EA Sports Badly Needs To Work On Some NBA Live 16’s Avatar

We’re just more than a week away from the debut of NBA Live 16, yet Electronic Arts Sports (EA Sports) still has some work to do when it comes to the faces of some of the players in the game.

Above is just one of the many goofy/weird/absurd avatars that are currently present in the game. Obviously, NBA fans who tried the NBA Live 16 demo took to Twitter to express their dismay on some of the other poorly-drawn avatars that they’ve noticed in the game.

Here are some of the tweets:

[NBA Live designer leans back in his chair, nods with satisfaction] "nailed it" pic.twitter.com/wn63EVvp9r

— Tim Cato (@tim_cato) September 18, 2015

NO. NO. NO. pic.twitter.com/ClLwjRSWZc

— Professor Big Tweets (@HoosierWolves) September 18, 2015

Mike Miller was great in Entourage. pic.twitter.com/rpfzhxH8jP

— Zach Harper (@talkhoops) September 18, 2015

NBA Live 16 Tyus Jones is not realistic pic.twitter.com/mLcSNNoHim

— Professor Big Tweets (@HoosierWolves) September 18, 2015

Aye @rudygobert27 what happened to you fam pic.twitter.com/d3pLkEj25g

— Mark Russell Pereira (@Mark_R_Pereira) September 18, 2015

More hilarious tweets about the weird-looking NBA Live 16 avatars can be seen on the links below the post. And here’s a bonus in-game video of ridiculous no-look-shot by JR Smith:

reason 1,000 I will not be purchasing @EASPORTSNBA @EASPORTS REALLY !!?? pic.twitter.com/aWjOW6YOdg

— #kK (@Consider_Jairo) September 18, 2015

In their defense, here’s what EA Sports has to say about the discrepancies in some of the avatars compared to the actual appearance of real NBA players.

The players referenced are part of a very small minority who haven’t had their heads scanned into the game yet. In fact, roughly 80% of the league’s players have their face scans representing them in all aspects of the game. Avatars and all other in-game assets are updated as players are scanned, and the results are incredibly realistic.

We’re also allowing fans to scan their own faces this year via our new companion app, which features GameFaceHD and provides the most realistic, detailed player faces ever. Overall, we invite players to judge for themselves by playing the free demo that’s available right now on PS4 and Xbox One.

We believe that in the vast majority of cases fans are going to be very pleased with player likeness in NBA LIVE 16.

That seems like a legit reason, and we’re glad that EA Sports is addressing the issue.

EA Sports is scheduled to release NBA Live 16 on September 29 on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the same date that its rival, 2K Sports, will release the latest iteration of its basketball simulation game called NBA 2K16.

Sources: 1, 2 & 3