Gaming Friday: Music and Gaming - Now and What's next?

I have to admit it, this is another week where gaming got me thinking about what could be coming next. Music.

Music is such a part of the basketball experience (or the sports experience in general) and we've not nearly gone where we could go in the world of gaming. For now, you have the ability to drop your own music and listen to it while playing or use the gaming soundtrack. And gaming soundtracks really haven't been incredibly impressive thus far.

EA Sports announced this week the new soundtracks that will power NBA Live 10 and Madden 10. On this site, you're able to sample what's coming. The Madden soundtrack is pretty heavy - a mix of rock and rap that will amp you up including Rage, Kid Rock, and the Beastie Boys. NBA Live goes more in the Hip Hop zone - De La Soul, Matt & Kim, B.o.B., among others. Listen here.

Many things to take out of this but here are my top 3.

1. Music is more important than ever, and the mixes that have been created are very true to the sports. You definitely take a listen to the soundtracks and feel like you are in a Hoops world or a Football world. Hopefully the gameplay will also feel like the sport!

2. Bringing music to the community of gamers makes sense. But there's more that can be done here (foreshadowing alert!)

3. Madden and NBA Live are being connected more closely. These releases were together. That means that, simply, the thinking in one game is affecting the other, which is a good thing. I think it shows us things will be changing more quickly.

Where can this go?

I think one space is if you look at what happened with NCAA Football 10 and their Team Builder feature. Create a team, offer it up for download, let others play with or rate your squad. In music, let a DJ or fan (or both) mix music and offer it for download.

Then, keep this all game relevant. Connect this to iTunes, and have built in features that allow you to use different tracks at different times. For example, on a BIG run, when a player fouls out, post game, warmups, training... basically anywhere the game should feel a little different should be powered by gaming.

I'm excited to see this step. It's simple - not an overwhelming number of tracks. But it is a symbol that games are going to start feeling more natural.

NBA Live 10: Real time Gaming is ready for Real time Energy

So I saw this trailer today and noticed a couple things -- naturally it is pretty sweet to see a little more about this year's NBA Live 10 game, including pretty solid soundtracks and game animations. (Nice LeBron Chalk introduction)

But what really got me thinking was seeing Shaq in a Cleveland uniform and Vince in an Orlando uniform.

Here's the question. Last night we saw that the Blazers had inked Andre Miller to a contract to run the point (link here). There's a LOT of point-counter point on if this is a good move for Portland. Andre isn't known for outside shooting or D. But he did have a ridiculous Assist-to-TO ratio and he is known for dropping the ball right into position for teammates to succeed. He has NEVER played alongside a 20 point scorer in his NBA career. And he just might be the vet Portland needs to get over the hump. Who's right? I think we all love to read this, debate it, but there's just a lot of opinion out there without much substance.

This is EA's sweet spot. What's the new Blazers Dynamic DNA? And, just as important, where is the Blazers NBA Live 10 highlight reel that shows their new PG? This is how gaming needs to evolve, if it wants to break the next level. The game will be able to showcase a new Portland mix. But can the marketing catch up?

This is what Madden did so well in the NFL Draft (link here) -- quickly give us a glimpse of what players look like in their new teams. And the summer is that time in the NBA. EA has the pieces in place to do this. And they need to start ramping up trade and free agency coverage in real time. No one else has highlights of Andre Miller in a Portland uniform. Bring this home!

Gaming Friday: What's Ed O'Bannon have against Gaming?

I have to admit it was a bit surprising to see this article up on ESPN about Ed O'Bannon. Essentially he's leading a lawsuit against the NCAA for using player likenesses in video gaming, jersey sales, and DVDs with no consent from the players and with the players receiving no money.

Now before I talk about what this means for gaming, let me say this. As a former D1 player myself, I understand this concern a little. I get that at the bigger schools players drive a lot of revenue for the school and NCAA. But where I disagree with Ed is that the players aren't compensated. You get a scholarship, and if you use it for the full 5 years you can that's around 100-150K in money you don't have to pay. (Not to mention the interest that would pile up!) Add on to this your books, your food, the travel, and the contacts you are able to make and it's just hard for me to say athletes are not paid anything.

