Summary of the last month
Two weeks ago, Operation Sports—the Sporting News of sports video gaming—noted the total silence from EA Sports about its NBA product since a disastrous E3 appearance. Tuesday, in a conference call with investors, no mention was made of NBA Live releasing in the final three months of 2012. Wednesday, word spread this game might have a fully digital release suggesting a lower price point, and feature set, than a traditional $59.99 retail sports video game. The response from NBA Live spokespersons was that the game "continues to drive toward beta."
Summary of the NBA Live 13 Dev Cycle
EA Sports has aggressively pushed the talking point that NBA Live 13 isn't coming off a three-year development cycle, and that's reasonable. Elite represented an entire year of wasted development. The project was reassigned to a different studio, and the new team had to tear it down and understand what it was working with. That accounted for a lot of 2011.
When I inquired about Live's omission from the publishing calendar, I was told it was a technical decision made by the company's investor relations division. There's still no formal release date assigned to this product
*Release by Oct 30? "At this stage, Yes"*
The game at E3 showed startling deficiencies. Some had an excuse—a bug in the rebounding logic required them to turn off some collisions in that build. OK, but other gaffes had no explanation. For example, I saw an AI-controlled Dwyane Wade running back-and-forth, repeatedly, from the perimeter to the high post while the opposing guard held the ball.
It was enough to make me ask if I was looking at a different build. I was, EA Sports said, but it was a later build than the one shown to me at Portland. Whether that spawned new glitches, who knows. They chalked it up to bad demonstrations
Give credit where it's due. Roundly disparaged as a PR stunt and a rubber stamp, NBA Live's advisory council, a group of gamers convened in multiple expenses-paid trips, has honestly held this game's feet to the fire. After the hands-on in June, they flatly told EA Sports they shouldn't even have brought it to L.A. It's my understanding they're no happier with it today. Rumor, reported by ESPN, is that NBA Live was pulled back from EA's Summer Showcase this past week; the Advisory Council's disapproval likely figured in, though I can't say for sure. A no-show in British Columbia two weeks before may also be because the council wasn't giving a thumbs-up.
One of them played overseas professionally. I heard him counsel an animator on the differences between Derrick Rose's and Kendrick Perkins' jab-step. In my preview, I might have been looking just for signs of life, or examples that the game could deliver on conceptual promises. They were looking for something that behaves like the league they watch every day. They didn't see that, and the fact this was a pre-alpha work in progress was no excuse.
Not a bad write-up on a complicated situation. I wonder if this guy broke any NDAs or not with those examples