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

[Pared]

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

From what I experienced, there were guys there with "enough" exposure to the NBA to advance the title past the point where it was. Of course, this is in my opinion.

Why that didn't happen is not something I can answer. But there was enough feedback from this community alone to give them the idea that they weren't doing "enough" to get past the point of no return with the consumer. This tells me someone "pulling the strings" just could not grasp why their was such failure from a sales standpoint.

Then again, I also think Live 10 was given more credit than it deserved. IMO it simply incorporated 2k-style elements into Live '09's core gameplay.

There was not enough NBA authenticity, and this is where EA lost all touch with its consumer base, something I see that has been a problem with Tiburon for a while now and their football franchise.

[DaReapa]

RIP EA Canada

Tiburon sucks as well.

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

Same thing I was thinking. I was REAALLLY hoping that EA (Canada) could come back and put out a competitive bball game quality-wise seeing that, at least for this gen, 2K seemingly has no intentions whatsoever on improving their sluggish animation and control system. Knowing how arcadey Madden is, this leaves for me absolutely no faith in NBA Live/Elite accomplishing this. That is if this rumor turns out to be true.

[DaReapa]

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.....

Well said.

[sroz39]

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

I am going to get in trouble for what I'm about to say, but I really don't care because I'm bothered enough to say it anyways. The ignorance from some of you on here is incredible. That whole stereotype about Americans not being able to see past their own borders, is unfortunately in full effect in this thread. Hate to break it to you guys, but in cities like Toronto and Vancouver, basketball is HUGE. Is it as big as in Florida or California? No, obviously. But in Canada, with the diversity in our population which is especially true when it comes to the cities I mentioned above, having guys "exposed" to the game of basketball is not the issue. Anyone suggesting that is flat out ignorant.

I don't know the makeup of the dev team working on the Live series, as far as where they're all from and whatnot, but I seriously doubt that what they're lacking is knowledge of the game. Further to that, what dev team has former high level athletes working on it that are making a significant contribution to the game they're working on? I know Littman is a former professional goalie in hockey and I'm sure there's other teams that have some semblance of staff members that played at relatively high levels, but this mean anything in the grand scheme of things? If you're honest with yourself, you'll realize that's not the case. I will point again to the FIFA example, which is developed by EA Canada, in a country that routinely trails countries a fraction of it's size in the world rankings. It obviously doesn't hamper that team very much but even if they felt they were lacking in any area, they have the power to go out and hire whomever they feel necessary to improve the knowledge of whatever sports game they're working on.

At the end of the day, these dev teams are largely made up of fans of the sport they're working on. Some are bigger fans then others but I guarantee that the type of staff that 2K have and EA Canada had working on their respective basketball titles are very similar. So why does one game consistently out-perform the other? It all comes down to the direction these teams get from the higher ups. 2K has a different corporate direction than EA does, obviously. 2K has been more sim than arcade (though it's not to say it's totally sim) for as long as I can remember where EA in the past has tailored their game more to the common fan, though it still had many sim elements. Remember the last gen of sports games, especially near the end of that generation of consoles? How sim were EA's hockey and soccer titles? Everyone would agree that they couldn't be described as games for hardcore fans of the sport. 2K's hockey title and Konami's soccer title were chosen by the hardcore as far as last-gen goes. Yet, a year or so after these consoles came out, EA changed their corporate M.O. with these titles and over time, both the NHL series and FIFA series incorporated more sim elements every year and became the industry leading games they are today.

The Live series was slower to fall under this new corporate direction but the moment it did, in one and a half year's time, Wang and Co. turned the game into a very respectable and solid playing sim, culminating in Live 10 being preferred by quite a few people over 2K10. The game, with this new direction from above, became something it struggled to be since the jump to the new consoles. Yet, sales lagged behind (major trust issues from consumers, obviously) the suits panicked and went in yet another new direction. They jumped the gun. We will never know but I feel very confident that if Live 11 ever saw the light of day, with Wang and Co. allowed to continue down the path they started at the end of Live 09, it would be close to if not on par with 2K11, strictly from a gameplay perspective.

Bottom line, it comes down to the what game does the corporation want made. This dev team proved they're very capable but had the rug pulled out from under it by the decision-makers. Those decision-makers are at fault here, not the dev team. And it certainly has nothing to do with WHERE the dev team is located, otherwise Madden would be amazing (it's not) and the last gen NHL 2K series would be terrible (which it wasn't, despite it being made by Americans, not Canadians). Both Madden and the 2K hockey series are where they are because of what their respective corporations wanted them to be, and EA's basketball game is where it is because of the same reason.

