by Andrew on Sat Apr 01, 2017 11:08 pm
Clearing up a few things first of all...
This thread probably could've gone in either section - I'll leave it here for the moment - but either way, it's not going to get you banned. If posting a thread criticising NBA Live was going to result in a ban, it wouldn't matter where you posted it, but of course, it's not against the rules. Even before we expanded beyond being just an NBA Live fansite, criticising NBA Live was not against the rules. Now, if someone was to insist on spamming an opinion throughout the Forum, being nasty to people who held opposing views, derailing topics while being a broken record in the process, and making posts in Wishlist threads and other feedback areas that are in no way constructive, then that would be an issue. However, the issue there would be with how they're expressing their opinions, using the facilities, and treating their fellow members, rather than the opinion itself. Again, that's not an issue here, so no worries.
Also, 2K developers definitely do not work on NBA Live, voluntarily or otherwise. Mike Wang did briefly leave Visual Concepts for EA Sports and worked on both NBA Live 09 and NBA Live 10, but returned to Visual Concepts when the direction changed for NBA Elite 11. Neither he nor anyone else has worked on NBA Live while also working on NBA 2K. More recently, Scott O'Gallagher came to be employed by EA after being part of an NBA Live community initiative, then moved on to Visual Concepts some time in 2014.
One last thing to confirm, NBA Live 14 does indeed run on a different engine to NBA Live 10, though some assets have obviously been reused from earlier games. NBA Elite 11 was also starting over and going in a new direction. It's been one of the things that has set NBA Live back: changing directions and starting over so many times.
With that out of the way, let's get to NBA Live as an alternative and competitor.
There was a time when NBA Live was the leading brand - in sales, and in quality - when it came to basketball sims. The series is yet to reach the heights of realism that certain NBA 2K games have achieved, but there are games in the NBA Live series that were, in their day, very good and even great basketball games. Some of them have an impressive amount of realism, given the level of tech at the time. Others certainly fell short of expectations, and tried things that didn't pan out. However, it was consistently the best all-around NBA game through the 90s and turn of the millennium, and it's fair to say that up until NBA Live 06 and NBA 2K6 on the PlayStation 2 (which was also the version that EA ported to the PC), things were fairly competitive. Both games had things they did better than the other, and oddly enough given what's happened in the following generations, I'd say at the time, NBA Live's animations were actually better.
From a critical aspect, both from professional reviewers and gamers alike, NBA Live both held its own and was in some ways superior through to the 2006 season; at least the PS2/PC version. It continued to sell more copies than 2K for a couple more iterations after that, with NBA 2K9 being the first game to best NBA Live in sales as well as reception. NBA Live had started from scratch when they made the leap to the Xbox 360 with NBA Live 06, which was bare-bones compared to the PC/PS2 version and had a few other problems. From there, as I said earlier, NBA Live has changed direction and started from scratch a few too many times, which has set it back.
In terms of NBA Live doing things better than NBA 2K, there were more examples when the games were more comparable in quality, but there are a few things that tend to stand out. The approach to dribbling controls is a common one; it's certainly the reason it took me a while to get into the NBA 2K series, having such a long history with NBA Live. NBA Live 16 uses two different in-game currencies for player upgrades and player gear, neither of which are connected to microtransactions; that's a really good, user-friendly idea. BIG Moments and Dynamic Season are innovative concepts. EA's partnership with Synergy Sports was a revolutionary concept for player ratings and performance. Back in the day, All-Star Weekend was fantastic.
NBA Live has made some mistakes which have set it back, but amid a mixture of troubled and promising releases, there have been some really good features and concepts that have a lot of potential, which some gamers definitely prefer to approaches taken by 2K. There's nostalgia for a time when the brand was a lot stronger, the games much better. There's a desire to see the potential of those good ideas realised, so that there can be two games on the market. It would give gamers two viable choices, and if both EA and 2K are doing good things, they can keep each other in check. Without serious competition, 2K has done some things in recent years that don't necessarily create a lot of goodwill with us basketball gamers.
If you're a younger gamer who didn't grow up with NBA Live and experience it when the series was in much better shape, you probably only know it as the series that's had cancelled games, and titles that haven't lived up to expectations. In that case, your view is going to be different from an older gamer who does have some fond memories of better times for the NBA Live series, and feels that competition is good for the genre. Of course, I think that even if you're happy with 2K and don't want to have anything to do with Live, you should probably still want Live to do well. Again, it would keep 2K honest in some of the design choices they've made (ie. ones related to microtransactions), and competition would drive both products to be better. We can all ultimately vote with our wallets, and buy the brand that satisfies us the most. Or, if both games are good, invest in them both, for the differing experiences they provide in their modes and whatnot. For all of us, that choice is at our discretion.
When you consider some of the threads here expressing dissatisfaction and exasperation with NBA 2K, and the legacy issues that are still present in NBA 2K17, there's definitely room for another game on the market...maybe more, if other developers can throw their hat into the ring at some point. As much as I've become a fan of NBA 2K and have had a lot of fun with the games, I still want to see NBA Live succeed; not just for nostalgic reasons, but there are things I like better in NBA Live, and again, I firmly believe having competition will benefit the basketball gaming community in the long run. Here's hoping both EA and 2K can deliver in the future.