NBA Elite Being Moved to Tiburon, EA Canada Hit by Layoffs (Not Confirmed Yet)

[mike24forever]

Re: 1UP: NBA Elite given to Tiburon, EA Canada mass layoffs

RIP EA Canada

Tiburon sucks as well.

Madden is an arcade game, and Elite will join them.

What is it with 98% of the people that joined OS in 2010? Are they all pylons and fanboys/trolls? Why is it almost always crap like this, that comes from their keyboards?

Madden has nothing to do with this thread.

EA should have stayed the course with the foundation of NBA 10 and as many have said here, built on what was becoming a good competitor in the basketball market.

[cbass1]

So lemme get this straight; good, hard-working people are getting laid off at EA Canada because some higher ups at EA decided to scrap a game well on it's way to becoming great and go in a completely different direction because THEY can't tell a good game from a bad one? Somebody high up the ladder has egg on their face over this decision yet a perfectly competent and talented studio (they proved that with some solid leadership and strong vision from Mike Wang, they can make a very good bball game) gets tossed like it's their fault. You can't always turn lemons into lemonade and the direction they wanted to go with Elite takes years, not months, to develop. Heck, EA didn't release an NHL 06 on 360 but came back strong with 07 to much applause.

I'm stunned if this is true. Getting rid of Visual Concepts worked out great for EA too, didn't it.....

MAN your dead on.... the suits got these hard working, talent people fired because of their direction. I figure some heads would roll because of this but I figure it would be some of the producers not the actual studio workers!......I bet those same guys who made those decisions will still be getting extra nice holiday bonuses for all their HARD WORK this year. This is crazy to say the least.

[Goffs]

Re: NBA Elite Being Moved to Tiburon, EA Canada Hit by Layoffs (Not Confirmed Yet)

tiburon :/

[yamabushi]

So the people who do nothing with madden are gonna do nothing with the NBA. fantastic.

[Kully]

Terrible for the people working there if true. sroz39 made a good point; Live 10 was pretty good and they should have continued on that path. The higher ups at EA made the decision to change the focus of the game and the devs have to pay for it. Cutthroat business man.

[Tomba]

Re: NBA Elite Being Moved to Tiburon, EA Canada Hit by Layoffs (Not Confirmed Yet)

EACanada is Fifa and NHL.

This actually might work. Tiburon's in Florida in the heart of a lot of basketball schools and professional franchises.

[BlackCloudDoggy]

Re: NBA Elite Being Moved to Tiburon, EA Canada Hit by Layoffs (Not Confirmed Yet)

Something needed to be done. Could be coming off as ignorant and I'm not anti-Canada but maybe it will do this series good bringing it stateside. I just want a good b-ball game from EA, whatever it takes. Sorry for those who lost their jobs.

[sroz39]

Something needed to be done. Could be coming off as ignorant and I'm not anti-Canada but maybe it will do this series good bringing it stateside. I just want a good b-ball game from EA, whatever it takes. Sorry for those who lost their jobs.

We had a good game from EA last year, made by this exact studio, so I don't see how moving the project is going to change the quality of the product for the better. Tiburon's recent track record is nothing to write home about. EA Canada's track record is a lot better. It all comes down to leadership and the improvement this series made from Live 09 to Live 10 was remarkable. A true testament to not only Mike Wang and more importantly, the dev team behind the game.

Does solid leadership always mean a game is going to be great? Obviously not and the most recent example I can think of is the much-hyped hiring of Ben Brinkman (former MVP Baseball Producer) by 2K to work on the MLB games for them. The game seemed to get worse, not better. But that's all the MORE evidence that this is an outstanding studio because when they finally had a strong leader, they turned out a game that challenged the genre leader for best bball game that year, in only a year and a half's time.

I think this is a terrible mistake. Every time I think this series hits rock bottom, it manages to find a way to dig a deeper hole. How long before this game becomes good again? Forget about challenging 2K, how long until its even as good as Live 10 or even Live 09? Moving to Tiburon, you would assume this means yet another reset for the series. Is it going to be worth it just to MAYBE get back to the level of quality of Live 10 in 2 or 3 years? Seems like a waste of 5 years, no?

Sent from my MB300 using Tapatalk

[kjeebs9]

Re: NBA Elite Being Moved to Tiburon, EA Canada Hit by Layoffs (Not Confirmed Yet)

Wow. Wow. WOOOOOW. EA just keeps on sticking it's foot in it's mouth. In exception to NHL 11 and FIFA 11, this has been a HORRIBLE year for EA Sports.

Note to the suits: let the devs make the game, not you. This is what's wrong with gaming and music these days: the suits think THEY'RE the stars, and THEY know what's going on, but they don't. In fact, they're more out of touch with the masses than ANYONE. So, we get hit with these gimmicks that they think will draw over the Wii/casual gamer crowd, but end up alienating loyal customers.

