Backbreaker News Post

Backbreaker Developer: "Very Unlikely That We Will Revisit Full-On Football Again"

03:13 PM - October 7, 2011 by Steve_OS

Late Thursday night, a user on the Backbreaker forums posted a correspondence via private messaging with the head developer of the Backbreaker franchise, Todd Gibbs:

Quote:


	Unfortunately, and unofficially, it is very unlikely that we will revisit BB/full-on football again. The company has changed direction and is currently not looking at console game. I'll try to get the guys to do something more official and post on the forum. Thanks for all your support over the years, its been fun Todd

As of Friday morning, the official Backbreaker forums are down for maintenance, but the original post can still be seen via Google's cache feature.

If this is in fact the end of Backbreaker on consoles, at least the series retired a winner, with June's stellar Backbreaker: Vengeance, still available on Xbox Live Arcade, and on Playstation 3 in the PAL region.

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Member Comments

# 21 Klue516 @ 12/07/11 09:23 PM

lol BB, bye-bye.

# 22 LingeringRegime @ 12/07/11 10:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wEEman33


	I guess this is officially "The End," then, with the Backbreaker forums shutting down. I don't get why they wouldn't at least continue putting their games on XBLA. Backbreaker: Vengeance actually outsold Tecmo Super Bowl: Throwback on XBLA: http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Ga...by=BestSelling BBV is ranked 226 out of 421 games on the XBLA sales charts.

Sad to see BB being shelved.

But the world will be a better place with the BB Forums being shut down.

# 23 dcal @ 12/08/11 07:03 AM

Yeah, it is amazing how they seem to be disavowing anything to do with Backbreaker (full football). I sent them an e-mail two weeks ago to see if they could give me a yes or no answer to a question. I asked them if Euphoria was licensed by a 3rd party developer that intends to make an American Football game.

I knew I would not get an answer but why not try? I heard nothing.

Maybe anyone interested in a Euphoria based football game should send them a similar e-mail, maybe someone will get lucky and get a response. I just want to know if something is in the works, the tech would work in the right hands.

# 24 dp68 @ 12/13/11 10:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chicagopax


	It didn't even feel like football, football logic didn't work and it was all based around arcade gameplay.

Which pretty much sums up the Madden experience every season imo.

# 25 mestevo @ 12/15/11 11:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dp68


	Which pretty much sums up the Madden experience every season imo.

If you think that about Madden then surely you think Backbreaker is exponentially worse.

# 26 Phobia @ 12/15/11 12:29 PM

Lets be honest. If EA purchased this tech and implemented it with their animation systems. This physic based system could fix much of our complaints with madden such as Poor O-line vs D-line interactions.

# 27 mestevo @ 12/17/11 10:01 PM

I just don't see the love affair, anyone with the money to make a football game (licensing commitment, development costs, etc) are probably just going to build something in-house rather than give Natural Motion a cut.

We won't see the kind of thing that you describe on current gen consoles, at some point next gen when there's more overhead to do it right you'll see EA try and make the product you describe.

# 28 bkrich83 @ 12/17/11 11:38 PM

Who's really surprised? It was blatantly obvious the first release was designed to be nothing more than a tech demo..

# 29 dcal @ 12/18/11 12:44 PM

You are probably right about it being a Tech Demo. I am surprised that no other Developer has bought into the Euphoria Engine for a football title though. That being said, there may be 3rd party titles in the works that we don't know about yet......hopefully.

# 30 YanksFan4Life @ 01/18/12 12:17 AM

Hopefully 505 Games reconsiders this decision for the Next-Gen consoles. There is so much more potential with this franchise on consoles.

# 31 mestevo @ 01/18/12 01:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by YanksFan4Life


	Hopefully 505 Games reconsiders this decision for the Next-Gen consoles. There is so much more potential with this franchise on consoles.

