'NBA 2K15' Gets 'NBA Live' Dev Team Member
In the wake of all the brouhaha over the league's summer, here's another move in the NBA (although in virtual reality): Scott O'Gallagher has left EA SPORTS and accepted an offer with 2K Sports reported Good Game Bro.
After EA SPORTS hired the former professional basketball player in the summer of 2012 to work on the "NBA Live" development team, Good Game Bro claims it would seem O'Gallagher has left, accepting an offer with 2K Sports.
The report still cannot confirm the position offered but it notes, "we're under the impression that it deals with NBA2K15's gameplay side of development." For evidence, though, the report refers to his Twitter followers, which includes 2K Sports and 2K Games employees.
O'Gallagher has recently worked under the "NBA Live 14" game development team. The title received poor Metacritic rating, says Good Game Bro, despite improving gameplay mechanics in signature dribbling and team-specific defenses.
According to the report the jump to the rival developer had a strange timing since most transfers do not happen mid-cycle. He chose to leave now, while both "NBA Live 15" and "NBA 2K15" are under development.
The reasons for his departure are also currently still being looked into but "Live 14" was considered the weaker of last year's basketball games. "NBA Live 15" will be released in October 7, incidentally the same release date for "NBA 2K15" and it is not clear how much input O'Gallagher had for the game or how much he will bring for "2K15," said Gameranx.
The NBA 2K series is a notch higher than EA SPORTS' "NBA Live" series, said Attack of the Fan Boy. "NBA Live" was not available in the market for a few years after the nearly last minute cancellation of "NBA Elite 11" for consoles and was only revived last year as an Xbox One and PlayStation 4 title.
According to iDigital Times, while "NBA 2K15" is yet to release photos and information on the new features of the game, EA has made the graphics better for "NBA Live 15." The arena lighting was changed, and the jerseys were scanned to have a very similar look to real-life ones, down to the stitching and wrinkles.
As mentioned by Sean O'Brien in an open letter, the team working on the latest installment of "NBA Live" is working hard to make sure that 5-on-5 gameplay and visuals, two areas which gamers did not fancy in "NBA Live 14," get extra attention. "We've been laser-focused on making sure that this isn't the case with NBA Live 15 and I'm really excited with our progress in those two areas," writes O'Brien.