The NBA says about half of the league’s 30 teams employ NBA Live 09 in making personnel evaluations, which, y’know, makes Electronic Arts all kinds of happy.
What makes NBA Live 09 better than the competition, NBA 2K9, is a feature called Dynamic DNA. Essentially, the DNA system is a statistical aggregator that feeds new information such as shot and scoring tendencies directly into the game. The reason why GMs would want to use it is that it’s constantly updated and directly affects gameplay.
Daryl Morey, general manager of the Houston Rockets, is a devotee of talent-evaluation demigod Billy Beane (the general manager of Major League Baseball’s Oakland Athletics), and swears by video games — and not as a diversion.
“I don’t play EA Sports as a game. I use it as a tool,” he says.
Pretty impressive, right? I mean, it sounds like NBA Live just can’t be stopped by anything, right?