But let me turn to gaming. I've written before on Synergy Sports Tech, the group that powers the NBA Live franchise (link here). They have a system of archiving and tagging every NBA game and a fast growing number of NCAA games (over 2,500 games last season). And NBA Live is only using the first pieces of what it could become -- Dynamic DNA -- which tells you if Greg Oden catches the ball on the block, what percentage of times he goes left versus right versus passes the ball out. EA's NCAA Basketball franchise games don't yet leverage Dynamic DNA. But the data is there.

So here's where I bet the lawsuit pays out in the world of gaming. If Ed's lawsuit wins (or scares people enough), we won't see a player-specific Dynamic DNA hit the NCAA franchise. We might see a team-specific DNA (which could be cool still) - what percentage of possessions teams go right versus left, play man versus zone, work the shot clock versus rush it, etc. But it won't be down to the player level. Still cool, just not laser precise. And for me, if games are capable of being laser precise, that's what I'd love to see. Imagine simulating the NCAA tourney on Selection Sunday with player specific tendencies. Crazy.

So for now we sit back and watch at this interesting crossroads. Are player stats equal to player likenesses?

Gaming Friday: NCAA Football 10 and Customization?

NCAA Football 10 launched this week. They launched with four covers, one for each version - Michael Crabtree, Texas Tech (360), Mark Sanchez, USC (PSP), Brian Johnson, Utah (PS3), and Brian Orakpo, Texas (PS2). That's a pretty solid move, though I still would love to see them get full customization in the cover athlete process.

Wouldn't it be solid if you could make the game cover all about your own school? I mean, what if you could pre-order your game and then have the game ship to your house with your school on it? That'd be hot.

EA is starting something in this zone as they introduced an online Trivia Challenge to own the NCAA Football 10 website. It's pretty simple, really, but interesting. Go to EA Sports' NCAA Football site (or click here). Then choose your school, answer 5 trivia questions, and submit. Your correct answers elevate your school in the standings. Each week, the highest school in points owns the NCAA Football site. This week it was Virginia... naturally, they make it super easy to promote this on Facebook or Twitter.

So I like the start of this. Could have potential to get people rallying and coming back to the site through the year, I guess, if "owning" the EA Sports site is prestigious enough. But more than that it just got me thinking. Most people take their games and have them in a cabinet or case, buried away in a stack. Mine are in a stack with my DVDs. Not very viral, as it isn't super likely you'll see my NCAA Football cover when you come by my house.

But if I could have customized the game to have Drake on the cover, even with a created player, that would be smoking hot. I'd keep that out and visible. And I'd feel a connection each time I play. I mean, cover athlete that was an NCAA star is a good idea, but just how popular nationwide was Michael Crabtree? Or Texas Tech? Or Utah? I think once the model starts to shift gaming is going to hit a whole new level of cool.

NBA Summer League: Can Twitter change the access we get to teams?

I've seen a couple things change in looking at this year's NBA Summer League in Vegas. Summer League is that perfect fix, to help tide you over from NBA Finals until next season gets moving. But it's always been something that just kind of happens in the background.

I think the first time I really noticed summer league was 2 years ago, getting to see both Greg Oden and Kevin Durant play after the hyped NBA Draft of 2007. But this summer we get a glimpse of what is to come.

First, ESPN analyst David Thorpe is tweeting from the league. Click here for his feed. Then I heard that Kevin Love was tweeting from the Minnesota bench during the summer league action. Click here to check K Love's take:
"Score is 36 to 32 at half...j Flynn looks really good, need to get Wayne Ellington going, but these dudes are GOOD"

So where is this going? Naturally things are at different stages of connection. I still have to follow Drake Basketball summer league play via message boards like this. As fans, we want real time info and we want it wherever we are. I would love to see college teams having a grad assistant tweet from the locker room and bench during games, then see it in a feed where I also see the opposition's takes. There's always going to be a bias in it (can't imagine K Love ripping apart his teammates, even if they deserved it). But that real time access is pretty exciting to imagine!

