EA Sports Going Back to NBA Live Name

Last night I tweeted that the opportunity was there for EA Sports to start promoting their new sim NBA product by taking advantage of All Star Weekend. Not only will fans be engaged with the festivities and the sports media focused on the league but the Tiburon studio that is now developing the series is just minutes away from Orlando.

Now that promotion, viral or otherwise, seems to have started as first noted by Kotaku. Cavs rookie and #1 pick Kyrie Irving tweeted that he was playing NBA Live 13 and then the EA Sports NBA twitter account sent out the picture above. EA Sports then confirmed NBA Live 13 will be the name and that additional news is to come on Monday. 

There was never any doubt that EA would drop the “Elite” name however the question was whether they would go back to Live, which has strong recognition value but as a brand deteriorated over the course of the generation, or go with a fresh name. This was probably the best decision as the company can capitalize on the established Live brand rather than having to build up awareness of a new one.

Though they still will have an uphill battle that will take years to recover from let alone become a force in the market they can focus now on the actual product and trying to sell themselves to a skeptical consumer base. EA doesn’t have to worry about hurting sales of a current game and that allows them to start the promotion now while 2K Sports will have to wait until the summer to do so for their upcoming title. That is an angle they are sure to take advantage of and have started to do so with the news today.