EA has really disappointed me with their response to our feedback. Locked threads, calling out our “preference” for presentation over gameplay (irrelevant, incorrect, and deflective), and avoiding simple questions on why common sense wasn’t involved in these decisions.
EA knows they have a sim market. EA knows they have an arcade market. EA knows they have an online market. EA knows they have a HUT market. They have catered to every facet of their customer base except for the sim market with NHL 23.
They couldn’t have not seen this response coming. And yet they made these decisions anyhow. Their response to silence discussion (yes, negatively charged criticism) is a really upsetting thing to see. What else would they expect? To release a game with features that the sim market exclusively use (like True Broadcast camera) and then promptly remove them with a forced patch (with no notes suggesting as such by the way) is asinine and borderline fraudulent.
To remove the mass majority of their presentation build that’s existed since NHL 20, which cuts out replays, pre-game and intermission analytics, and associated play-by-play is a massive blow to the immersion of the game experience. This is an $80 release in the year 2022. EA has stepped back two decades in the presentation realm with this title.
NHL 23 promoted an improved, dynamic presentation experience. Nobody on the Dev team, nobody in a suit at EA HQ, no customer can say that this is an accurate statement. They DEGRADED presentation, and in lieu they gave us seven second choppy game opens for one-fifth of the teams across the league.
The most effort they were willing to put in to rectify the initial feedback was to crudely copy and paste these intros for the remaining teams.
A Reddit AMA. An EA public statement. A limited thread on this very forum where the creative team listened to our feedback and allowed an in-depth discussion with some solid responses. Any of the above would mean so much more to us than a half-hearted patch. And honestly the patch just made this situation worse, and genuinely feels like an intended jab at the sim market that’s issuing these very complaints.
I love this series. I truly do. I religiously bought EA’s hockey titles through the 90’s on PlayStation all the way through to the original X-Box and PS2. When I “got back into” gaming 8 years ago, I bought an X-Box 360 and NHL 15. Nothing else. I played it one summer, life got busier, and I again stopped gaming. This past summer, I bought a Series X. I bought NHL 22. Nothing else. A month ago I bought NHL 19. Nothing else. I downloaded the NHL 23 trial. Nothing else. I paid $800-something all told for a console just to play EA NHL Hockey.
I’ve enjoyed them all to varying degrees. The gameplay is fun. I adjust the stock game with sliders to my liking. I’m a sim guy, so I want realism. Slower gameplay, sloppier play, authentic rules and lengthy periods. I want broadcast quality camera angles, analytics, replays and immersion. I want to view the game from the arena cam as if it’s on TV.
It truly irks me to be cast into a category who “prefers” presentation over gameplay. That isn’t true. But to me, the gameplay is solid. Very solid. I get the feeling of a real game with the physics, the stumbles, the broken sticks, the deflections, the passing, the board play.
Gameplay isn’t what’s lacking in this series to me. Hence my perpetual focus on presentation, which massively (now, obviously) needs improvement. NHL 15 is lauded for being an awful game, but I really enjoyed it. And one outstanding feature was the NBC broadcast presentation. It felt authentic. There was a real labor of love put into the presentation for NHL 15 under Ben Ross’ team. This same package was carried all the way through NHL 19.
If this presentation existed today, even in its three, almost four year old form, I would be perfectly happy. Because there is only so much improvement that could really be made to it. These yearly releases should be BUILDING on the previous year’s foundation. REMOVING beloved features goes against the very fabric of that idea. How can it be expected that a customer is pleased to see a brand new entry has removed a beloved part of the game that they had access to only 12 months prior with the previous game? Or worse yet, weeks ago before a forced patch took it away after they’ve already paid for it? We really want an answer to these sorts of questions.
If absolutely nothing else, full honesty would placate me. I can’t speak for everybody else here, but if I woke up to a public statement from EA about this, stating they were looking to tailor this series more for the online / HUT community, get away from simulation and make the game more accessible and “fun”, then I could accept that. It’s their team, their build, their title, their decisions. I can’t hold that against EA.
What hurts me as a consumer, and long-time player of this series, is feeling ripped off, unheard, and unvalued. And it’s okay to be angry. It’s okay to criticize ill-thought decisions for a product that we paid for. It’s perfectly acceptable to be livid about being advertised one thing, and receiving something else.
Again, EA’s company response (or really, lack of) concerning this very vocal group of customers with extremely valid concerns is so disheartening. It has called into question their agenda and/or customer engagement (for me personally).
@EA_Aljo has repeatedly assured us that the team is aware of our feedback. I sincerely hope that NHL 24 surprises us.