Gaming Friday: Synergy Sports Technology and Blake Griffin

Wow.

That's my reaction to the mountain of stats that is Synergy Sports Technology.  I'm pretty excited at what this could mean first for the gaming industry and later for basketball in general. (Yeah, I did write that).  You may know them as the engine that's powering the NBA Live 09 and NBA Live 10 games.  

I picked up this read on ESPN - going into detail on the Player DNA of Blake Griffin, Stephen Curry, and Hasheem Thabeet.  Now some of this read isn't exactly news (probably don't need to see DNA to see that Thabeet likes to post up on the block), but when you look at Blake Griffin's DNA, it gets pretty interesting.  He has an isolation percentage of 12 -- pretty surprising for an inside player (compared to 1% of Thabeet).  This read gives us a pretty interesting look into how the Clippers may evolve.  Here's a couple great excerpts: 

• "Blake's proficiency in the post will not only produce a high percentage shots for his team when he goes to work on the block, it will also create open shots for his teammates when players are forced to leave their men to help defend Blake's post-ups."
• Baron Davis, take note: Griffin's numbers indicate that he moves as well off the ball as any big man we've seen in recent years. He recorded a whopping 1.5 points per possession on cuts. The reports says it all, "This indicates that Blake is active, has good hands, and knows how to score the ball attacking the rim. This is a valuable asset that produces easy scores and cause the defense to track yet another offensive threat. Combine a good passing point guard with Blake and his team will burn the defense in this type of offense."
• Griffin will need to spend a lot of time developing his jump shot. He generated only 0.64 points per possession on spot-ups. At Oklahoma, those opportunities accounted for only 2% of his offense, but at the pro level, he can't be an elite power forward without some range.
  
• Griffin is a terrific big man in transition, where he chalked up 1.32 points per possession. The comp here is Brandan Wright, who had similar success on the break at Carolina in 2007-08. If the Clippers can get stops and control the defensive glass (two big ifs), they'll be able to use Griffin to get out of the offensive efficiency cellar -- they finished 30th in the league last season.

Now take this sort of data and expand it to every player across the league and update it in real time all year.  Wow.  I had no idea this had the level of depth it had.  Now I'd love to see this sort of analysis start accompanying the draft.  I'd rather not hear an analyst give my team a grade of a C+ or B-.  I would love to see how a player getting added to my team changes the chemistry and thus our place in the league.  And DNA can do this.  

Lastly, I want to see how changes of DNA during the season will get highlighted.  I'd love to see recaps on who isolates the most, and who's the most effective out of the low post.  And I want to know what a Defensive DNA could be!  Come on guys, bring it on!

Here is Synergy Sports' site.

Who doesn't love a bracket?

What true sports fan doesn't get goosebumps every time you see a bracket unveiled?  I'd love to see a bracket unveiled every month for just about everything.  Check out this site.  The team at Buster Sports has created a bracket for the top ACC College Basketball Coaches of all time.   I'm not quite sure how they play out the games (there is a pretty odd post up on the battle between Coach K and a clearly overmatched Frank Haith from Miami) but I'd love to see this concept rolled out for a large scale fan base.  

The 4 top seeds in this?  Coach K, Roy Williams, Dean Smith, and Everett Case.  Here's the bracket again.

Gaming Friday: NCAA Football, or just how big can user created gaming get?

So when I saw the news that you could go and create your own team inside NCAA Football 10, I was pretty excited. I wrote about it here, because to me it marked the first time you could fairly easily create your own content online and share it to others in the gaming world then play with it. You could create your high school football team and conference. Or, if you went to a school with Division I-AA football like me, you could create a squad at Drake. Pretty solid. But I had NO idea they'd get this kind of impact.

