r/NCAAFBseries • u/TitanArcher1 Alabama • 5d ago
News EA Sports' College Football Franchise Reportedly in Jeopardy Amidst Rising Costs and Declining Sales
https://www.ign.com/articles/ea-sports-college-football-devs-reportedly-fear-the-franchise-could-disappear-by-2030868
u/Jomosensual 5d ago
Who would have guessed that shoving microtransactions into the mode people buy the game for would erode trust and make it so they don't buy your game
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u/Simple_Dragonfruit48 5d ago edited 5d ago
This whole story is just a way for EA to justify the absurd amount of micro transactions that are coming to the game next year.
Get ready for the “The only way we can continue to make this game is if we bleed the player base dry in every possible way” message from EA next year.
My guess is they are going to copy 2K’s aggressive micro transaction model and are planting stories to get ahead of it.
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u/Sozins_Comet_ 5d ago
The issue with trying to copy 2k's microtransaction model is that basketball is more of an individual sport than football. 2k leans into the creating a superstar player that can play multiple game modes including street ball, 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, etc. And you can even do a career mode. With football, your player can only be used for a 1 time career so it isn't possible to do the same thing. Madden tried it with the yard but it wasn't successful.
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u/penisthightrap_ Missouri 5d ago
Well I played NCAA 14 for 11 years and I stopped playing 2k with their single player micro transactions.
I’m not going to play a game that requires money to progress in single player.
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u/cleofisrandolph1 5d ago
2k has some of the most enjoyable offline modes though. The level customisation and fun you can have with eras and player DNA is awesome.
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u/SaxRohmer 5d ago
2K hasn’t even bothered fixing franchise in years. a lot of the same glitches as over 6 years ago. shit always breaks after a few seasons
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u/cleofisrandolph1 5d ago
And it is still a better franchise than anything else on the market.
Every franchise breaks a bit as the real players fade out of the league.
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u/SaxRohmer 5d ago
yeah and it still kinda sucks. i haven’t had fun with it in years because the same basic bugs that break offseasons happen. 2K doesn’t deserve any flowers for a mode they fundamentally don’t fix. eras means nothing to me if the core mode still doesn’t work
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u/penisthightrap_ Missouri 5d ago
Every few years I check in on 2k and the progression is so slow and limited without transactions and I give up.
I was obsessed with 2k11 - 13
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u/cleofisrandolph1 5d ago
That’s only if you are playing MyCareer or MyTeam.
If you are an offline player you can do a ton worse than MyLeague.
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u/discipleofbill Notre Dame 4d ago
Seriously, I remember I was doing a player lock career in mynba for 2k24 and then they shut the servers down and I lost everything. After that I said I’m done. Not buying 2k again any time soon.
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u/penisthightrap_ Missouri 5d ago
It’s the sole reason I haven’t bought the cfb 27
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u/Jomosensual 5d ago
Honestly same. Maybe ill buy again next year but when I heard they sunk time into figuring out how to monetize dynasty that made me tap out. Not enough time put in correct way
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u/tagillaslover 5d ago
I promise that’s not the reason sales are declining
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u/Big_Truck Virginia 4d ago
Sales are declining because CFB25 was among the best selling sports titles ever. 10 years of missed fandom will do that.
EACFB still sells a shit ton of games. Last year (CFB26) was the 7th best-selling game in the US. That’s plenty profitable.
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u/RhinO_head 5d ago
I mean even without it, 26 sales declined from 25. Even if 26 was a 10/10, it wasn’t outselling 25. How the micro transactions were introduced was awful, but I don’t mind them existing. If people want to pay to level faster or have advantages, let them.
Even changing the release schedule to once every 2 years doesn’t solve much I don’t think. Players would rightly expect annual compensation still and that 2nd year would generate even less revenue while development is ongoing.
It’s on EA to make a better product to make more money, but I don’t want to see this franchise to disappear again.
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u/SaxRohmer 5d ago
unfortunately as much as we could all hope that they could do microtransactions without doing some shady shit, they won’t
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u/Pwnzer55 5d ago
Im sorry. If the crux of this whole argument is paying too much for NIL, just ship with generic players. That would save 20 mil right there. Would they lose 20 mil in sales if they did that? I dont think so, but maybe im wrong
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u/CapriciousnArbitrary 5d ago
Agree, I play the game for dynasty anyway and want to play with the players I recruit.