[23]

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

I could care less about what you think about a few people's statements in here, but you're essentially using a generalizing conversation to start your diatribe yourself.

That said, I could care less who made it, NBA Live this gen has been nothing short of a full size disappointment from broken promises to broken patches.

Pick any example you want to pick, and regardless of whatever the location is, whatever is going on at EAC wasn't working with basketball fans in general.

Direction or not, the disaster was seen coming 10 miles away by the fans, dont tell me the decision makers couldn't feel which way the wind was blowing as well.

[LingeringRegime]

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

If this is indeed true, I really feel for the guys that got laid off at EA Canada. First of all, I don't blame them for Elite 11 since they didn't get the proper time to really make it a quality product.

Tiburon??? Seriously?

Peter Moore seems to be incompetent for this job. Perhaps he should step down and bow out before this gets uglier.

[atlwarya]

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

I think it's far from insignificant in this case. We're not talking about Chicago to Atlanta. We're talking Canada to US. If you have QA, focus testing, artist, engineers, designers, and marketing people growing up in a culture that is much more passionate about the sport, you'll see the different. Just look at NBA Street versus Live. Street is based off of the Live codebase, yet Street, for being an arcade game, was WAY more of a polished basketball game than Live. By far.

Bad example dude because all of the NBA Streets were developed by EA Canada http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_Street_Homecourt. Perhaps it wouldve been better if you compared NBA 2k to Nba Live. Nba 2k games are made by Visual Concepts which is a California based developer.

[Pogo27]

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

A couple of things.

1. Even if you played the demo one time, the problems should have been quite apparent. Since you admittedly stated you didn't play it often, how can you make the assessment that it would have been good enough to try? Because NHL and FIFA was good? It was that line of thinking that started them on the path that lead ultimately to their failure.

2. Ever consider that putting development of the game in a culture more in tuned with basketball COULD help it. Not saying it will, mind you, as Florida is a football crazy state, yet Madden still doesn't know a front from a coverage... But the chances are good.

3. Finally, EAC has had the Live series from the get go. In MY opinion, there were elements of the game that were great representation of the game. But there were many that were FAR from it. In all that time, the dev team, it seems, never even attempted to address these elements. So in MY opinion, while Live 10 was the biggest step forward I'd seen in a long time, EAC's version of basketball was a failure. When competition came along, the numbers showed as much. In short, they had years to get it right, and they didn't. It was time to move on.

So why should you be disappointed at all? There is no basis for it.

1. I buy at least one video game a month, and sometimes two. October's must-buy was Fallout 3. However, I was also interested in NBA Elite 11 based on my limited exposure to the demo. [I think I need to clarify that I only played the My Player mode, which is what I was most interested in.] It was try-worthy in my book. Based on the demo, which I tried for like 10 minutes (which is about as long as I try any demo), and yes, the strength of EACanada's other games: NHL and FIFA.

2. EACanada is based in Vancouver. Vancouver had an NBA franchise for quite a few years. Moreover, you talk about America's "basketball culture" as if we're talking about America and India. We're not. We're talking about America and Canada. Basketball may not be the number one sport in Canada, but it's not the number one sport in America either. Canada's number one sport is hockey, obviously. But football and basketball are both quite popular there as well. It is just as likely that the people working on NBA Elite at Tiburon care little about the NBA because they prefer football and baseball as it is for someone working on it at EACanada to care little about the NBA because they prefer hockey and football.

3. NBA Elite seemed like EACanada's big reset button on the basketball series. They even admitted there were a lot of things that Live just didn't get right that they were trying to do with Elite. If Live was so bad that EA decided that they didn't want EAC making basketball games any more, then Elite development should have started at Tiburon.





I'm not trying to say that Elite needed to be released. I'm not trying to ignore the major glitches that I've since learned about. But what I am saying is...I don't care enough about basketball to the point that I need to own a basketball video game (like I am with football). With EACanada, I knew the game had potential to be great (even if Live never was). Now that it's in Tiburon's hands, I know it will be average at best and never better.

And how do I know?


Because I've played NCAA Football for as long as I can remember, and it always seems average. I enjoy the game based on my love for college football, and perhaps that love for college football alone. I spend all day Saturday watching college football, the on Sunday, I go to ESPN3 and catch replays of the college games I couldn't watch on Saturday.