EA Sports announced there have now been over 100,000 teams created. And the game isn't even out yet. That is crazy. I'm going to hit return now so we can pause to ponder this.

Here is the release. 7 teams were created per minute the first two days after this release. If you don't recall the benefits, you can essentially customize everything from the stadium to the mascot to the uniforms. EA's blog promotes the best designs of the week. (Check out the South Bend Shamrocks here).

Solid.

But all this makes me wonder where things are going. Recently the gaming industry unveiled that Twitter and Facebook will be integrated inside the Xbox 360 soon, making things even easier to share. EA is soft-starting contests on design. I think you can envision a world where designers are competing to design new uniforms and architects are working on new stadiums in game that people will pay for. A whole new business may be coming one day! I can't wait.

June in Review: Andy's June Digital Hoops Blast

Hoops Fans, never fear, the hoops blasts are still here:

I think we’re going to start seeing a general trend to extend windows of interest around sports moments in time. In anticipation for this year’s NBA Draft, the NBA launched an Official Facebook NBA Draft picks application, here.

The Golden State Warriors added a Facebook Live connection for the Draft. Essentially if you logged into their Draft Central area on NBA.com, your comments also showed up on your Facebook page. For the draft, it was perfect as it added exponential scale to each fan's activity. (How many people were on Facebook, saw the post, and thought "oh yeah, the Draft is on now?"). Story here.

Several of the NBA draftees tweeted through the draft, including
Blake Griffin
Hasheem Thabeet
Ricky Rubio
Brandon Jennings
Terrence Williams

Prospective Pro Kyle McAlarney, blogged along the way through his preparation for the draft. It was pretty interesting to follow this through workouts and team meetings. Though he didn’t get drafted, but he’s blogging about his continued chasing his dream, and this is a fantastic message. “I want everyone to know that just because I didn't hear my name called, I remain as confident as ever that someday I will make it to the NBA. I feel like a little kid going through this process, dreaming the biggest dreams. In time, I believe it will happen. For the people who laugh while reading this and doubt me, in the back of your minds you know that no one or nothing you say is going to phase my determination to succeed.”
Check his blog here:

On the other end of the spectrum, top pick Blake Griffin is being chronicled by ESPN the Mag in their annual series “The Rookie.” Here’s a link – you can check out some ridiculous training he’s putting himself through, including running up sand hills with a weight vest on while carrying a 20 pound medicine ball. He’s a beast. Just check this out!




In sync with the NBA Draft, EA Sports unveiled Blake Griffin as the cover of their NCAA Basketball 10 game.

The NBA Finals also served as key launch points for gaming. EA Sports announced Dwight Howard as the cover of NBA Live 10 and 2K Sports announced Kobe Bryant as cover of NBA 2K10. EA unveiled their choice with a Dwight Howard cover launch video, featuring a pretty sick voiceover from Mos Def.




EA also announced a weekly blog entry (every Friday) that will chronicle every aspect of the game for fans – starting with “drastically improved net and rim physics” which totally has me intrigued. Is there a better sound to hear than that ball through the net? This will get followed up on with a Monday recap on EA Sports Live Radio. I’m digging the connection to fans. Here's the link.

Meanwhile, 2K announced the cover of NBA 2K10 with this Spike Lee commercial:

NBA 2K10 also introduced fan voting for their cover. Pick which one of the four covers you like on their site (all Kobe, one of them with Kobe as a Knick) I love the idea of fan voting for a cover (actually I’d rather see fans make their own covers period – seems to be the time for that now… don’t tell me who should be on the cover, let me create my own version!). Link here.

Kobe Bryant was named the most marketable player in the NBA, according to Forbes.

ESPN interviewed Kobe on being on the cover. Pretty solid read here, as Kobe puts it “Video games were a big part of my childhood, especially basketball video games, so it’s cool to be the face of a game.”