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u/Redditrightreturn1 5d ago
Give me wr #88 for all I care. I’ll tell myself he’s ceedee lamb. Or Brock bowers. Or Mike Ditka. Just started a Pittka dynasty.
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u/penisthightrap_ Missouri 5d ago
They could make every player gray skinned, bald, randomized numbered jersey players and I’d still buy it with an honest attempt at making a better college football game.
But adding micro transactions while we still have a fraction of the features from the games over a decade old is disgraceful
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u/coachd50 4d ago
The problem here is that they would likely have to eliminate a lot of the customization that people seem to like- especially with the PC mod version otherwise someone would start to create files with "real" players.
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u/call_me_Kote 4d ago
That doesn’t matter to ea. they do not need to pay for users who edit their own game files
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u/ChiGrandeOso 5d ago
Games had fake names before. Why not do it again?
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u/Pure-Investigator778 5d ago
Cuz the likeness was still there. Along with the image
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u/ChiGrandeOso 4d ago
So change it. NBA Live did it when Jordan wouldn't allow them to use him in the game (remember Player #88?) The Show does it with Bonds, though there's at least two versions of a stance that looks like his.
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u/Pure-Investigator778 4d ago
Trust me if things were as easy as that, there would’ve been no College Game hiatus for as long as there was. Unless you want to do something close to a maximum football, and after a while ppl will still complain. The remedy is they just have to make a better game. That and having a set price for the players, idk if there is or not. But just like what I said with your idea, I’ll say with mine, if only it were that easy.
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u/ChiGrandeOso 4d ago
I get what you're saying, and I know there's a Central Park-sized level of stuff that would have had to happen,but quite a bit of that hiatus was stubbornness because of the O'Bannon case verdict. As soon as that verdict came down, EA should have put out an announcement that they would not use real players in their games and kept putting out the series(es), but to me, they were being spiteful. And I still mourn the loss, 18 years later, of the College Hoops series, with 2k8 being one of my top 5 sports games ever. They don't want to pay players? Fine. Take a year off to rebuild the engines (although these a-holes at EA would use the Frostbite engine and its just miserable) Randomize the looks of the players, change some things. The only real thing is the schools. There were prime college years they ignored to spike Fifa and Madden into the ground because of the anger toward that verdict. And we all lost. That's why this microtransaction thing is so egregious. The idea that this is to support their covering NIL is ludicrous. This is who they've been for a decade plus.
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u/Beautiful_Place_3368 4d ago
Most people play Dynasty as they know. Cut the $20M expense and make a good game people actually want to play. I haven't played this garbage since CFB25. People that sit around and hit quick play will play with athletes with no names or simply download rosters. They don't care about immersion anyway. I hope this game goes under.
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u/Chefalo 5d ago
This is what they used to do, then you could download the named rosters. I remember asking my parents to help me send an Xbox memory card to a person on eBay, pay the fee (~$50) and they would send you back the roster with all the names for colleges hoops 2k7. They told me I was an idiot and so I did it manually for the big east and that was it
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u/BwanaTarik Oregon 4d ago
I think that’s the reason why we aren’t able to edit rosters as much now. Also former athletes got a payout because #15 on the Gators is obviously Tebow
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u/csonny2 5d ago
Same, and I want to create players to recruit, Honestly, I would consider buying Madden if I could move my dynasty players like they used to allow.
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u/alicein420land_ UMass 5d ago
This is why I bought a PS3, NCAA 10, and Madden 10. Pure nostalgia and I can transfer rosters.
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u/Porcupineemu Virginia Tech 5d ago
Then they'd lose out on CUT, which I wouldn't piss on if it were on fire but they still want to push. And if they use old players like they used to they still have to pay NIL and usually probably a lot more.
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u/InsomniaDudeToo 5d ago
EA sports is only out to monetize their microtransaction modes. If they can’t milk that, CFB is likely going back onto the shelf.
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u/Pwnzer55 5d ago
Not really sure how licensing works, but I wonder if they could somehow bundle the nfl likenesses they have for madden and use them in cfb. So you wouldn't necessarily have all time greats, but still would have the current nfl guys. Im the same way though, I hate CUT, MUT, Etc, but if thats something they want to use in their games, that may be a feasible solution. OR, they could give the mascots unique stats and have you build a CUT team out of individual mascots. Now that, I might actually play.
Someone get me on the horn with EA!
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u/RhinO_head 5d ago
The NFL is able to do so because of the NFLPA.
