NBA Live Dev Team News: Mike Wang Leaving

[Andrew]

EA Sports have announced that producer Mike Wang has left the NBA Live Development team to pursue other opportunities. NBA Live's Lead Producer Sean O'Brien has posted a blog entry over at EASports.com thanking Mike Wang for his contributions, as well as hinting at big things for NBA Live 11 which will be revealed in the coming months. We'll be doing our best to cover those developments right here at the NLSC.

Mike Wang's departure raises some questions about the future of the franchise, however my take is that NBA Live 10 has provided the Dev Team with a solid base to work from and the game seems to be on the right track (quibbles with the official patches aside). The community as a whole has been providing the Dev Team with detailed feedback since the release of NBA Live 10 and if the right elements of the game are focused upon, I believe that NBA Live 11 can be another significant step forward in the series and a game we will greatly enjoy. Of course, it still remains to be seen whether or not the PC audience will have an opportunity to enjoy such improvements.

[JaoSming]

wow...

[ataman5]

After live 2000 and 2005 and now live 10, it seems like ea can pull off a good b-ball game in 5 years circle, that news clarified that for me, as we have to wait for another 5 years or more.

[Phreezy P]

Well, there goes the franchise.

[Andrew]

The plot thickens, as it seems Mike Wang is heading back to 2K:

Wang returns to his role as lead gameplay designer of the "NBA 2K" series, and the team is already hard at work on "NBA 2K11."

"I don't want to get too much into specifics for '2K11,' but the focus over here has always been to make the best basketball sim," said Wang. "That's something that the guys over at EA, they don't always have that same focus. They want to make a different kind of game this year."

Thomas agrees: "Over at EA, you have so many levels of management, and you have somebody up there looking at unit sales and how 2K is kicking their asses, so now they want to change things in a great way because they can't afford to sell this many units through a three-year plan or a five-year plan. Here, we're always trying to do the same thing, we're always trying to make the best basketball simulation we can.

"I think EA is going through an identity crisis with their basketball sim."

Before reading that, I would've stuck to what I said before; NBA Live 10 seems to have laid the groundwork for the series to continue onwards and upwards if the right improvements and additions are made...and to be honest, I still believe that holds true. However, if EA truly is going to go in a different direction other than sim, then they might just find NBA Live's sales will continue to plummet. I'm sure there's a fair share of people who will pick up a more arcade-style game but I think they'll continue to alienate a large portion of the fanbase who are hoping for something very different. I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens next.

[HyP82]

Bad news. I guess we don't have to expect that nba live 11 becomes a real sim game.

[Andrew]

Maybe, maybe not. There's two sides to every story, after all.

[JaoSming]

didnt think Wang returning to 2k would warrant a ESPN article...but ok

this isn't as big of a blow to Live as it seems. OS isn't going to like Live as much this year without their boy on the team and that is about it. Hopefully the Dev team will listen to our wishlist and change some of the stupid unchangeable stuff Wang implemented in Live like the automatic PG switch and the changed Shot Button.

I wouldnt be surprised if 2k is giving Wang full creative control now which would be a good thing for 2k since their games are a little too similar year after year.

Anyway "the" community is going to shift hugely back to 2k11 this year and put Live back under the pre-Wang era microscope with little to no expectations and constant bitching after it releases.

I'm just glad this announcement had nothing to do with exclusive rights...

[ThaLiveKing]

If Live doesn't add some Defense in this year's game, I'm going to LOL. Maybe it's because of the patches They Messed Up LOL. EA Wasn't focused on fixing the patches that messed up the game. And I'm sure they were some simple tweaks they could have done to make the game better after the 2nd patch. But EA is too focused on The new and leaving fans with a messed up game with people disappearing

[Andrew]

I'm a bit late getting back to this, but I tend to agree with Jon. I don't want to trivialise Mike's contributions to the game during his tenure there, he knows his stuff and when I met him at the NBA Live 09 Community Event I was impressed that one of the first things he asked Pastapadre and I was what didn't we like about the game and what jumped out at us as needing to be fixed. However, NBA Live 10's gameplay out of the box was a huge improvement in my opinion, with the patches doing the game little favours (defense was much better by default) with fixes going awry and of course, the lock-up issues.

If they can straighten out those issues, get back to where gameplay was in NBA Live 10 before the patches and beef up the game modes (particularly Dynasty Mode and hopefully the return of All-Star Weekend as well) then NBA Live 11 should actually be a really good game.

[The X]

It's a bit concerning for the EA sim basketball titles as they've given up on NCAA Bball '10 & now Live is potentially going to be less sim. Hopefully this is not the case. "If it's in the game, it's in the game" was always the motto that their old games were made off, hopefully this continues.

[Arcane]

I was looking forward to seeing where the game would go in the next 2-3 years and what tech would be in it with Mike Wang working for EA but I guess shit happens.

[Andrew]

It's a bit concerning for the EA sim basketball titles as they've given up on NCAA Bball '10 & now Live is potentially going to be less sim. Hopefully this is not the case. "If it's in the game, it's in the game" was always the motto that their old games were made off, hopefully this continues.

I know what you mean but the more I think about it, the less concerned I am at this point. I don't think they'd go flat out arcade given they've got the NBA Jam license and they signed a five year partnership with Synergy Sports, which is an endeavour that's geared to make the gameplay realistic. We'll have to see how it plays out and what they have in store for NBA Live 11, but at the moment I have to say I'm not too worried.

[JaoSming]

In an article from Kotaku about that investor conference call that happened they posted that the R & D budgets for sports games is severely limited due to the annual releases...yet, 2 bullet points down they mention that NBA Live needs to drastically improve to compete.

[Andrew]

I still think that NBA Live is on the right track and in good position to compete if the right moves are made looking ahead to NBA Live 11, however I think a big problem has become the reputation of the franchise. Let's say that NBA Live 11 is at least a high satisfactory product that is well received by critics and gamers alike; I reckon the sales will still probably suffer slightly from the brand losing face in the last decade and people who've been burned by the game before avoiding it out of principle.