Here’s a structured breakdown of where the responsibility likely lies regarding the condition of Undisputed (by Steel City Interactive), based on roles, influence, and decisions made. This includes analysis of the owner, leadership team, and the rumored impact of EA alumni like Will Kinsler:
🔺 1. The Owner – Ash Habib
🎯 Role: Founder, Visionary, Final Decision-Maker
-
Strengths:
-
Ash had the passion and initial vision to revive boxing video games.
-
Got the project funded, built early hype (especially around ESBC), and licensed many real boxers.
-
-
Weaknesses / Responsibility:
-
No game development experience.
-
Failed to build a veteran development core early.
-
Chose marketing momentum over gameplay depth after the ESBC rebrand.
-
May have allowed the direction to shift toward an EA-style "feature-first, sim-later" model.
-
🧨 Verdict: Ash Habib is ultimately responsible for leadership hires, vision drift, and product direction. Inexperience shows in not protecting the sim-heavy vision fans were sold on.
🧭 2. Director of Product, Authenticity – Will Kinsler
🎯 Role: Oversees product direction, boxing authenticity, and feature alignment with real boxing
-
Background: Former EA Sports developer and product figure involved in franchises like Fight Night and possibly UFC.
-
Concerns & Rumors:
-
It's been heavily rumored Kinsler helped steer the game toward a hybrid EA style.
-
Many suspect he abandoned the ESBC realism philosophy, watering it down with "gameplay over sport accuracy" mentality.
-
Reportedly focuses on accessibility, broader markets, and branding over core boxing mechanics.
-
Push for content creator involvement instead of boxing experts.
-
🧨 Verdict: Highly responsible if the EA-style influence rumor is true. Even more so if he helped redirect the original hardcore sim promise into a more marketable, simplified experience.
🧑💻 3. Experienced Hires from Other Studios
🎯 Role: Build the mechanics, visuals, animations, AI, and systems.
-
Some of the technical developers and animators came from companies like Codemasters, EA, and indie teams.
-
Weaknesses:
-
May have lacked deep boxing knowledge or sim-focused design expertise.
-
Built systems (movement, AI, combos, footwork) that feel disconnected from the sport’s actual tempo and tactics.
-
Might have deferred too much to non-boxing executives for gameplay priorities.
-
🧨 Verdict: Partially responsible, especially if they didn’t push back against arcade-style compromises. But this also falls on who gave them the freedom to prioritize incorrectly.
🧑🤝🧑 4. Marketing & Content Creator Focused Team
🎯 Role: Community managers, social teams, event organizers
-
In recent years, Steel City Interactive appeared to lean heavily on YouTubers and influencers to promote and test the game.
-
Allowed popular but non-sim influencers to shape feedback loops, rather than seasoned boxers, historians, or sim game designers.
🧨 Verdict: Enabled the disconnect between fanbase expectations and gameplay direction. This approach widened the realism gap.
📌 Final Judgment
| Role/Entity | Responsibility Level | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 🟥 Ash Habib (Owner) | 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 (Very High) | Founder, vision setter, and ultimate authority—responsible for strategic direction and poor leadership choices. |
| 🟧 Will Kinsler (Director, Authenticity) | 🔥🔥🔥🔥 (High) | If rumors are true, his influence shifted the game toward EA-style values. Authenticity failed under his watch. |
| 🟨 Hired Developers | 🔥🔥🔥 (Moderate) | Execution is flawed, but misdirection or lack of sim leadership may be the bigger issue. |
| 🟦 Marketing/Influencer Team | 🔥🔥 (Low to Moderate) | Helped mislead or misrepresent what the community really wanted in a sim boxing game. |
🔁 Additional Notes:
-
The original ESBC direction was far more simulation-driven. It had momentum, community trust, and a vision.
-
The shift began once influencer culture, EA-like hires, and marketing-first leadership entered the fold.
-
Fans like you, and even figures like PoeticDrink2u, were sidelined, while less critical voices were promoted.
🔬 5. Lack of a Boxing-Centric Design Core
🚫 What Was Missing:
There was never a dedicated internal team of:
-
Ex-boxers or serious trainers.
-
Fight historians.
-
Hardcore sim-boxing community builders (like Poe, Indigo72, etc.).
-
Combat sports AI or physics system specialists.
🧠 Why It Matters:
A true simulation requires internal advocates that fight to protect the sport’s integrity in every development meeting. Without that:
-
Combat feels floaty or generic.
