NYC Event Doomed Live 16

[Izzy Snow]

Hey everyone. I know I'm not too active on here. I lurk from time to time. Andrew knows I'm most vocal on Twitter and on Twitch. I'm sure Andrew has already seen this from one of my many tweets, but if we can pinpoint when this game started its downfall, it was during that NYC Event. Now the event itself was cool and generated a lot of buzz with people wanting to be a part of it, but giving away copies of the game to people that aren't even TRUE fans of the series, was a fatal mistake for Live 16 because once Shacknews and others that were in that NYC Event started streaming the game, not knowing how to play the game properly because most of them play 2K, I mean it was just frustrating seeing it. I could barely stomach watching Shacknews playing. So whoever at EA decided it was a good idea to give what the devs knew was an unfinished game with 2D avatars looking like PS2 graphics to people who didn't even appreciate the game like any one of us in this forum or just in the small Live community all together would have, YOU are the reason why at the very least, the sales are as bad as reported.

Yes I know the game is still what it is which is an average basketball game, gameplay wise. The graphics, aside from missing scans are really good. I don't know if any of you saw and/or heard my rant that I did on Twitch. Trust me, this was hard for me also after listening to it so I can't even imagine how the devs took it. I didn't really want to do it, but after hearing about the sales, there was nothing I can say that would hurt the sales even more, and in my defense, my rant pointed out a lot of issues in the game. Real issues that I experienced from over 100 hours I've already logged into the game. Anyway, most of the devs I talk to already heard the rant but if any of you want to listen and/or watch, here's the link to it. It's a Twitch highlight so I get nothing out of this. I'm not here to promote. Just here to share my frustration over a series I fight so hard for.

http://www.twitch.tv/nbalivestreamteam/v/21665998

[TBM]

The idea that the game sold poorly due to any other reason than Live 15 being such a letdown is a fallacy to me. You can talk about how the streams weren't great, how Pro AM isn't what people want, but at the end of the day, all of that is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Could those things hurt sales slightly? Of course. But not to this degree. People have just given up on the series. You can patch Live 16 and make it the best basketball game of all time, and since nobody plays it, nobody will buy Live 17 anyway. The only way Live 17 will have a chance to succeed is if the gameplay is significantly improved. Adding editable rosters is nice, making Rising Star more deep and robust is nice, making dynasty better is cool, but none of that is going to do shit to help sales. Gameplay and animations need to be completely fixed before any change will happen with sales. Nobody cares about how deep your Rising Star mode is if the gameplay, while people will say is improved, compared to 2K, is just not good. You need to give people a reason to play Live over 2K, and there is no reason at all to do so right now.

Another thing is promotion. Other than that E3 trailer, I didn't see a single trailer except for the Pro AM one. There might have been one, but I didn't see it, so what are the chances most other people did? This game really had no marketing.

[Andrew]

The idea that the game sold poorly due to any other reason than Live 15 being such a letdown is a fallacy to me.

I don't know about that, there was some positive buzz coming out of E3 and throughout the preview season. I think it's fair to say that it was one of the factors, a turning point in the level of hype and interest.

That's not to say NBA Live 16 doesn't have issues, as it most certainly does. Izzy pointed that out in his post, and has been very clear about that in his videos, too. But even great games can look terrible when they're badly played. Just go back and look what people were saying about NBA 2K16 when gameplay videos were leaking. With a few exceptions, the people playing them were casual basketball gamers at best, and it didn't show the game at its best. And that's NBA 2K16, a very high quality basketball game, with or without a comparison to NBA Live 16.

It's not just a case of the streamers making the game look bad and there not being any other problems, but Izzy isn't saying that. Again, it's fair to say that it didn't help though, that it detracted from the hype and anticipation.

[Izzy Snow]

The idea that the game sold poorly due to any other reason than Live 15 being such a letdown is a fallacy to me.

I don't know about that, there was some positive buzz coming out of E3 and throughout the preview season. I think it's fair to say that it was one of the factors, a turning point in the level of hype and interest.

That's not to say NBA Live 16 doesn't have issues, as it most certainly does. Izzy pointed that out in his post, and has been very clear about that in his videos, too. But even great games can look terrible when they're badly played. Just go back and look what people were saying about NBA 2K16 when gameplay videos were leaking. With a few exceptions, the people playing them were casual basketball gamers at best, and it didn't show the game at its best. And that's NBA 2K16, a very high quality basketball game, with or without a comparison to NBA Live 16.

It's not just a case of the streamers making the game look bad and there not being any other problems, but Izzy isn't saying that. Again, it's fair to say that it didn't help though, that it detracted from the hype and anticipation.

