Interesting question.
I think there is a spectrum, and I'm not sure what to label each end of that spectrum.
On one side you've got what you guys call sim players, who border on wanting to play a basketball manager game. Nothing wrong with that so don't take it that way.
The desire is to have a game that has the players recreated as close to real life as possible, so you have a collection of virtual players that you can throw into a simulation and see what happens.
On the other end of the spectrum you have people who want to play basketball as a video game to pretend like they are playing in the NBA. The want complete control of their player, and the ability to get creative and explore the simulation as if it was more of a sandbox. This side of the spectrum often gets labeled arcade, but I don't think that is accurate.
You still want the sandbox to be as accurate to real life as possible, but the freedom and creativity aspect is important.
I think with Elite we are targeting more this second end of the spectrum. We're not all the way on that side as we still try and incorporate aspects from the other side, but we are giving more focus to that side and when two things are in conflict we sided with the control end of the spectrum.
We wanted the game to feel like you were playing basketball and give you the abilities you expect in real life basketball.
So the answer might be yes...but the intention is not to alienate the first group (even though the responses here may indicate that it is a possible outcome).
Time will tell if that market is bigger or not I suppose. We're still trying to cater to both ends of the spectrum, but we put more focus on the second as it had been neglected for a while in basketball games.
The success of NHL and FIFA suggest that people will respond well to that direction, but time will tell.
This forum has a very vocal population who fall into the "sim" side of the spectrum, but I have received may PM's from people who like the direction and may be a little more moderate.
As for Jam, that really wasn't an influencing factor. There are a lot of people who have stopped playing basketball games all together (both Live and 2K) and that group was getting bigger every year.
Adding Jam was meant to give them reason to try basketball one more time, and the nostalgic appeal of Jam was meant to accomplish that.
We wouldn't have done it if we weren't confident that people would stick around after playing the game for a while.
EA's interests here are long term, not short term.
I'm assuming custom and old school will be avaliable online, I not sure cause I don't follow the thread.