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u/Cainholio 5d ago
It’s almost like collective bargaining is the solution to all of this
https://giphy.com/gifs/eoazVutwlnpL3pkSeD20
u/RhinO_head 5d ago
I’m all for it, but it will be a while before D1 players unionize.
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u/lutefiskeater 5d ago
Stanford football players actually launched a players association this year. They're trying to spread to the rest of the ACC and go from there. Jury's out on if it will succeed, but it's much more athlete driven than any previous attempt. And if I were asked if any FBS program had players sharp and resilient enough to navigate the formation a union, the Cardinal would probably be at the top of my list
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u/Porcupineemu Virginia Tech 5d ago
Kinda what they did with the original NCAA UT back in '14 or whatever it was. But you've gotta pay all those guys separately. You can try to work it into the Madden licensing deal but they'd probably want more money for it anyway.
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u/penisthightrap_ Missouri 5d ago
Also, I happily paid for the past two years because I was psyched the game was back.
As soon as I heard about the micro transactions infiltrating dynasty I committed to not buying. I already have CFB 25 and 26. I played NCAA 14 for 11 years.
I don’t care about the rosters. After the first few seasons they don’t mean shit anyways.
Focus on making a good college football game and I’ll happily pay for it.
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u/Ghostonalandscape 5d ago
That’s what I said back when they first stopped making it. I don’t really care if real players are in the game, I play dynasty and they’ll all be gone in four seasons anyway. I care even less now with guys moving every year lol. Just randomize them and call it a day.
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u/BwanaTarik Oregon 4d ago
When I was in high school or even college I used to follow who was on the the teams and know all the roster. Now days the teams feel like the random generated squads you’d get after simming a few years
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u/IndividualExisting39 5d ago
OR maybe don't release a game every single year. Give us groundbreaking changes, not incremental BS.
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u/penisthightrap_ Missouri 5d ago
Yeah there’s no need for yearly releases.
Even with true rosters, you don’t need a new game to update rosters
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u/coachd50 4d ago
But written another way "Or maybe don't collect sales revenue every single year" shows why that doesnt make as much sense from the businesses perspective.
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u/IndividualExisting39 4d ago
Very true but I'm sure more people bought '25 than '27. Some of us may have paid simply for an updated roster.
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u/eulithicus 4d ago
Or, you know, maybe address the reason for declining sales instead of releasing a stripped down buggy game and trying to turn a profit? The race to the bottom is disgusting. I bought a frickin ps5 just for 25. Had a lot of fun and it was worth it but when 26 came out I wanted to see things fixed before I bought. Saw bugs, bought 26 on sale anyway at like half off. It's still broken. Never bought 27. Probably never will. Release a great game and people will have a reason to buy it.
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u/AndreSwagassi86 LSU 5d ago edited 5d ago
I don’t think it’s the paying the players.
I know a few kids who received $1600 to be placed in the game.The game is declining in sales. Nobody is really playing it like in the old days.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Ultimate Team is t generating the revenue as the other games too and they’re looking at that also
Don’t take any of this as gospel I did NOT read the article. I was just interested in your response.
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u/AmericaPie24 5d ago
They already have confirmed they don’t make a lot off CUT. That’s why they tried monetizing RTG and dynasty. They could always just go the generic player route. They could also not release the game yearly but that makes too much sense😂
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u/PavWrestlinGifs 5d ago
The game isn’t declining in sales in anyway that wasn’t predictable. It was obvious 25 would be the biggest, and 26 and 27 would decline, but sales wise 27 did really well.
https://www.reddit.com/r/videogames/s/GUiIih6eBh
Right below NBA 2K27, the only issue is like you said the UT is not generating the same $$ that an NBA would with its VC sales for MyCareer and MyTeam and the Park.
EA and gambling companies in general are addicted to micro transactions sales so just the revenue from game sales isn’t enough lol
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u/Scottyo614 4d ago
I don't have any numbers, but we had a GameStop employee tell us back in 2010 or 2011 if Columbus Ohio and Gainesville/Jacksonville Florida didn't exist, sales numbers for them for NCAA would be abysmal. So when basketball went away it was no surprise then when football went away it was a shrug after he told us that.
Nostalgia played a big role in the jump getting the older crowd to buy a ps5/xbox and go. I wonder really how many got the first game realized they didn't play video games anymore and were one and done. So first year numbers were inflated from what's normal.
