NBA Live 13 Gets Canceled

This wasn’t supposed to be NBA Elite all over again. With the extra year off, EA was supposed to return to basketball glory with NBA Live 13. Heck, NBA was even planning on making the offer sweeter by making it a cheaper downloadable game. So much for all of that, as EA just announced that NBA Live 13 has been officially canceled.

On one hand, I applaud EA’s commitment to quality. It is a bold move to now can two fully-produced games before launch, which must have cost them millions of dollars. However, it can’t be good for business to not have a basketball offering three years in a row, as your competitor is owning all of the market share with the best (and only) product in the category. Would it make more business sense to at least have something on the shelf to get any sort of return on investment? Or is the EA Sports brand worth scrapping three years, and two basketball games for?

If EA still has plans to come back in 2013, they’ve only dug themselves an even larger hole than where they were. I’m really curious to see if EA can ever return to glory on this front, or if they’ve damaged their basketball offering for good.

NBA Live 13 will be Cancelled

A message was posted online by Andrew Wilson, the Executive Vice President of EA SPORTS . Even though the 13th game has been cancelled, they will continue to make the 14th game.
“After a lot of consideration, we have made the decision to not launch NBA Live 13. I’d like to give you a bit of perspective.
When we started the process of bringing back NBA Live, we knew it was going to be a long journey. We started by moving the game to a new studio. We brought in some of the best new technology that has helped fuel innovation in our other games. We launched an even deeper level of engagement with our community to gather more feedback directly from fans. And we built a whole new development team to bring it all to life. We felt like we were on the right path.
We also made a commitment to deliver a high quality experience — this is what our fans expect and what we demand of ourselves at EA SPORTS. But making great games is not easy, and we’re just not there yet on NBA Live 13. Having continued to look at the game over the past few days, it’s clear that we won’t be ready in October. And rather than launch midway through the season, we’re going to sit out the full year and stay focused on making next year’s game great. This decision puts us on the right track for success well into the future in a rapidly changing industry.
I’m disappointed that we have not yet met our high expectations with NBA Live, but I remain motivated about where we’re going. We’re committed to delivering new innovation in online, and our progress in the visual presentation of the game continues to take big strides. We also know that a great game starts with great gameplay, and this remains a huge priority for us.