This exact same thing happened at Infinity Ward, minus any game-cancellation. The suits though Infinity Ward was expendable, and that they can have a game of similar quality with Treyarch. So, IW got the boot. Now, while Activision may end up getting the last laugh anyway, EA will not. Personally, I think we're seeing the collapse of EA Sports before our very eyes...

Yessir...Its like there's a lot of Al Davis and Jerry Joneses running things over there.

[Dalsanto0026]

EA's clueless management and lack of vision amazes me. It would be nice if they actually let a plan realise it's potential for once, assuming this will be another reboot for the franchise.

In all honesty I didn't like their vision for Elite anyway, but if you're going to mention 3 year plans it would be nice if you actually stuck to it for once. LOL This is comical.

[Boilerbuzz]

Re: NBA Elite Being Moved to Tiburon, EA Canada Hit by Layoffs (Not Confirmed Yet)

This is a good move in my opinion. I'm sure the guys at EAC can find work. Ubisoft is hiring and some of those guys are already interviewing there from what I hear. Some of the team can also transfer within the company. So, I think the people will be OK. No offense to Canada, but I've wanted Live out of EAC for a long, long time. It was time for a change and change was only going to come with this reset. Tiburon's football sucks in my opinion, but their tech and Tiger Woods is pretty good. What I do know is that there are smart guys there. They just need to find good basketball people and put them in a position to truly drive the game. Otherwise, you'll have the same issues - non-basketball people making a basketball game.

And EAC isn't going anywhere. They have Jam, Fifa, and NHL on the sport side alone.

And for the record, EA didn't own VC. VC was pretty much fired as a non-first party developer for EA.

Of course none of what we say really matters if this isn't confirmed...

[blues rocker]

this is what's wrong with America. The executives make a terrible decision which ruins a perfectly good product, then they blame the hard working people who were following their orders. they get rid of the workers...meanwhile the executives (who are truly the ones at fault) get to keep their jobs and probably get a raise.

[LucianoJJ]

I feel sympathy for anyone losing their jobs. Layoffs are terrible, no matter who, no matter when. EA Canada has proven they can make good games like FIFA and NHL. I don't find fault with Tiburon's workers, either. The games' engines are in place, a roster update is all we are really entitled to now, right? Let someone write new code in some third world country, because those guys are cheaper.

The only answer for the higher ups is to cut heads. Everyone out there with an MBA wants to do more with less, and tries to scare workers into doing better jobs, or else heads will roll, while they roll in expensive cars with huge bonuses. If enough American (and Canadian) workers get sacrificed, this economy is never going to bounce back.

[jadert]

Re: NBA Elite Being Moved to Tiburon, EA Canada Hit by Layoffs (Not Confirmed Yet)

I don't mean to go against the grain here, but lets stop with all of this “managment this and management that” rants. Ultimately, it was David Littman (creative director of NHL series) who approached management with his idea of changing the “Live Series”

Here is an excerpt from a gamespot interview:

GameSpot: How did you come to be on the NBA Elite 11 project?
David Littman: NHL and NBA have been working together for a while since a lot of features are similar such as Dynasty mode, Season mode, and Online Team Play. But we wanted to take it one step further. NHL has been incredibly successful over the last few years, and the NBA franchise could greatly benefit from the learnings we have had on NHL. I had a vision and design for what I thought the NBA game could be both on and off the court and brought that vision to a few other people at EA. We got a prototype up and running, and it really caught on internally.


The management team trusted him with his vision and it failed. Now we can talk about the three year plan, but the fact is that developers (graciously) came on this site and had the ultimate confidence in this flawed product. I didn't post (because I didn't want to be negative without playing the demo) but I was thinking that if the producers thought that this game was going to revolutionize basketball, then maybe either they were crazy or I was crazy. So I didn't post about it.

Now, after the fact its easy to blame the management, but the developers stood by their product and to this day will defend the animations, unrealistic jumping, graphic quality and other areas. And that's before we get into the Jesus Glitch.
So I understand your frustration with EA, but lets not make it seem like the developers aren't to blame as well as the management. Even if they are nice enough to interact with us on a regular basis.....

[Pared]

Re: NBA Elite Being Moved to Tiburon, EA Canada Hit by Layoffs (Not Confirmed Yet)

this is what's wrong with America. The executives make a terrible decision which ruins a perfectly good product, then they blame the hard working people who were following their orders. they get rid of the workers...meanwhile the executives (who are truly the ones at fault) get to keep their jobs and probably get a raise.

The irony of your post is that all this happened in Canada.

Or did it? We don't even have confirmation. Hmm...