EA college football is back after over a decade. The game and its fans are a lot different now

The 2024 football season officially starts this weekend for many fans, as Electronic Arts rolls out a long-awaited revamp of its college football game. Some fans of the old game who have spent less time with their XBox and PlayStation in recent years are quickly realizing they’ve got a lot of practicing to do.

“I was watching some of the videos and the gameplay, and it’s all these different elements. We’re going from a flip phone to an iPhone, is literally how the game has changed so much,” said Anthony Bencomo, a 47-year old corporate recruiter and owner of Deli Fresh Threads clothing brand in Orlando.

Bencomo isn’t the only one who is being drawn back into gaming by EA Sports College Football 25. Bill Long, a 31-year-old accountant in Sacramento, has been recruiting gamers through social media into an online league for those roughly 30 and up, with the idea being that some of his peers might be a bit rusty.

“I knew there was a large population that were going to be like, ‘Hey, I don’t want to be in with all the younger kids that know what they’re doing,'” said Long, who also hosts a sports podcast and streams on Twitch.

The game officially debuted on Friday, though many players who bought the deluxe version were trying it out all week. EA said that more than 2 million users played the game early. Third-party data like GameStop’s best-seller list and early Twitch viewership indicate the game could have a strong launch.

This is the first major college sports game of any kind released since 2013.

“I definitely think there’s some pent-up demand,” said Eric Handler, a senior research analyst at Roth MKM.

The college football game, previously titled NCAA Football, was typically a smaller product for EA, at least compared to titles like Madden.

But its popularity has endured over the years, with used copies of NCAA Football 14 becoming valuable items for trade in and resale. Lucas Dolengowski, a 31-year-old social media director from Madison, Alabama, said he went looking for a copy of the game he used to play in college around the time of the Covid pandemic but got spooked by the price.

“I was definitely looking to just get an older XBox and then just buy the game to be able to play it. But the games were going for like $100 on eBay,” said Dolengowski, who has since bought the deluxe version of the new game.

Bencomo said that he held onto his 2013 copy of the game, but traded in the 2014 one to help buy a gaming system for his daughter. He said he plans to buy and play the new game, but finding the time could be a bit tricky, even with his family encouraging him to dive back in.

“In this timeframe that’s happened, I’ve adulted and I have a life,” Bencomo said.

Beyond the gameplay, the changes to the video game also reflect some massive shifts in college football itself, including the advent of the College Football Playoff.

The financials behind the game also have a major change. A decade ago, college football players had strict restrictions around making money outside of their scholarship. Since then, a series of legal cases has allowed for payment for what is called name, image and likeness rights, or NIL.

EA said that every player who opted in to appearing in the game received a minimum of $600 along with a copy of the game. Some of the football players and other college athletes were also signed as ambassadors to help promote the game.

In the old versions, the players were simply labeled with fake names or numbers, unless the gamers found an off-the-books workaround.

“I would actually buy a memory card and mail it to someone, and they would put the names in,” Bencomo said.

Whether the old and new fans of the College Football game make it a success for EA is still to be determined. The game could exceed the estimates of around 3 million units sold that some analysts have penciled in and still end up roughly half as big as Madden. Stifel analyst Drew Crum said in a July 16 note that the game could sell more than 4 million units, but with limited in-game monetization, which has become increasingly important to game publishers in recent years.

And given the fact that both are football games, the impact on EA’s Madden franchise remains to be seen, said Douglas Creutz, an analyst at TD Securities.

“It’s still unclear how many units might come out of Madden and go to NCAA Football. There might be some cannibalization,” Creutz said.

EA has not announced if the college football game will become an annual launch, so gamers may need to savor this new version for awhile. But the nostalgia factor is clearly working in the game’s favor.

“It’s pretty cool seeing that there’s guys 30-plus out there, because that’s kind of the sweet spot of 2003 to 2007. A lot of the new gamers weren’t born or barely even playing back then,” Long said.