An interesting staff change at a big company can feel like keeping tabs on a big NBA trade. The last few months in sports gaming have felt like an exciting off-season. Earlier this month, former gameplay producer for 2K Games Scott O’Gallagher left the company to become Creative Director at EA. This raised a lot of questions, namely: Will we see a new NBA Live? As if to complete the trade, today Corey Andress announced he would be joining Take-Two and the NBA 2K team.
Proud to share that I’ve accepted a role as Global Director for Take-Two/@2K, working on @NBA2K.
As a HUGE fan of the series and the NBA, I’m honoured for the chance to help this team be the best it can be, and to take the next step in my career.
Let’s get it! 🏀 #NBA2K21 pic.twitter.com/dxn2ieJUHZ
— CoreySA (@CoreySA) September 28, 2020
Andress worked for EA for 10 years and was most well-known for his work around the FIFA community. According to his LinkedIn, Andress started as an EA Game Changer in August of 2010. He joined the community engagement team in 2016 and worked his way up to becoming a face of the FIFA community, eventually becoming Franchise Lead over all of EA’s Vancouver franchises. That includes the UFC and NHL series.
Corey Andress’ new job title for NBA 2K is a familiar one: Director of Global Community on NBA 2K. His new job will likely not be as public-facing, though his role at EA had also seen him less in the public eye of late. Andress was an active face of FIFA on Twitter until earlier this year when EA established a Twitter account to do specifically that. Turns out, the removal of EA from his old Twitter handle (@EACoreySA) may have been foreshadowing. A popular critique of Andress on Twitter is about his insistence on banning people who harass him. “Fans” on Twitter can be more than harsh to developers or people who represent them online. All things considered, I can’t say I blame him.
It will be interesting to see what Andress brings to the table. 2K has struggled to connect with their community in the past few years and there’s a strong opportunity available. 2K Games is actively recruiting community management on their LinkedIn, so Andress may still be putting his new team together. It seems like he’ll be an active part behind how NBA 2K21 interacts with its community, heading towards its second launch alongside the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S/X in November.