EA Still Working on a Basketball Game, But Won’t Confirm NBA Live

[youvalss]

Quote: Originally Posted by ambizop

its not rocket science to me. If they can make a good game it doesnt matter what the name is. It doesnt matter its ridiculous history.

Their problem isn't making a good game. I loved Live 18 - after roster edits it plays great, with the CPU moving the ball even better than games released in the last few years. Game just needed better physics and and more signature animations.


Their problem is being confident enough to release a game. And I think the history does make a difference. Even when EA released decent games they didn't sell that well, which must be due to the franchise reputation...caused by history.


So even if they create the best game ever seen, there is still a good chance it won't sell well. And EA can only blame themselves for their reputation.

[illwill10]

Quote: Originally Posted by youvalss

Their problem isn't making a good game. I loved Live 18 - after roster edits it plays great, with the CPU moving the ball even better than games released in the last few years. Game just needed better physics and and more signature animations. Their problem is being confident enough to release a game. And I think the history does make a difference. Even when EA released decent games they didn't sell that well, which must be due to the franchise reputation...caused by history. So even if they create the best game ever seen, there is still a good chance it won't sell well. And EA can only blame themselves for their reputation.

I think the confidence part is the issue. They never recovered from the NBA Elite 11 debacle . I think they could make a comeback. They would have needed to do a complete overhaul and start over. For the most part, I enjoyed Live 18 & 19. I still prefer The One over MyCareer mode. Just the structure and concept of the mode was(and still is) better than MyCareer. I didn't think i would like The Street portion, but i actually enjoyed it. The issue was that once the NBA portion came, I immediately lost interest.

I'm assuming that they still have the NBA License since Live Mobile is still active. But I wonder for how much longer. Its hard to imagine that they bringing in a lot of revenue from Live Mobile. 2k signed their 7 yr $1.1B extension in '19. We haven't heard anything about Live. We know that the ESPN license expired. ESPN wants a bigger presence in games, but EA prefer their own broadcast presentation.


Yeah, it isn't likely to sell well. 2k has a stronghold over the market. But, i dont think its strong enough for EA to leave that market. EA Sports has the resources and marketability to garner enough buzz to sell well enough to compete. It's not like a indie company or even Sony trying to bring back The Life from the dead. Even with a Ground up approach, EA wouldn't be starting from scratch per say. EA just has to decide the direction they want to head in. Either try to compete head to head with 2k again or go the Arcade route and stay in their own lane. I think if they go the NBA Street route, that would do as well as it did back in the day.

Even though we haven’t heard anything in 3 years and the developers have been reallocated elsewhere, I'm not going to say the series is dead until EA makes it official. Only thing I wish is that EA didn't mandate all their games to use the Frostbite engine. I wish they had a separate engine for their sports game or use another engine like Unreal or something else.

[Playmakers]

I almost forgot the NBA Live forums existed here.

I remember this forum used to have mad traffic on a daily basis.

Then EA decided they were going to tear down what was once a great series. They refused to listen to quality feedback, kept trotting out the same broken player movement and animations.

This all started with NBA Live 07 and yes they have made a few serviceable games but for the most part they have failed over these last 10-15 years.

If they make a comeback attempt I'm guessing it'll be more of the arcade style of play because I just can't see them putting in the quality time to produce a real NBA SIM.

But I would love to be proven wrong.

[youvalss]

Good to see you here PM, I've been doing some reading of old threads with your edits. Always experimenting and finding answers.
I have done massive edits to Live 18 rosters, and with sliders the game plays great. CPU moves the ball unbelievably great, and stats are on point. I just wish it had Live 16's physics with some improvements, but I think physics regressed after 16.
Also think 16's player models are the best.

[Playmakers]

Quote: Originally Posted by youvalss

Good to see you here PM, I've been doing some reading of old threads with your edits. Always experimenting and finding answers. I have done massive edits to Live 18 rosters, and with sliders the game plays great. CPU moves the ball unbelievably great, and stats are on point. I just wish it had Live 16's physics with some improvements, but I think physics regressed after 16. Also think 16's player models are the best.

Interesting

You got any videos of your gameplay after these edits and sliders?

I never purchased 16 but I did grab 18 and ended up spending most of my time believe it or not with the WNBA teams.

I messed around a little bit with Live 19 on Pro Level and it surprisingly played well.

But at the end of day I shelved each one of those games after like a few weeks and just went back to NBA 2K.

I used to have the passion and drive to edit NBA Live but then when you play 2K (although not perfect) it just does so many things better than Live out of the box and the Classic teams are awesome making Live even more irrelevant to me.

Maybe they (EA) decide that College B-Ball could their best opportunity right now

[youvalss]

Yes, I uploaded 5 gameplay videos of my Franchise game vs the Spurs. Check out the Live 18 video thread below!