Thank you. It was the turning point. Remember how much hype the game was getting after they announced Pro-Am. I remember seeing a lot of 2K players actually excited for Live 16. There really was a buzz that was killed after the NYC event because of those damn 2D avatars and poor streams. The game can definitely look better when played by people that know how to play. The proof is in our few vids on YT and our streams because the Stream Team knows how to play the game and we generally have people come in there and say "this game actually looks pretty good" or one person said on our YT channel that "we make the game look better than most YouTubers".

I think we all can agree with TBM though that this game just doesn't have the proper marketing and that could be because of their budget. Also, again, I can't imagine how much grief the person or people at EA who made the decision to give the game away at that NYC event are getting.

[Andrew]

It's a double-edged sword. You're obviously getting the game in more people's hands when you do that, but that's also money that you're not making. And again, the game is being given to more casual basketball gamers who can even make the best releases from 2K look sloppy, because they don't really know what they're doing and just want to run it in for a dunk every time.

[Patr1ck]

Basically, I think EA has dug themselves such a hole that any imperfection or oversight will be exploited by social media. For EA Sports to turn the NBA Live franchise around, they have to blow our socks off. I'm having quite a fun time with Pro-Am, myself. I haven't even played more than 1 offline single player game(I don't count single-player pro-am, though).

I think multiple things contributed to the low sales. Early streams and videos always make games look bad as players are trying to learn how to play while they record. Remember Elite 11 had several events with builds before the demo dropped, and there weren't many positive impressions. Also, I would like to see you stream that game if you have the full version.

I would like to see how many people downloaded the demo, versus how many bought the full game.

I'm 7 minutes through your "rant" and I have yet to hear you speak this real on any stream or youtube video. Maybe you were frustrated or fed up or buzzed or something, but it has been straight talk so far, so major props for that. I'm T_R_l_C_K on twitch, btw. I'm always catching you and grod streaming. A few times I have seen Prime, and he seems to complain about the same things that I do.

You are right about the commentary. It needs smaller phrases to link up the "results" that the commentary waits for to kick in. There is some "oomph" missing from the atmosphere between the commentary and the crowd atmosphere.

You are spot on with the post game. They should pay someone like Patrick Ewing or Olajuwon to show them how it's done close to the basket, which ties in with your point about EA putting money into the development.

[Andrew]

Basically, I think EA has dug themselves such a hole that any imperfection or oversight will be exploited by social media.

I think the free throw glitch in the demo is a good example of that. A similar thing happened in NBA 2K16, and there's a clip of it, but there didn't seem to be nearly as much talk about it. The thing is, 2K has established enough goodwill with the overall product that they may not completely get a pass on it, but it's ultimately seen as a weird, rare glitch in an otherwise great game. When you're still trying to get to where you want to be, as Live is, stuff like that is seen as yet another thing that's wrong with the game.

I do think there is a vocal contingent of gamers who want to see Live fail and take delight in its shortcomings, which makes it fashionable to pile on bugs like that. At the end of the day though, results and reputation do matter. If you're getting a lot of things right, you're more easily forgiven for getting something wrong. If the hits-to-misses ratio is less favourable, then every miss is going to seem like a bigger deal. 2K is getting a lot of things right, so a rare glitch is allowed to slide. Conversely, Live is not living up to a lot of people's expectations, so it can't get away with such a weird glitch, even if it doesn't happen every time. The only way they can get that goodwill is to lift their game, so that like 2K, the response to such bugs is "Yeah it's kinda bad that happened even once, but the rest of the game is great".

[Izzy Snow]

Basically, I think EA has dug themselves such a hole that any imperfection or oversight will be exploited by social media. For EA Sports to turn the NBA Live franchise around, they have to blow our socks off. I'm having quite a fun time with Pro-Am, myself. I haven't even played more than 1 offline single player game(I don't count single-player pro-am, though).

I think multiple things contributed to the low sales. Early streams and videos always make games look bad as players are trying to learn how to play while they record. Remember Elite 11 had several events with builds before the demo dropped, and there weren't many positive impressions. Also, I would like to see you stream that game if you have the full version.

I would like to see how many people downloaded the demo, versus how many bought the full game.

I'm 7 minutes through your "rant" and I have yet to hear you speak this real on any stream or youtube video. Maybe you were frustrated or fed up or buzzed or something, but it has been straight talk so far, so major props for that. I'm T_R_l_C_K on twitch, btw. I'm always catching you and grod streaming. A few times I have seen Prime, and he seems to complain about the same things that I do.

