EA responds to NBA Live 14 flop; vows to make improvements

So last week NBA Live 14 released, marking the return of EA's eagerly anticipated basketball franchise. Unfortunately, the return wasn't exactly what EA had envisioned, as the game received sub-par reviews from just about everyone. Recognizing the disappointment, NBA Live 14 executive producer Sean O'Brien posted a letter to fans, apologizing for the product and vowing to fix it.

"I’m not going to lie; it’s been a rough week. As you can imagine, this isn’t exactly the NBA LIVE comeback story we were hoping for this year," he said.

"We hear loud and clear that some of you are disappointed in various aspects of NBA LIVE 14, and I’m sorry if the game doesn’t live up to your expectations. Looking at your feedback, we have laid out a plan to make NBA LIVE 14 a better game as quickly as we can."

EA is looking to address a number of issues, including the game being too difficult to learn. EA is working on improving the way the game teaches the controls and on-boards new users, as well as conducting a series of live streams to teach the necessary gameplay skills. Additionally, a number of guides — Controller Guide, Perfecting Your Style and Levels of the Dribble — have been posted on the NBA Live blog, which you can check out.

O'Brien also promised improvements with graphics and animations are also in development and should be improved within the "coming weeks and months."

"A goal from the start was to stay relevant to the ongoing NBA season and evolve your gaming experience. We’ve been hearing that you love LIVE Season, and many of you are having a lot of fun with BIG Moments," O'Brien said. "We’re really glad to hear you’re enjoying the mode, and rest assured we will continue updating LIVE Season with new BIG Moments and NBA Rewind games every single day of the season. We’ve also gotten a lot of great feedback on LIVE Ultimate Team, and we’ve still got some big announcements and major additions coming down the road, so stick around for that.

"Let me wrap up with this; for those of you who have supported us throughout this development cycle and continue to have our backs now, thank you. We’ve got a lot of work to do; I’ve got a lot of work to do. It started 12 months ago, and continues until we build this franchise bigger and better than it ever was," O'Brien concluded. "This is just the first chapter in the NBA LIVE comeback story."