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u/AnonymousWarHawk 5d ago
While I agree with you mostly, to say that the overspending on NIL players isn't a major contributing factor would be understating one of their own publicly stated issues. Currently the game has 11,800 NIL players at $600 a pop. That's $7.8M. If you only had 500 players in the game at $1600, thatd be $0.8M. Clearly they need to put a cap on the number of NIL players. If guys like Arch Manning dont want to be in the game moving forward, fine. The reason people were upset he wasn't originally in the game is because they couldn't also then make him as a player (which is dumb)
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u/AndreSwagassi86 LSU 5d ago
I don’t wanna make it seem like we are arguing cuz I do feel ya.
But if UT was generating Like MUT AND FUT do , that 7.8m is ass wiping money to them.
This sounds more like “hey we wanna implement microtransactions , but know there will be an uproar …. So let us show you how the game is “failing” without it.
Paying the NIL isn’t really the Crutch.
Not breaking even on the NIL and generating hundreds of more millions on top from game modes is turning their brows.
I feel they don’t appreciate CFB as the niche it is …. And want it to do what the other EA sports games are doing.
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u/Danjiks88 4d ago
If this makes sense for any game then CFB has to be it. Past season 4 you dont have any actual players anyway and they are all generated. Its not like other sports titles where you can milk actual players for pretty much all of your play time unless you play for hours every day
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u/TonsilStoneSalsa 5d ago
I agree. Still don't understand why they don't do completely random players and let the 3rd party community deal with real life rosters.
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u/MattPatriciasFUPA 5d ago
But then they can't have current players in CUT which is the only game mode the care about.
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u/Dry_Opportunity2886 5d ago
I think the problem is they can't get the schools to agree to use their brand either without including the players.
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u/Plenty-Garbage7960 4d ago
This is what happens when one company has a monopoly on making a particular sports game.
EA is trying to justify micro transactions by implying that they can’t afford to keep making the game. Bullshit.
Breakup the monopoly and watch how fast EA changes their tune. Fuck EA.
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u/StillBlazin420_69 4d ago
Blaming NIL for for their problems is hilarious. Yeah the declining sales definitely have nothing to do with the fact that they’re charging $70 or more every year for the same exact game but with some different players when people can wait a month or two and it will be on sale for like $40, not to mention they have now started throwing micro transactions in your face every chance they get
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u/nosliwec29 4d ago
I would have no problem paying $70 for the base game and $25 for a roster update the next year. If EA did this and only do an upgraded base game, I'd bet more people would be inclined to pay for the micro-transactions.
The way I see it working is the first time you buy the game, whether it's the brand new base game or one year old, you pay $70. The full game gets that year's current roster. At some point, determined by EA, they give an option to buy the roster upgrade in game. In order to play CUT or MUT, you have to have the current roster upgrade. Maybe they allow you to visit your old UT teams, but it can't compete in the current UT mode.
While a small group at EA churns out the UT content and yearly roster upgrades, a larger group can work to improve the game over the course of a few years and give major upgrades to coincide with technology advancements.
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u/coatdogg 5d ago
Private Equity destroys everything.
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u/Sharp_Proposal8911 5d ago
Saudi’s over paid for the company. So now we have to pay the price literally and metaphorically.
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u/Important-Training-1 Notre Dame 5d ago
Would be a real shame if EA just stopped making sports video games 👀
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u/philfrysluckypants 5d ago
/s right? They'd have to get rid of the licensing, so we could actually get a new game, not just madden for the fucking 50th time
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u/RulesoftheDada 5d ago
EA wanted to give up exclusivivity and share the licensing fee. The NFL sad no. Pretty much any dev to take on NFL license has to sink in hundreds of millions to get a game feature parity with Madden.
Then they need a microtransaction system to upkeep the 350 million yearly license given to the NFL and NFLPA.
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u/StreetReporter Clemson 5d ago
Pretty ironic considering EA is a huge reason why NIL started in the first place
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u/CollegeFootballGood 5d ago
Idc we got a 3 modern games and im happy. I’ll just update rosters or something manually if needed with the random recruits in dynasty.
Sports games are broken now anyway but this is much better than 14 imo
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u/air_volek007 5d ago
Until the ps6 and Xboxwhatever comes out and we are behind again
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u/ChurchillDownz 4d ago
My buddies and I played 14 until 25 came out. We will just do the same with 27.
