Baylor fight song missing from NCAA Football 13

[beartide06]

Baylor Unsure Why Their Fight Song is Missing in NCAA Football 13

by pastapadre

Posted July 16th, 2012 at 4:00 pm


Over the weekend Owen Good at Kotaku published a piece covering the discovery that numerous fight songs are missing from NCAA Football 13. It was puzzling in that several of those in question were included in the series in previous years and were now gone without explanation – and especially curious that it seemed concentrated in the Texas schools.

Baylor University, who’s own Robert Griffin III graces the cover of NCAA 13, responded today to the article stating that they had no involvement in the removal of their fight song. In fact it seems to have caught them completely off guard.

“We had no conversation with anybody at EA Sports about the fight song,” Joos told Kotaku. “Nobody called and asked ‘Can it be in the game this year, do you want it in the game this year,’ and if they had, obviously we would have said yes.”

As noted in the article Baylor was especially inviting to EA given the publicity that they were receiving – as they’re typically overshadowed by the other Texas schools – by having their former star on the cover of the game and being involved in the process. That they weren’t notified of anything having to do with the fight song is bizarre.
There is evidently some level of communication failure going on with EA relating to NCAA 13. From South Alabama being left out, to the number of uniform omissions and inaccuracies, and now with schools losing their fight songs and not being aware that would be the case.

It’ll be interesting to see if EA comments on the matter. They’ve dealt with the earlier troubles privately with the universities rather than making official statements – though promising South Alabama special attention in NCAA 14 and plans to update uniforms throughout the year have eventually been made public through internal sources.


Here is the link to the site, also: http://www.pastapadre.com/2012/07/16/baylor-unsure-why-their-fight-song-is-missing-in-ncaa-football-13

[beartide06]

^^^This is from pastapadre's site.

What boggles my mind is that they left out more than one school's fight song, and they left out a fight song from a team who's former player and Heisman winner graces the cover.

[Dr Death]

It boggles the mind how EA could have RGIII on their cover, and yet leave the :Baylor: fight-song out of the game. Does EA have a Quality Control department at all? I mean, seriously, what the fuck???

[ram29jackson]

this year, I dont even hear the Hokie Squaking/crowing when you make a TouchDown...yes, I sad "make" that was kicker speak :D

[beartide06]

this year, I dont even hear the Hokie Squaking/crowing when you make a TouchDown...yes, I sad "make" that was kicker speak :D

You sound like one of my ex-girlfriend's that didn't know a thing about football when you say "make a touchdown." :D Obviously, that isn't the case, though.

[BigDmo]

No way, EA didn't pay close attention to something in the game? Weird!

[SmoothPancakes]

No way, EA didn't pay close attention to something in the game? Weird!

:D It might just be that it's 5:22 in the morning, but that actually made me laugh out loud.

[steelerfan]

Isn't a guy from OS working on audio for this title now?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using Tapatalk 2

[ram29jackson]

Isn't a guy from OS working on audio for this title now?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using Tapatalk 2


Maybe he thought he needed to ban some of the sound ? :dunno:

[xMrHitStickx904]

many fight songs are either gone, or don't sound at the right time. WVU, Texas, Texas A&M & numerous others.

[souljahbill]

I know the UL-Lafayette fight song is shortened. It plays the music for the 1st 2 lines and the last 2 lines of the song.

Here's the real version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QQ_sTsBGwM&feature=youtube_gdata_player

The game's version goes from the ....Red and White" line right into the "Hustle up and Bustle up....." line, cutting out the entire middle of the song.

[GatorBait06NC]

Custom Stadium Sounds as a work around? The fact that people even know these fight songs amazes me. I thought everyone would have a boat load of stadium sounds for their school by now.

[JeffHCross]

Does EA have a Quality Control department at all? I mean, seriously, what the fuck???You're severely overestimating the amount of knowledge / insight / information that Quality Assurance / Control has into a product. I am a tester by trade, and while the software I test is very different from the games EA produces, the limitations inherent in the cycle is not. We get software from third-party vendors, and we test the crap out of it. But we can't test everything, there's not enough time/money in the world. And we don't have line-by-line insight into their code, so sometimes we have to make assumptions about why X is the way it is. Sometimes those assumptions are right, others they are wrong. Sometimes things we assume are By Design are in fact major bugs. Sometimes we ask the right questions, others we don't. That's the life of a tester.