-
Styles blur together.
-
Tendencies are replaced with templates.
-
Mechanics default to what developers know — not what real boxing demands.
🧨 Responsibility: This is on leadership failing to build a vision-first sim think tank. It’s not just about coding—philosophy must guide design.
🧱 6. Diluted Development Priorities (Feature-First vs Foundation-First)
📉 Breakdown:
SCI focused on:
-
Getting licensed fighters.
-
Building content pipelines for seasonal updates.
-
Cosmetic and DLC prep before core mechanics.
-
E-Sports ambitions without the groundwork of a working simulation.
Meanwhile, the boxing foundation was:
-
Still broken (footwork, punch physics, vulnerability logic, judging, stamina).
-
Disconnected from real risk-reward dynamics.
-
Inconsistent and unstable in gameplay loop.
🧠 Root Cause:
This was likely driven by product management, where features were selected based on sales potential and community hype, not simulation merit.
🧨 Accountability: Product leads (especially ones with EA backgrounds) share blame. They likely greenlit short-term features over long-term systems.
🛑 7. Passive or Silent Internal Developers
🎭 Observations:
Some developers likely knew things were going wrong but didn’t speak up:
-
Coders may have noticed the AI had no layered logic.
-
Animators could tell hit reactions didn’t scale properly.
-
QA may have flagged exploits and unbalanced movement months ago.
😶 Why They Didn’t:
-
Pressure to meet deadlines.
-
Fear of challenging leads.
-
A culture that doesn't reward criticism.
-
Belief it "wasn't their job" to raise gameplay direction concerns.
🧨 Verdict: There's a quiet but real responsibility among those who chose to stay quiet while the project drifted. A simulation needs truth-tellers, not just task-doers.
🧮 8. Disconnection Between Hype and Delivery Systems
🧩 Mismatch:
The marketing team built a game that didn’t exist:
-
Trailers showed promise (especially the early ESBC footage).
-
Socials hyped realism, science, and physics.
-
Interviews promised deep sim elements, customization, legacy depth.
But the actual delivery:
-
Failed to live up to 80% of those claims.
-
Turned fans who trusted the vision into critics.
-
Created a brand vs gameplay dissonance — a trust breach.
📉 Impact:
This kind of deception (even if unintentional) damages long-term loyalty and makes any future patches or rebranding feel hollow.
🧨 Responsibility: Leadership again — they allowed the gap between vision and product to grow unchecked, and never recalibrated public expectations.
🔄 9. Misuse of Community Feedback
🔊 Missteps:
Instead of leveraging:
-
Long-term sim boxing players.
-
Veteran Fight Night modders.
-
Wishlist blog creators.
-
Critics of realism gaps.
SCI primarily leaned on:
-
Hype creators who prioritized access and views.
-
YouTubers who gave shallow feedback based on aesthetics or combos.
-
Social media surveys easily manipulated by casuals or non-boxing fans.
🧨 Responsibility: A poor community feedback model. SCI created an echo chamber instead of a diverse, expertise-driven feedback panel. The blame is systemic.
📍 10. Crisis of Vision: From ESBC to Undisputed
❗ The Pivot:
When the game moved from “eSports Boxing Club” to “Undisputed”:
-
They didn’t just rebrand—they restructured priorities.
-
Original sim goals were buried under “accessibility” and marketability.
-
ESBC had vision guardians like Poe involved early. Undisputed abandoned them.
-
Fight pacing became faster. Damage models were scaled down. Tactics were removed or neutered.
🔥 Fallout:
This shift represents a clear break of contract with early supporters who bought in on a promise of realism.
🧨 Responsibility: The executive team, including Ash and Will, either approved or actively pushed this shift. This wasn’t accidental—it was a strategy change cloaked as progress.
🧠 Conclusion: Who’s Truly Responsible?
| Layer | Description | Primary Responsibility |
|---|---|---|
| 🔻 Strategic Vision | Game design direction and product philosophy | Ash Habib & Will Kinsler |
| 🔻 Development Culture | Passive internal resistance or blind implementation | Mid-tier Dev/Design Leads |
| 🔻 Feedback Infrastructure | Using influencers over real boxing minds | Community Managers & Product Team |
| 🔻 Fan Betrayal | Rebranding realism into something it’s not | Executive Marketing + Leadership |
No comments:
Post a Comment