You are right about the commentary. It needs smaller phrases to link up the "results" that the commentary waits for to kick in. There is some "oomph" missing from the atmosphere between the commentary and the crowd atmosphere.

You are spot on with the post game. They should pay someone like Patrick Ewing or Olajuwon to show them how it's done close to the basket, which ties in with your point about EA putting money into the development.

Hey T_R_l_C_K wuddup bro I recognize this name on our channel so thanks for the support. Honestly, the rant was a result of 2 weeks of bottled up frustration with the games' issues. Throughout that time, I've been giving ideas, pointing out glitches and issues with the game through "unlisted" YouTube vids, etc. with a dev. Told them I'd hold back on writing a review because I didn't wanna hurt the game anymore than it already was on its own. Well, after the 8K sold report, I just figured to let all the pent up frustrations go because I felt EA needed it. Look what happened after that. Was it a coincidence that Flight started speaking up? Other gamechangers like Tico even started voicing their frustrations on Twitter. I don't think it was a coincidence. I'll gladly take responsibility for sparking up what was needed to be done. This past week, I was doing this diary study survey for EA and trust me guys, I have not held back. I gave a lot of feedback, some positive, mostly negative but of course for the sake of making the game better. I even shared my rant video to the EA rep that's been sending us the daily surveys and he said he liked it and that others in the studio like Sean saw it. We all gotta speak up. I hate settling. The excuses by EA has got to stop. We're in year 3, next year, I fully expect to see a major haul in the gameplay department. If not, then I guess I'll continue to be a voice.

As for Elite 11, I only have the demo. I'm tempted to get a modded PS3 and install that game from online as I heard that's really the only way you can get it.

[Izzy Snow]

Basically, I think EA has dug themselves such a hole that any imperfection or oversight will be exploited by social media.

I think the free throw glitch in the demo is a good example of that. A similar thing happened in NBA 2K16, and there's a clip of it, but there didn't seem to be nearly as much talk about it. The thing is, 2K has established enough goodwill with the overall product that they may not completely get a pass on it, but it's ultimately seen as a weird, rare glitch in an otherwise great game. When you're still trying to get to where you want to be, as Live is, stuff like that is seen as yet another thing that's wrong with the game.

I do think there is a vocal contingent of gamers who want to see Live fail and take delight in its shortcomings, which makes it fashionable to pile on bugs like that. At the end of the day though, results and reputation do matter. If you're getting a lot of things right, you're more easily forgiven for getting something wrong. If the hits-to-misses ratio is less favourable, then every miss is going to seem like a bigger deal. 2K is getting a lot of things right, so a rare glitch is allowed to slide. Conversely, Live is not living up to a lot of people's expectations, so it can't get away with such a weird glitch, even if it doesn't happen every time. The only way they can get that goodwill is to lift their game, so that like 2K, the response to such bugs is "Yeah it's kinda bad that happened even once, but the rest of the game is great".

Nailed it. As I always said, as long as the glitches aren't game breaking, I'm ok with it. But a Rising Star freezing glitch and poor coach logic, no fatigue in online H2H, for a game trying to rebuild its fanbase and the fanbase trust, it can't afford these type of legacy issues.

[[Q]]

Yeah I agree EA needs to knock your socks off or else people will continue to buy 2k and ignore Live.

2k sells games on their name alone now, which is a luxury that Live used to have but no longer do

[Andrew]

2k sells games on their name alone now, which is a luxury that Live used to have but no longer do

To put it in perspective, NBA Live continued to outsell NBA 2K until NBA Live 09/NBA 2K9, and the last Live game that had been really good up until that point was NBA Live 06 on PC/PS2.

[deihatein]

2k sells games on their name alone now, which is a luxury that Live used to have but no longer do

Probably have something to do with EA reputation too as of late.

To put it in perspective, NBA Live continued to outsell NBA 2K until NBA Live 09/NBA 2K9, and the last Live game that had been really good up until that point was NBA Live 06 on PC/PS2.

Nah that honor goes to Live 03

[Andrew]

NBA Live 2004 through 06 were really good sim-oriented games for their time. NBA Live 2003 did some good things, including the introduction of right stick dribbling, but it was still skewed too much toward arcade-style play, with its overall pace, blocks that rocketed to the opposite baseline, and the silly courtside comedy cutscenes. But to each their own.

[deihatein]

NBA Live 2004 through 06 were really good sim-oriented games for their time. NBA Live 2003 did some good things, including the introduction of right stick dribbling, but it was still skewed too much toward arcade-style play, with its overall pace, blocks that rocketed to the opposite baseline, and the silly courtside comedy cutscenes. But to each their own.

Why u gotta be hatin Andrew?

[Andrew]

#SimNation