And then QA ... well, technically what I do as a tester is the equivalent of a video game's "Quality Assurance". But we have our own QA department that has to sign off on everything I release to the customer. QA signs off, our architects sign off, configuration management signs off ... and not a single one of those people has ever run a test on my code. They are all trusting that I've done my job, and that I've written the steps as they are in reality (one of my major tasks is to ensure that our documentation documents every step that a user must take to install and/or execute our products. That's what I mean by "steps"). I could put an extra step in there, and they'd be none the wiser. We have guards and systems in place to check for that, but if something gets deep enough into the process, it ain't coming out.

I agree this is a problem (though, since we don't know the cause, I'm not willing to jump to Pasta's conclusions. He seems to like pointing out that South Alabama being out of the game was an oversight, and we know that isn't the whole story). And it's a big problem at that, if stuff really is simply mysteriously disappearing. But I don't believe the fault lies with QA alone. They can only test what they know to test.

Let's be honest ... who on this forum has played with Baylor? Plenty of us, thanks to the demo. Was the fight song in the demo? I don't know that it was. I don't know that it wasn't either. I didn't notice one way or the other. I know plenty of guys here have played with Texas, and until Kotaku's article this weekend, I hadn't heard anyone mention that "Texas Fight" was missing. Maybe I overlooked someone mentioning it, but I hadn't seen it mentioned.

Point being ... a lot of the time when you're playing games, and especially when you're testing, if you're not specifically looking for something, you won't see it. Just like all the guys that say on here that they don't notice problems (like zone defense) until we point them out.

I can say without a doubt that you stick me in front of a game of NCAA 13 and remove Ohio State's fight songs ... I'll know it. But unless I ask, I won't know that was an accident. These guys are human too.

[/end rant]

[JeffHCross]

Dr. Death, I apologize that you were the target of the above rant, but one thing that really frustrates me is when the conclusion people have about a problem is along the lines of "they fucked up", "they can't do it" or "they're stupid". I know you didn't say any of those things, but I was already a little ramped up after reading Pasta's article earlier today.

As it appears to turn out, the fault may not be EA's at all:
http://kotaku.com/5926743/overlooked-school-says-their-fight-song-can-be-patched-into-ncaa-13

Overlooked School Says Their Fight Song Can Be Patched Into NCAA 13
Baylor University wants answers from a music licensing group it trusted to manage its fight song, which did not end up in a video game whose cover celebrates the school and its first Heisman Trophy winner.

The good news for Baylor Bears fans who bought NCAA Football 13 is that "Old Fite" could be patched back into the game if Baylor's administration gets in touch with this licensing agent and directs it to cooperate with EA Sports.
"We are trying to rectify that and work with EA Sports to get it fixed," said Nicholas Joos, the executive associate athletics director at Baylor for external affairs.

First, it requires finding out if an outfit Joos named as "Southern Music Group" is even in business any more. At some point, this group became the licensing authority for Baylor's song, and considering that old Southwest Conference colleagues like Arkansas (currently in the SEC) and TCU (joining the Big 12 this year) also are involved, that authority could go back decades.

Here's Pasta's take: http://www.pastapadre.com/2012/07/17/fight-songs-could-end-up-being-patched-into-ncaa-football-13

[Dr Death]

Dr. Death, I apologize that you were the target of the above rant, but one thing that really frustrates me is when the conclusion people have about a problem is along the lines of "they fucked up", "they can't do it" or "they're stupid". I know you didn't say any of those things, but I was already a little ramped up after reading Pasta's article earlier today.

Here's the thing Jeff, you and I are good, you know that and I know that. So don't worry about coming off as being mad at me. However, let me counter your two posts above w/ this:

EA has boards like TGT and OS and a plethora of others that point out their mistakes, errors or fuck ups every year and yet, every year they continually overlook these things that WE point out to THEM! Tell :Washington: it's not EA's fault about their home uniform being wrong for three straight year's. Or :Arizona:. And on and on.

As far as a copyright on the song, all EA had to do was call :Baylor:. They didn't. Thus, it's their fault. There are a number of problems in this year's game that were in last year's game, and were pointed out to EA numerous times. Did they listen? Apparently not, because the problems still exist! Don't worry Jeff, I have no problem w/ you, and hopefully you know that. My problem is w/ a company that continually tells us how hard they work only to release the same glitch-filled, bug-filled shit year after year!

