL roles increase in visibility and importance, their availability to record weekly commentary for Tiburon has decreased. 2 - limited man-hours available inside Tiburon due to the ongoing development of EA Sports College Football, due out for release next June.

And the possibility they have data that indicates no one was really using this feature for the work involved in it.

[Gotmadskillzson]

I would be happy with them just updating the schedule. Out of all the sports games, MLB The Show is the only one that be the most consistent with it through the season and playoffs. NBA 2K be consistent when the regular season starts, but be spotty once the playoffs start. Anyway we are at the point with technology, they could just use AI generated voices and conversations.

[canes21]

Extremely disappointing news. I use this feature every year for my franchises and now that the gameplay was finally patch, in October, I was ready to hop into a franchise. Now I have to wait til week 10 to play how I want to play.

EA is not ran like a AAA developer at all. While the gameplay on the field is pretty good now, everything else about the game is an utter embarrassment for EA. It truly is a joke what they have turned into as a company.

Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

[Hooe]

Quote: Originally Posted by Gotmadskillzson

I would be happy with them just updating the schedule. Out of all the sports games, MLB The Show is the only one that be the most consistent with it through the season and playoffs. NBA 2K be consistent when the regular season starts, but be spotty once the playoffs start. Anyway we are at the point with technology, they could just use AI generated voices and conversations.

Funny you bring this up; this is actually an emergent legal and ethical hot topic in games after Ninja Theory (the developers of Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice) recently got into a lot of PR hot water over the idea that they might be using AI-generated voices to bring their characters to life in Hellblade 2: Senua's Sage. Fans of the series were extremely upset at the idea that Ninja Theory would not pay real humans to voice the characters in the upcoming game; the company has denied they were ever doing this, though they do have a commercial license for an AI voice acting technology.

Voice acting unions, to the extent that they exist, also vehemently oppose the use of using technology to digital re-create human voice acting performances, and increasingly more voice actors are part of large unions such as SAG-AFTRA to ensure their professional futures and protect their likenesses. For example, well-known voice actor Troy Baker is now in SAG-AFTRA.

I'm not sure how much unions would affect Madden NFL or other sports games because I kinda doubt commentators are represented by unions. I do imagine there would be murky area with digital likeness law; Disney recently had to secure an agreement from James Earl Jones to use AI to generate his voice for Darth Vader in future Star Wars projects. Madden is easily a big enough entertainment property that I doubt any well-known football play-by-play voice who would lend sufficient authenticity to the game's audio would sign away his voice likeness rights into perpetuity without proper financial compensation.

[Gotmadskillzson]

Sure they would have to pay who ever the voice sound like. However what if the voice don't sound like a known person ? I just threw this idea out there because this will be an on going problem if they keep hiring people who have a desire to be a big time broadcaster, eventually their schedule will get in the way. I really am surprised NBA 2K and MLB The Show can keep up with it considering they have games on a daily basis.

[Steve_OS]

Thanks CM, updated the news post here.

https://www.operationsports.com/madd...until-week-10/

[brahmagoul]

When I read the headline, I jokingly thought to myself, "and they won't update it again during the regular season." Turns out that's no joke. How lazy can EA be? I've barely touched this game since NBA 2K came out. Maybe I should stick with the updated Tecmo Bowl roms next year.

[Dagan]

I can back this up/add validity in reference. Way back when Zemeckis did his Tales From The Crypt episode that had the digital Humphrey Bogart, this whole legal scenario first truly got rolling. It's gotten pretty crazy ever since. There was a bit of a hoax story involving Bruce Willis a few weeks ago - giving complete digital likeness away to an AI company. Not fully true or just not fully legalized per the sale yet for Bruce, it's on the horizon to being a next big thing in entertainment. Said actors have to get on the front end of it all, is really just what needs to happen, so that they have royalties secured to their "estate." An example would be the Old Spice commercial with the CGI Dolph Lundgren, as he was on the front end of that entirely.