From IGN:

September 17, 2008 - Sports games are marching ever-toward replicating every aspect of the very real-life competitions they attempt to embody in digital form, but it's unquestionably an uphill battle. Stats must be managed. Egos and the decisions attached to them must be personified by a bunch of ones and zeroes. Player abilities and highlight reel appearances wax and wane. The game of basketball itself is an intricately detailed menagerie of random happenstances guided only by the skill of the players on the court and, perhaps, just a few injections of fate; an unpredictable series of events that have a very, very long way to go before they're replicated in games in even a remote fashion like they take place in real life.

This is where Synergy Sports Technology comes in. Culling literally years of scrutinizing detail and information on players, teams and the way they interact on the actual lacquered planks of wood that make up the myriad NBA venues around the country, Synergy seeks to deliver the kind of ridiculous detail that's all but required by teams looking to break down the techniques and plays of their competition.

It works just as strongly for the folks making the games about this confluence of data and seemingly random events, as our talk with Garrick Barr, Synergy's CEO made blatantly obvious. Read on to find out exactly what they're adding to this year's version NBA Live 09, EA's roundball simulation.

IGN: For those who don't actually know your company or understand what you do, what is Synergy?

Garrick Barr: [That's] a big question. I used to work with the Phoenix Suns for 11 years. I was hired as an assistant coach, but I ended up doing all their video technology work during my time there and I found that coaching needed some help from technology, so the first thing I did was buy a non-linear editor to use at the team which really sped up our ability to create edits and respond to coaches' needs.

Then I designed and had built a scouting database for the draft and for free agency and the rest and I found that vendors sort of came out of the woodwork and everyone referred them to me. So I did a lot of the consulting and made it possible for those products to meet the coaches' and front office use..."

Read full interview HERE from IGN



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