Next gen consoles means fewer people to sell their title to as the platforms develop, the current gen wasn't holding back Backbreaker. If they were to continue the franchise they'd do it now.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

# 32 ManiacMatt1782 @ 01/18/12 08:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chicagopax


	How is it EA's fault that a terrible football game failed? It didn't even feel like football, football logic didn't work and it was all based around arcade gameplay. It wasn't about to compete with Madden, maybe Blitz the League, or the orginal blitzes, but it was never a sim game. Yeah it had a lot of potential but they didn't put the effort and let it collapse. Which is sad because a physics based football game that actually came out good would be beautiful.

There is only so much money and resources a publisher will give to a developer for a football game without the NFL license. Case in point, look at all pro football, do you believe if they had the NFL license, that they would have released a game without a franchise mode? Or would they have released such a bare bones game? Money talks, and unfortunately without the NFL, no company is gonna give any developer the proper capital and resources to make a proper football game. It's unfortunate for us consumers, but it's pretty foolish to even try to make a football game to compete with the juggarnaut that is the NFL. Market analysts are right, most people won't touch anything that's not the NFL or NCAA when it comes to football. Publishers know this, so they invest the bare minimum in a developer attempting such a foolish task.

# 33 dcal @ 01/22/12 07:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ManiacMatt1782


	There is only so much money and resources a publisher will give to a developer for a football game without the NFL license. Case in point, look at all pro football, do you believe if they had the NFL license, that they would have released a game without a franchise mode? Or would they have released such a bare bones game? Money talks, and unfortunately without the NFL, no company is gonna give any developer the proper capital and resources to make a proper football game. It's unfortunate for us consumers, but it's pretty foolish to even try to make a football game to compete with the juggarnaut that is the NFL. Market analysts are right, most people won't touch anything that's not the NFL or NCAA when it comes to football. Publishers know this, so they invest the bare minimum in a developer attempting such a foolish task.

You bring up a very good point. It is the perfect recipe for one and done football titles. Not much funding so only one shot to get it right. The dissapointing thing about Natural Motion(Backbreaker) is they could have made it work because they have recources to fall back on and a point to prove with their proprietary Euphoria technology. They just quit, took their virtual ball and went home.

# 34 dcal @ 01/22/12 07:53 AM

One more thing to add about Natural Motions bail out of full on football. Even non Backbreaker fans should be a little miffed about this. NM was supposed to lead the charge into physics based football, something that is LONG overdue. Instead, they set physics based football back years because now the perception is it really did not work and we need to stick to canned animations.

They laid an amazing foundation to be built upon(remember it was the FIRST attempt, not the 25th edition of the game) and threw it away to focus on My Little Pony games. My 20 years of gaming have never witnessed a bigger fail......not because Backbreaker did not catch on, but because Natural Motion completely failed to realize ALL were waiting to see how the next edition would turn out and what improvements would be made.

Sorry for the rant this early in the morning guys, I just had my 3rd cup of coffee and I am charged up for Championship football today.

# 35 mestevo @ 01/22/12 02:40 PM

I'm not sure they even did motion capture for BB as evidenced by their running animation.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

# 36 jyoung @ 01/22/12 02:50 PM

The running animations (and all other animations, really) were massively improved from the first console game to the XBLA release of Backbreaker: Vengeance.

I think only the juke move animation still looks weird in Vengeance. All the other special moves look really good.

I especially love the spin move. It's so awesome when a defender grabs a hold of you and you actually spin out of his arms and the defender falls down while still trying to hold onto you.

# 37 LionsFanNJ @ 01/22/12 03:11 PM

All sports games are going to need motion capture animations in some form. They only way RTP will be a success, especially in football is if they blend the usage with traditional "canned" animations. Backbreaker had trouble when Euphoria wasn't in play.

# 38 dcal @ 01/24/12 06:50 AM

It is diffictult to get rid of mo cap completetly, I agree. For me the use of physics in the most important aspects of the game is crucial. Collisions in a football game being the best example.

# 39 dcal @ 01/25/12 07:47 PM

The thing I like the most about Backbreaker aside from the Physics - the Custom Team editor. Here is a Miracle on Ice tribute video I made:
http://

# 40 jyoung @ 06/15/12 02:15 PM

Well, here is Natural Motion's newest title:

It's basically a virtual pet type game.

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Backbreaker Developer: "Very Unlikely That We Will Revisit Full-On Football Again"