The NCAA and NBA partnership to improve youth basketball unveiled more details during the NBA Finals. They made a powerful statement – appearing in a press conference here with Coach K (on their board), and Nike plus Adidas (that’s a pretty powerful foursome to the average hoops player!) Here’s the press conference.

Active.com will operate iHoops.com, which will launch this fall and provide skill-training curriculum (instructional videos), certification programs for coaches and officials and the opportunity to register for events, tournaments and programs. The site hopes to be packed with highlights from tournaments. Link here and here.

Watching the late night TV show coverage of this year’s NBA Finals made me realize how monstrous a role the interviewer plays on the outcome of an interview. Great things to keep in mind!
Here’s Steve Nash on the Late Show:

And here’s Guillermo, on Jimmy Kimmel, interviewing Kobe:

Also on late night TV, you need to check this out: It’s the Dwight Howard Most Valuable Puppet commercial. Hilarious stuff.

I came across a couple of interesting developments in Asia. The NBA will hold their first-ever exhibition game in Taiwan. The Nuggets and Pacers will play a pre-season game in Taipei. Link here:

2K Sports announced they will be launching NBA 2K in Asia this fall. Link here.

Kentucky’s Coach Calipari traveled to China, and met with TOM.com. He posted this to Twitter, “Met with tom.com, tryin 2 get new web page into china. Lookin promising. Had 2 interviews w/ major sports papers (2 mil readers daily)...” Interesting!

And, if you really want to get hyped for college hoops, check this Terminator trailer created by George Mason. I'm pumped!



This month also marked E3, the gaming showcase event, packed with a few things you need to check out. First, EA Sports unveiled their new site. According to this release, in the past year over 2 million game highlight videos have been posted to an EA website and over 1 million photos had been inserted into EA games from an EA website (wow). But these sites weren’t connected together in one family. So what does connecting them together mean?

Consumers are now directly connected into the product dev teams as games are being created. For now it feels like a one-way conversation, albeit a cool one, where EA releases new posts each week and the community responds. But I see this moving into a two-way conversation where fans are actually shaping features in games as they develop. That’d be sweet.

The site features a video editing sweet to make it easier to edit the highlights you create and share them with the community. If over 2 million highlights were posted when it was relatively challenging to do, this could be very interesting…

And most cool to me, there will be chances to create things on EA Sports.com and download them to a game, such as team customization and player personalization. This is being introduced through this summer’s NCAA Football 10 Team Builder feature, where you can create your own team on EA Sports.com from uniforms to stadium to logo to mascot, then post them online and share them with others. Here’s a nice quote on it, “Now users can mix and match alternative jerseys with home helmets, and away uniform pants. The possibilities are opened-up with these available options. This could potentially be a favorite of mine so I can customize my Hurricanes in their sweet gear.” This could get crazy!

While that’s all pretty cool, combine that with the fact that this fall Xbox Live will now integrate with Twitter and Facebook and things get crazy. Using Facebook Connect, this will allow you to pull in your Facebook feed into your gaming world. This will make gaming even more social and it’s going to amp up the sharing of highlights and screen grabs straight into your Facebook or Twitter feeds. This feature is launching in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10. Story here.

Meanwhile, 2K Sports is trying to build physical community, opening their offices in California for fans to come in and demo their games. Check here.

Finally, just because it’s not hoops doesn’t mean it’s not cool thoughts of the month… Twitter powered this year’s Major League Baseball First Year Player draft. They’ve evolved the draft in a monster way over the past few years. This year’s draft coverage on MLB.com featured a live feed from Twitter which mixed fans with MLB draft experts and young players who were being drafted (a virtual green room). How cool is that? MLB columnists Jonathan Mayo and Lisa Winston mashed together with pitcher Drew Storen from Stanford, high school pitcher Eric Arnett, and high school outfielder Jacob Marisnick. Blue Jays fans saw Marisnick named to their team and then saw his tweet: “#mlbdraft- Can't wait to get to the mall and get a Blue Jays hat!!” Full read here.

Until next month,

AP