[sl8b]

Rant or not, that was a great post Jeff. EA has a very good marketing department, so the fact that they over promise and under-deliver is inevitable IMHO. It puts the devs in a tough spot, especially when they are probably spread extremely thin (like all of us who work w/ data and/or software). It would be easy for one to say, "EA can't count past 127, haha" when in reality it's the declaration of a data type buried among thousands of lines of code, and probably coded as such in an attempt to save resources and make the game more stable.

EA needs to be held accountable as a company for their mistakes, half truths, broken promises and broken features. But to throw the devs under the bus is like killing the messenger. Somewhere in the hierarchy their is a disregard or lack of attention to detail, and until the vision of this product and what it should be changes we'll continue to bang our heads against the wall.

[Rudy]

EA has boards like TGT and OS and a plethora of others that point out their mistakes, errors or fuck ups every year and yet, every year they continually overlook these things that WE point out to THEM! Tell :Washington: it's not EA's fault about their home uniform being wrong for three straight year's. Or :Arizona:. And on and on.

This is the truth. There are things I can give EA a pass on but they don't deserve it every time, especially with this series. How about the Heisman cpu FG kicking logic? Hasn't that been broken for 3 years now? It's been mentioned here plenty of times and yet it's not fixed and that would appear to be an easy one. How does EA not fix this? If they aren't aware does that mean they don't read the sites or respond to twitter? Does that mean not a single game changer reminded them? I honestly would like to know why this wasn't fixed. IOU has pointed out a lot of online exploits for years which have gone ignored.

Shaun Mason of TSO tried to take a ton of credit this year for getting EA to boost up the weight for recruits. Big freaking deal. We've been whining (I'm part of that group) for a couple years about the weights and most specifically about how they need to be tied into the ratings more. It was as if this was a great new idea and EA finally listened and Shaun should get a ton of credit and praise! It wasn't a new idea and it still isn't implemented right.

I really do feel our ideas go in one ear and out the other at EA. They start the Game Changers wishlist forums. What's the point? It doesn't appear as though EA listens. If they don't take time to read the criticisms and bugs on a hardcore site like this with plenty of Game Changers, why should I even bother with their new version of a wishlist thread? EA is going to do what EA is going to do. I don't think the public on forums have much control over that at all.

[JeffHCross]

EA has boards like TGT and OS and a plethora of others that point out their mistakes, errors or fuck ups every year and yet, every year they continually overlook these things that WE point out to THEM! Tell :Washington: it's not EA's fault about their home uniform being wrong for three straight year's. Or :Arizona:. And on and on. I agree on that. I can't explain that one. There's more to it than being a QA issue though, because it being a "QA issue" would mean that QA isn't catching it. I know it's not something they're unaware of.


As far as a copyright on the song, all EA had to do was call :Baylor:.Possibly. I don't know much about licensed music, but I don't buy that it's that simple. The company that holds the license to Baylor's fight song said the price was X. EA didn't want to pay X. As far as I'm aware, they don't (normally) have the option to go to Baylor, Texas, or another entity and say "Hey, your license holder is trying to turn me upside down and empty my pockets, what gives?"

If the issue was that Baylor holds the rights, and the license, and EA just assumed they didn't have access this year (which is what people were implying when the initial story broke), then yes, that would totally be on EA. But my layman's view of it is that they didn't have a recourse once the license company tried to fleece them. (Maybe CLW can weigh in and tell us more)

As far as I'm aware, the Collegiate License Company holds the majority of trademark and likeness (school likeness) licenses for universities. If the CLC rate was too high, I don't believe a product creator has the right to negotiate with the individual school. And that would be the same here.


There are a number of problems in this year's game that were in last year's game, and were pointed out to EA numerous times. Did they listen? Apparently not, because the problems still exist! Don't worry Jeff, I have no problem w/ you, and hopefully you know that. My problem is w/ a company that continually tells us how hard they work only to release the same glitch-filled, bug-filled shit year after year!I don't disagree with any of that. I can overlook some of the problems, but not others.


But to throw the devs under the bus is like killing the messenger. Somewhere in the hierarchy their is a disregard or lack of attention to detail, and until the vision of this product and what it should be changes we'll continue to bang our heads against the wall.Bingo. It's never as simple as the individual dev or designer. Or tester!

I have no problem with holding EA, the company, accountable. It's when individual faults ("must be stupid", for example) get used that I get riled up.