Topic: EA UFC has a cover vote event for community to participate in

[affinity]

New cover vote event!! 

http://mmajunkie.com/2013/11/11/tate-upsets-rousey-in-ea-sports-ufc-cover-vote-second-round-voting-underway/

http://www.ufc.com/covervote

Over the past week, EA Sports and the UFC have teamed up for the “EA Sports UFC” cover vote, a contest allowing fans to determine who will join light-heavyweight champion Jon Jones on the cover of the new UFC video game, which is set for release in 2014.

Sixteen male and female fighters entered a bracket to determine whose fan base would vote them onto the video game cover, and the results produced a bag of mixed results.

In the biggest upset of the first round, Tate edged out Rousey in an upset.

According to the official UFC Twitter account, Rousey was ahead in voting with just one hour remaining, only for “Cupcake” to swoop in and steal the victory.

The remaining results were somewhat less surprising as lightweight titleholder Anthony Pettis defeated fellow champion Demetrious Johnson, Johny Hendricks topped Dominick Cruz, and Michael Bisping narrowly defeated Urijah Faber.

On the other side of the bracket, Georges St-Pierre received more votes than Chris Weidman, Alexander Gustafsson beat Daniel Cormier, Chael Sonnen got another one over on Brazil by defeating Junior dos Santos, and featherweight titleholder Jose Aldo took down ex-lightweight champ Benson Henderson.

The second round of vote commenced the moment the first round came to a conclusion, and the final round of eight provides some interesting matchups:

St-Pierre vs. Hendricks
Pettis vs. Aldo
Sonnen vs. Bisping
Gustafsson vs. Tate
Fans can cast their second round votes for at

http://www.ufc.com/covervote

The next round of voting ends Nov. 17.

in my opinion, this is gonna be amazing!!  While EA is still new to MMA development, after partnering with UFC, they are fully committed and ambitious in developing the first true next gen fighting game, and most realistic fighting simulator in gaming history with their NEW next gen engine, new graphics, and lots of new organic features. Heard it's releasing around May, but that's good because that allows them to refine and polish and expand it further instead of rushing it as a launch title (plus looks like the new consoles may need some updates and fixes)

And it's possible with a industry giant like EA could expand the roster further through DLC for fans that are willing to pay more for more favorites (well people are used to there always being people willing to buy DLC, which is better than content being left behind.  I bought all the Castlevania HD DLC and they are totally worth it.),
and provide the highest quality of MMA in the entire gaming industry.
(There are too many arcade fighters and Street Fighter/Virtua Fighter wannabes out there, the industry does need more realistic fighting simulators that isn't something tame like boxing or just wrestling games. MMA is the best sport to create a fighting game around. Realism in gaming > arcadey gaming.

Plus fighting simulators tend to be much more balanced and less cheap than arcade fighters where the one that pokes into combos/juggles first twice or three times pretty much wins.
With realistic fighters, there is more skill based back and forth fighting that keeps both players on their toes, which leads to more unpredictable matches and more natural fights.  Fighting simulators really make arcade fighters look immature and cheap.  Arcadey fighters are mainstream, but the realistic fighting simulator side of things, particularly in MMA, deserves as much attention and respect and further development and refinements, and that side of the genre is really lacking in quality games (because developers haven't bothered to develop that side further, that's why you end up with arcadey wannabes like Supremacy MMA, which is a sad excuse for a fighting game period, don't think those KFF devs would have made a decent MMA simulator anyways, considering they suck at arcade fighters and hybrids also. Did you see Girl Fight?  What kind of lazy slapped together indie sized shovelware cash grab game was that? And their character designs need work. )

Fighting simulators have been around since Karate Champ,  yet the genre went the way of the over the top Yie Ar Kung Fu direction, that's why there are so many Street Fighters/Virtua Fighter clones out there, instead of fighting games that explore the more realistic side of fighting, which really delivers more impact, and more balance in fights.  (Bushido Blade > Soul Calibur) 

Especially more impact because each attack matters a lot more and feel more dangerous and potent than your typical fierce attack in an arcade fighter, where opponents are in no longterm danger of a hit having organic effects to their performance, for the rest of the match.  Like for example contestants in arcade fighters never feel fatigued.   So realism does make a fighting game's attacks matter more and feel more rewarding with every hit.   So fighters feel   more organic instead of robotic.   Yes, animations do continue to have the issue of perfectly simulating movement/action transitions.   but overall, fighting simulators having taken more steps forward than arcadey fighting games that are satisfied with their gimmicks, while fighting simulators advance fighting technology and gameplay further. 

Here are some official sources,

http://www.easports.com/ufc

https://www.facebook.com/EASPORTSUFC

I think feedback can help improve things while they are still in the alpha stages (the videos show earlier this year were preAlpha),
so yea overall anyone interested in fighting simulators, MMA, and fighting games in general, might wanna keep track of the
upcoming updates and information EA UFC will reveal up ahead.      The EA UFC team are definitely more capable and better funded
than Yukes to produce a more worthy MMA series, that can keep growing and improving on the next gen platforms.      
MMA games were somewhat of a side attraction before, but now with the upcoming EA UFC and greater possibilities on next gen hardware, they can really make MMA simulators as popular as any fighting series out there, especially now that they have the UFC brand, which is expanding and developing further as well.

Oh yea, UFC 168 is going to be explosive!!

http://www.ufc.com/event/UFC168 

(oh sorry for the "wall" of text, but faster than reading a book, right?     )