The new version of TeamBuilder has launched for NCAA Football 14. Unfortunately it contains no new features but it does provide an opportunity to start creating teams – and those crafted in prior years continue to carry over – and examine all the team rosters and complete player ratings.
This is the fourth straight year then that TeamBuilder has gone largely untouched by EA Sports. Since debuting in NCAA Football 10 the only things updated each year have been the stadium renovations, fields, and any new uniforms.
Based on the rosters it appears NCAA 14 will ship with numbers instead of the generated names which were seen in the demo and even earlier promotional materials from EA. It’s either that or the game will initially force users to generate names. While the timing of such a change has seemed suspicious given the ongoing player likeness lawsuit doing so would not have had any influence on the case regardless.
Instead EA may have decided adding fake names to official marketing releases such as videos, screenshots, E3 builds, and the demo at least would deflect the initial comparisons that are made to the in game character’s real-life counterparts. It wouldn’t change what is going on in the courts but shifts more of the perception of responsibility for where the real names come from for the players in NCAA games to the consumers who edit and share them.