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Interview: EA Sports MMA Live Broadcast
We talk to EA Sports about MMA's fantastic Live Broadcast mode which looks guaranteed to rock the online world.
Written by David Scammell, 15 June 2010
During their E3 press conference last night, EA lifted the lid on EA Sports MMA's Live Broadcast mode, an online mode that looks set to revolutionise the online scene when the game launches this October. The premise is simple: take a spectator mode, add live commentary and pre-fight hype videos, and broadcast the match live to the world. It's just like watching a real fight! After going hands on with the game last month and checking out Live Broadcast for ourselves, we sat down with MMA's Development Director Nick Laing to find out more about the ground-breaking online mode.
GamerZines: Where did the idea for Live Broadcast come from and how does it differ from a standard spectator mode?
Nick Laing, Development Director, EA Sports MMA: When we talk about EA Sports and what we do best, which is bringing that authentic sports experience and the emotion of sport, I think we've done a really good job. One of the things that go hand in hand with that is fame and fortune. Fame comes from people recognising you, and you get a little bit of that online - you know, you'll recognise a gamertag who's kicked your ass before, or you'll see someone's gamerscore that's really high. But it's not like real sports where you've got guys talking about you, communities pumping you up, a fan-bases or spectators; we bring that real world to the video game. A lot of people have wanted something like that. Fortunately we've had the technical horsepower to make it work.
GZ: How do you select who's going to get to play in a Live Broadcast?
NL: One of the ways is by hype videos. Hype videos are great! I can't wait to see the community get their hands on it. But I'll tell you where I want it to go. I want it to be down to the community. This guy's uploading his highlights, his replays, and he's talking on the forums about how he would have fought differently. I want to see those communities asking to see that guy fight. I want to see what happens when this guy who has won 60 fights in a row by submission fights against a guy who has never been submitted. I want to see that come from the community and then EA will act as the event planner. And the process is just like real life. I was overwhelmed at first because I've been involved with this sport for a long time but I have never really thought about the job of a promoter or a planner, so we've got staff like professional broadcasters working on getting this stuff to work. It's been a blast.
GZ: Presumably quitters and disconnects pose a big problem for a feature like this. How do you plan to combat that in Live Broadcast?
NL: We have backup plans. If it's a legitimate disconnect we can just reschedule the fight at the end of the fight card or for another date. We have a lot of telemetry which watches behaviours, and because it's a live event we'll make sure we have replacement fighters.
GZ: Winners are also going to be rewarded with real-world prizes. What sort of prizes are you hoping to offer players?
NL: We showed a year's supply of energy drink in the demo and we have an actual physical belt that we can give out, but this is all in development so I can't really comment on exactly what it's going to be. We have other projects that do real prizes which will be comparable.
GZ: Can you see Live Broadcast being featured in other EA Sports games?
NL: Absolutely, but I want it to be in MMA first. I get phone calls from FIFA..
GZ: An 11 v 11 player match with live commentary in FIFA would be phenomenal.
NL: Yep! (laughs)
GZ: Presumably Live Broadcast is one of the features that will fall into EA Sports' Online Pass bracket?
NL: I don't have details about how it's supposed to work specifically, but I know that all online services will have some sort of payment if you don't buy from new. I would assume that it's going to be worked in but I don't have any details on how it's going to work with this feature.
360Zine Issue 48
For our latest EA MMA coverage, click here to download 360Zine Issue 48 for free.GZ: What are your thoughts on Online Pass? Do you think it's a positive thing for EA Sports?
NL: Do I think it's positive?
GZ: Well though we're yet to see it properly, it's already had its fair share of critics. Do you think there are concerns that EA is opening the door for consumers to seriously consider moving to the competition? Take a game like FIFA for example. A casual gamer on a tight budget who's just looking for a cheap pre-owned football game to play online with their mates may be tempted to buy into PES if it doesn't give them this barrier to entry.
NL: Well if they buy it used it doesn't really affect us at all.
GZ: Surely anything that affects a consumer's buying decision affects you in some way?
NL: To be honest, I work in development, I don't do marketing, but I do know that once it becomes pre-owned it's no longer part of our cycle, for me, anyway. I will say also that this stuff does cost money. This Live Broadcast is not included in the cost of development. It's an ongoing cost. We have professional broadcasters, we've got to do the event planning and host the community management stuff, so it is an ongoing cost.
GZ: You're using a modified version of the Fight Night Round 4 engine, but how much of that has been carried over to MMA. Is it still 60 frames per second and is MMA physics-based like Round 4?
NL: It's still 60 frames but we have a different physics solution than Fight Night, but physics still plays a big part.
GZ: Have you thought about including support for Kinect or PlayStation Move?
NL: No, we don't have any plans for that right now. It comes up in brainstorming but we have no plans for this particular cycle.
GZ: THQ's UFC Undisputed carries all the official licenses. Can you explain how licensing works in MMA?
N: Right now we're looking at about fifty licensed fighters and it's been great so far.
GZ: THQ has got a year on you this gen with UFC. Do you feel a bit like the underdog with MMA?
NL: I don't really feel like we're playing an underdog role here at all. I think there's enough distinction between us where underdog doesn't come into play. Is there competition? Sure, but I think it's really good. One of the things that separates us is that they've done a really good job handling their league. We're taking the global approach. MMA has been around for a long time, especially in places like Japan. We've been real lucky to have a real good set of contacts in Japan, we've got our Japanese set rules and the unified rules, whereas they're limited to just the unified rules as part of their league. We have multiple leagues that we get to deal with that all have different fighting environments, like the cage and the rings which make a big difference in the way that you fight. In a cage the corners are more open so an elusive fighter can move in and out of being cornered, but in a ring you have to be pretty good with your footwork and pretty aware because you can get stuck in that 90 degree corner pretty easily. UFC has only the eight-sided cage to work with and one set of rules, so it's different.
GZ: In that case, would you say you have the better overall package?
NL: Absolutely! (laughs)
EA Sports MMA launches on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on October 19th 2010.
EA MMA coverage available in 360Zine Issue 48 - click here to download it for free!
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