You have to wonder if there is even a point in EA continuing to struggle to produce an NBA title. The 2K franchise, unlike most sports titles, receives universal critical acclaim, making it a must-buy for sports fans every year, and not just because it's the only game in town.

This was a game that looked bad even when the developers were playing it, which is a special thing.Īt this point, “NBA 2K” has had three years in which it had no competition in the NBA space, and it likely would have dominated even if EA had produced something. We knew things were going poorly the game's E3 demo was full of strange bugs, even though it was a contentedly hands-off demo. Tiburon was given two years to completely build a new game from the ground up that could compete with “NBA 2K13,” and it was, quite simply, unable to deliver. “NBA Elite” didn't work out, and then it handed the franchise over to EA Tiburon, which also handles the Madden, NCAA Football and Tiger Woods series.

EA was finding itself unable to compete the way it does in every other space in the sports business, and so it had to do something different. EA Sports did not produce an NBA game in 2011.Īll this upheaval came as the result of the “NBA 2K” series dominating the gaming charts. It previously attempted to rebrand “NBA Live” into “NBA Elite” back in 2010, but canceled that one right before launch, too. In case you missed it, that's the second time in three years that EA Sports has canceled its flagship basketball game, which makes this the second consecutive cancellation in the series. A week or so ago we learned that EA Sports' new NBA game, “NBA Live 13,” which was to be released this month, has been canceled.

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