What was going on with NCAA/College Football 15? Howell says he and Luhr had, for a time, been working for a few years on a customization suite for the series that he believes would have gotten the greenlight in the coming title, which was to be developed for both the current console generation and the next generation. Howell, who speaks admiringly of Minecraft, Terraria and other games with a heavy modification culture, said the idea was to turn the game over to fans, on the faith they know best what they most enjoy.P
Not only would that have entailed an overhaul of the existing customizer—TeamBuilder, which deals with single teams—the vision extended to things like stadium construction, layer editing for uniforms, and even "D&D" like settings within the game's dynasty mode. For example, creating stories and occurrences elsewhere in the season, like a backup coming out of nowhere when a star performer goes down to injury, or a prestige team suffering a losing streak that upends the rankings at the end of the year.P
It's unclear how much of this was actually being prepared for next year's game. Howell cautioned that the customization was at a big picture stage, though he and Luhr had design documents dozens of pages thick laying out these features. If College Football 15 could have shipped, with them, the depth of customization—and the ability to share uniforms, complex logos and user-built stadia—could have soothed the sting of conferences like the Pac-12 and Big Ten pulling their trademarks from the series, and a big program—believed to be Ohio State—exiting it altogether.P
"I was talking to my mom a week ago saying, 'I cannot tell you how excited I am for this game,'" Howell said. "I've always known, and believed, that users now are creating things that you (as a designer) could never possibly imagine. So we need to put the game in their hands. We're not big enough to give them everything they want. If we gave them the actual parts of our game and its assets—yeah, it's a huge liability that someone could make something better than we're making. But that's not the point of it."P
Howell said the customization focus, conceivably a lifeboat in a future where no NCAA school licenses its appearance in a video game, was not ramped up as a response to the litigation. "This was started way before any of these lawsuits," he said. Still, there's always been an idealist streak in his conversations with me, and I question whether EA Sports itself would be willing to give such control over to its fans. Where's the money in that?
Not only would that have entailed an overhaul of the existing customizer—TeamBuilder, which deals with single teams—the vision extended to things like stadium construction, layer editing for uniforms, and even "D&D" like settings within the game's dynasty mode. For example, creating stories and occurrences elsewhere in the season, like a backup coming out of nowhere when a star performer goes down to injury, or a prestige team suffering a losing streak that upends the rankings at the end of the year.P
It's unclear how much of this was actually being prepared for next year's game. Howell cautioned that the customization was at a big picture stage, though he and Luhr had design documents dozens of pages thick laying out these features. If College Football 15 could have shipped, with them, the depth of customization—and the ability to share uniforms, complex logos and user-built stadia—could have soothed the sting of conferences like the Pac-12 and Big Ten pulling their trademarks from the series, and a big program—believed to be Ohio State—exiting it altogether.P
"I was talking to my mom a week ago saying, 'I cannot tell you how excited I am for this game,'" Howell said. "I've always known, and believed, that users now are creating things that you (as a designer) could never possibly imagine. So we need to put the game in their hands. We're not big enough to give them everything they want. If we gave them the actual parts of our game and its assets—yeah, it's a huge liability that someone could make something better than we're making. But that's not the point of it."P
Howell said the customization focus, conceivably a lifeboat in a future where no NCAA school licenses its appearance in a video game, was not ramped up as a response to the litigation. "This was started way before any of these lawsuits," he said. Still, there's always been an idealist streak in his conversations with me, and I question whether EA Sports itself would be willing to give such control over to its fans. Where's the money in that?
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