The Gaming Tailgate Video Podcast
EA has posted a blog outlining the Community Events leading up to this year's NCAA Football 12. Read below and let us know what you think.
Every year we bring in community members from around the country to play the upcoming version of the NCAA Football series and provide feedback directly to the development team. Throughout the years, we continued to expand on the events by bringing in more guys earlier in the cycle, and for longer periods of time. This is of the utmost importance to us because we are always looking to incorporate fan feedback in our game to make it the greatest experience possible for our fans. This year has been the best yet!
In December of last year, I reached out to 16 community members including members of the EA SPORTS Game Changers program and community members from various fansites, Facebook, Twitter, and the EA SPORTS forums to extend invites to an upcoming community event. The guys did not know what we had in store for them, but they were all very excited and accepted right away. We told the guys to prepare all of their feedback along with what they were seeing in the community and we’d see them in January.
Here’s the entire list of attendees:
Chris Jacobs (CDJ)
Jake Stein (JStein2469)
Jeremy Bennett (JBHuskers)
Damon Peterson (MPDamon)
Jeff Setzer (Rynoaid)
Tommy Gschwend (gschwendt)
Anton Bland (AntonB)
Jeff Holycross (JeffHCross)
Matt Kyler (kwizzy)
Matt (steelerfan)
Mike Gillett (Oneback)
Brian Parker (Paakaa10)
Raymond Goode (Shopmaster)
David Johnson (MadScientist)
Dougie Veney (WhoIsDo)
Kevin Vaughn (xROMO_9xwinz)
After the holiday break, we were ready to go. Despite being more than seven months out from release, we brought the guys into the studio on January 10, 2011 to watch the BCS National Championship with the development team and to discuss what the overall look and feel of a college football game should be. We kept the guys in studio for two more days running them through presentations showing off everything that was going to be in NCAA Football 12. Everyone from the Executive Producer to Central Gameplay shared details on the areas of the game that they were working on and the group had the opportunity to provide feedback on the direction and design of the game. The guys were also given over 20 hours of hands on time with the game in its early stages of development.
In February we brought back six guys from the original group to provide feedback on a specific area of the game that was being focused on heavily at that point in time. While I cannot discuss the specifics of that event, I can tell you that the guys were in the studio for three days and were given more than 30 hours of hands on time with the game focusing on that one area. You can imagine how much feedback the development team collected from that outing.
We were back at it again in early March bringing in another group of six of the original 16 community members that we brought in to focus on Dynasty mode in NCAA Football 12. Again, I can’t get into specifics, but the guys provided a lot of the same feedback that many of you have been providing and the development team was as receptive as ever to the feedback. Like the other smaller focus group, the guys were in studio for three days and were given more than 30 hours of hands on time with NCAA Football 12.
Fast forward to just last week. We brought in 14 members of the original 16 to take another pass at the entire game while we were in the Alpha stage of the gaming cycle so that we could still make major changes to key areas of the game such as gameplay and dynasty. There were other new features in the game that the guys were able to dive into that you’ll hear more about down the road. Once again, the entire group was in the studio for three days and everyone was given another 30 hours of hands on time with the game.
For those of you keeping track, we’ve already allowed everyone that has attended an event to get at least 60 hours of hands on time with the game. There are guys out there that have attended all four events and have logged at least 110 hours with the game. Some are more than 120 hours. The point is, we’ve provided more access and collected more actionable feedback with NCAA Football 12 than ever before…and we’re not done.
All 16 members will be invited back into the studio in May to give one final pass at the game. That means another 30 hours of hands on time for each guy. All told, there will have been at least 1,580 hours logged into providing feedback on NCAA Football 12 before you guys even get your hands on the demo. I can’t sit here and say that I know how every one of you is going to react when you play the game, but I can tell you that we’ve taken another huge step in the direction of incorporating fan feedback directly into the game.
Don’t just take my word for it! Look at what some of the guys who attended the event have to say about the improvements coming your way in the gameplay and presentation areas of NCAA Football 12.
Brian “Paakaa10” Parker discusses his Community Event Experience with Exclusive Screens
Jeff “RynoAid” Setzer breaks down Zone Defense and Tackling at TraditionSportsOnline.com
Chris “cdj” Jacobs Previews NCAA Football 12 over at The Gaming Tailgate
David “MadScientist06” Johnson discusses Gameplay and Presentation on MaddenMatrix.com
Matt “Kwizzy” Kyler discusses his first trip to the Tiburon Studio over at The Gaming Tailgate
Kevin “xRomo_9winz” Vaughn provides his impressions of NCAA Football 12 on ThrutheUprights.com
Michael “OneBack” Gillett breaks down Pattern Reading Zone Defense in NCAA Football 12
Thanks for your time. As always, I look forward to hearing your feedback. You can reach me on Facebook (www.Facebook.com/EASPORTSNCAAFootball), Twitter (www.Twitter.com/EANCAAFootball), or you can email me with your feedback at EASPORTSNCAAFootballFeedback@ea.com!
Justin Dewiel
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