Meanwhile, I'm an average at best soccer fan. I don't necessarily have a favorite team, and I'll watch a match like every other week or so, tops. Usually I just wait for big match-ups and watch those (like Saturday's Milan-Juventus, which I likely won't get around to watching until late Sunday night). But FIFA 11? I put countless hours into the game. It's just so enjoyable. The game plays right, both in the game and in the career modes.



So the point is, for me to purchase a sports game, I have to either truly enjoy the sport, or have a reasonable expectation that the gameplay is at least as enjoyable as any of the non-sports games I own. In most cases, sports gameplay is not on par with non-sports gameplay. In my experience with EACanada? It is.

[23]

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

can we get off the america bit

if you guys didnt know we're all north AMERICAN



Now that social studies class is over, lets stay on the topic which is the deveopment of this game moving to EA Tiburon

[rudyjuly2]

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

It's fine to get off the "location argument" but it's an interesting point. I don't think sroz's post deserved a yellow card. It was a well written and passionate post. Sports and sports gaming can often be passionate topics of conversation. Has OS become so sterile and fragile that any passionate post must immediately be stomped out and warnings handed out? That yellow card was way too touchy imo.

You can probably find tons of posts on a daily basis that are more "inflammatory" than that one and they go by unpunished and rightfully so. Heck, in this thread alone there were a lot of shots taken at the Tiburon and Madden football dev team and I didn't see any warnings handed out either. I don't want them too but man this place is getting WAY too sensitive.

[23]

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

It's fine to get off the "location argument" but it's an interesting point. I don't think sroz's post deserved a yellow card. It was a well written and passionate post. Sports and sports gaming can often be passionate topics of conversation. Has OS become so sterile and fragile that any passionate post must immediately be stomped out and warnings handed out? That yellow card was way too touchy imo.

You can probably find tons of posts on a daily basis that are more "inflammatory" than that one and they go by unpunished and rightfully so. Heck, in this thread alone there were a lot of shots taken at the Tiburon and Madden football dev team and I didn't see any warnings handed out either. I don't want them too but man this place is getting WAY too sensitive.

Im not sensitive to this stuff we'd had a talk about this at length elsewhere, but first off you know a post is usually infraction worthy when it starts off the way his was (which he pre meditated), secondly going off about races of people and stereotyping is against the TOS whether you or I ilke it or not.

The worst part is he did the exact same thing he tried to rail against.

Notwithstanding his point, he could've gotten his passion out there without even bothering with all of that.

That said, if you see some stuff here that seems like its infraction worthy report it please.

A warning is nothing, in the scheme because another mod could've seen that and banned him from this site completely.

[sroz39]

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

Im not sensitive to this stuff we'd had a talk about this at length elsewhere, but first off you know a post is usually infraction worthy when it starts off the way his was (which he pre meditated), secondly going off about races of people and stereotyping is against the TOS whether you or I ilke it or not.

The worst part is he did the exact same thing he tried to rail against.

Notwithstanding his point, he could've gotten his passion out there without even bothering with all of that.

That said, if you see some stuff here that seems like its infraction worthy report it please.

A warning is nothing, in the scheme because another mod could've seen that and banned him from this site completely.

Call my post whatever you like: insulting, silly, stupid, long (God was it long) but pre-meditated it was not. I came on and read some of the posts and they riled me up. I SHOULD have walked away and came back with a more thought out response, but I didn't. Instead, I was thinking with my heart and not my head and put some emotion in my post. It's very unlike me to do so but I did. I mentioned what I'm about to say is likely to get me in trouble because I had a feeling what I was going to say was going to insult someone. But I had no idea what my exact response would be.

I got a warning, which didn't really surprise me. I will say this though: based on my non-existant infraction history, my positive contributions to the forums for years and my relatively long time member status, I can't say that a part of me wasn't disappointed that I wasn't given a little more leeway and a verbal warning, like I've seen many times before all over these forums (i.e. Mod: "that's enough of the Canada vs. America talk. Next person gets an infraction".) instead of the yellow card I got. Even more disappointed that nobody else got one. Apparently, it's ok to insult my country and insinuate the people living in it can't make a good basketball game (uhh, that'd be a generalization) but it's not ok for me to stand up for my country and say something back about yours. Fine. You've made yourself clear and though I thought that action taken against me was a bit over the top when you look at the big picture, it'd be absolutely ludicrous if someone banned me over what I said. Members who just signed up a few months ago, not years like me, get away with far more on a daily basis.

Having said all that, I want to apologize to anybody who was truly offended by what I said. That is not me, you can check my track record. I respect alot of the members here and if any of you that live in the States were put off by what I said, I hope you know I regretted that part of my post the moment I cooled down. Far too late to edit it at that point, so there it sits in all it's glory. Upsets me every time I look at it.

What I won't back down on is everything else I said. I stand by the fact that I think the Live series was on the verge of greatness after Live 10. I stand by the fact I think EA's series sits where it does now in no part because of the devs working on it and in large part because of the people put in place to make decisions that lead those dev teams and their producers. I stand by the fact that I think the suggestion that this series is being held back in some way by being developed in Canada is simply crazy talk (and offensive). I stand by the fact that what EA did to those 100 or so people simpy for doing what they're told is disgusting and completely unjust. And I stand by the fact I truly believe Live 11, with Mike Wang, ReAnimator et al at the helm would've been an outstanding product.

This series has officially hit rock bottom when just a short 11 months ago, respected members of this community (including Da Czar himself) made it clear Live 10 was their game of choice and fantasized about this series' future. In the end, nothing will make those that were laid off feel any better about their lot in life. But the amount of money that EA left on the table as a result of their decision to: guillotine Live, go with Elite's direction, the subsequent cancellation of Elite and now the seemingly never-ending road back to respectability with moving the game to a studio that is probably going to have to start from scratch SIX years into a console generation...well, eventually, karma will bite some very important people in the behind and I, for one, will not have an ounce of sympathy for any of them.

[23]

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

Let me say this, Ive watched you post here, even felt if i were ever asked that you'd be on the list of guys id recommend as being a mod.

That said, the history of your posting has nothing to do with the fact that you broke the TOS. It was infraction worthy for said reasons and I said premeditated because you knew for a fact you were about to come off with an insulting rant.

Given the severity of the TOS on this site, a warning is plenty of leeway, because anything else is a straight out ban, among other things like deleting your post.

Im not against any of your points, you can go back and check my feelings on the entire event. I think I mentioned last year with the departure of Mike that this series was in danger of ending up like the NCAA bball game... lo and behold.

Now what I just did with that warning was serve notice to everyone that all of that garbage wont be tolerated in here, so from this point if anyone is banned then there is no excuses as to why you are trying to justify the conversation when I made it clear that its off limits.

One thing you guys need to understand is that if there is an issue, its better to report it and let us handle it rather than trying to play vigilante poster. I think that is fair considering it saves you the trouble of dealing with trolls and helps us stay aware of the problem posters on the site.

No I dont agree with everything people said in here, but one thing is apparent, EAC has been a complete fail this gen when it comes to basketball.
That has nothing to do with country as much as the particular company making it.

[sroz39]

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

...No I dont agree with everything people said in here, but one thing is apparent, EAC has been a complete fail this gen when it comes to basketball.
That has nothing to do with country as much as the particular company making it.

You and I obviously don't view Live 10 in the same light, which is ok. I thought it was great, you probably didn't as you say it's been a complete fail on this generation of consoles, so that would include Live 10. You yourself didn't make the whole "country" argument but others did and I took offence to it. All water under the bridge at this point. When all is said and done, I just want to see a great alternative to the 2K series in one of the few sports where competition is still an option in the sports video game world. I thought Live 11 would be that game and I'm sure myself, EAC, Mike Wang and many, many members on here would have loved to see the direction the series WAS headed in last year given a chance to fully mature.

[23]

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

You and I obviously don't view Live 10 in the same light, which is ok. I thought it was great, you probably didn't as you say it's been a complete fail on this generation of consoles, so that would include Live 10. You yourself didn't make the whole "country" argument but others did and I took offence to it. All water under the bridge at this point. When all is said and done, I just want to see a great alternative to the 2K series in one of the few sports where competition is still an option in the sports video game world. I thought Live 11 would be that game and I'm sure myself, EAC, Mike Wang and many, many members on here would have loved to see the direction the series WAS headed in last year given a chance to fully mature.

I liked Live 10

I made a couple of hefty mix videos plus did that massive tweak project by myself. I dont think you were around here alot when Live 10 dropped...especialy pre patch