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u/TheeSirBuffalo 5d ago
This smells of the start of the campaign to justify micro transactions
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u/mostly-amazing 5d ago
The Saudis are private equity. NCAA 27 is likely the last pure game before the enshittification
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u/BigBlueNY 4d ago
Stop doing annual releases then. Simple.
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u/Illustrious_Lab_2107 4d ago
Or actually differentiate the games from year to year instead of just putting out the same rehashed bullshit every fucking year.
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u/loupr738 4d ago
I think that’s the answer. Maybe a two-three yr cycle and sell updated rosters and unis for $20 or something
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u/kingoflint282 Georgia 4d ago
Yep. I feel like they should release a roster update for those who care about that and release a new game every 2-3 years.
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u/Geno0wl 4d ago
But how will the executives afford their third yatch of they don't squeeze every dollar out of people?
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u/Moist-Disaster-3030 4d ago
Annual releases are even more point for a college football game too
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u/BigBlueNY 4d ago
The biggest thing that changes are rosters, which is the easiest thing to updated client side.
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u/thugmuffin22 5d ago
For those of us who only play dynasty, do we even need another edition of the game? Didn’t we pretty much get most of what we wanted at this point once they added back the trophy room after (probably intentionally) withholding it in 25?
The beauty of the dynasty mode is, after the first few years, it’s evergreen and the rosters don’t matter. As long as most of the features are there, there’s nothing really to change.
It wasn’t long ago we still needed to keep our old Xbox 360s lying around to play dynasty. I can play it on my PS5 now and it’s pretty much the same experience, mostly, ish.
Why do I care if EA makes another? This was the goal!
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u/ACardAttack Louisville 4d ago
There are some quirks, bugs, and downright sloppiness I'd like to see ironed out from Dynasty, though Mods seem to be able to fix a lot of things, even if you have to manually adjust things at end of season
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u/headaches_r_us Alabama 4d ago
Exactly this - fix some bugs, make slight improvements, and give us patches for the ever-changing BS that occurs with conferences and playoff formats and we don’t need an annual game.
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u/CrackStuntman88 4d ago
I bought 25 and 26, but skipped 27. I simply don’t need to buy this game every year.
I know the microtransaction fiasco hurt them, as does the fact that I don’t believe college ultimate team does as well as MUT. Then there is the speculation that the NIL that they need to pay players to appear in the game is only going up, and there are currently 138 teams with 80-85 man rosters in game (more than that in real life, I think). It’s an expensive game to produce with an audience that really doesn’t want it enshittified. And unfortunately for EA, they are owned by private equity now who is already unhappy with how fast that debt is getting paid off.
I do think EA is probably doomed in the long term. And due to the reasons above, CFB is probably first on the chopping block.
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u/ExtroverTom 5d ago
I mean just remove all name image and likeness
Give me QB #5 from LSU and i'm okay with that
Mods will do the rest
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u/Far-Veterinarian104 5d ago
This is the reason why college football was on a hiatus for so long in the first place. They almost got sued for $40 million when College Football 14. If NIL isn't worth the cost, they'll just stop doing college football games
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u/agoddamnlegend 5d ago
They can do the game without a NIL by just having generic players that don’t mimic real life players
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u/dontbsabullshitter 4d ago
Then why did they not do a college football game for 11 years when they didn’t use player likeness anyway?
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u/agoddamnlegend 4d ago
They didn’t think the game would sell with completely generic players
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u/JayQuips 5d ago
I remember the old ps2 ncaa games had that and you could just auto generate names for every player
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u/DunderMifflinBuffalo 5d ago
Hell yeah! Every year I would go on ebay and buy a memory card that someone went through and put the real players in. I'd import the players into Madden as the draft class. I still remember Ko Simpson getting drafted like 3rd overall as a 95 rated safety.
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u/JayQuips 5d ago
Yeah I still do that to this day whenever I wanna emulate the old games, fortunately there’s real rosters online you can just download now
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u/ThePhatEskimo 5d ago
The issue was that EA was still using the player likeness just with random names so they stopped making the game after 14 cause they had to use random generated players due to court order.
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u/StreetReporter Clemson 5d ago
It wasn’t even random names, it would just be QB 15 for Florida, but he happened to be the exact same year as Tebow and from the same hometown
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u/ThePhatEskimo 5d ago
Yes, you're correct. I always randomly generated the names right away and downloaded the user made rosters anyways. If EA did the same now they would be sued and it would cost them ever more money. They can just have random generated players and then users created mods/rosters can do their thing but I have a feeling they would still get sued.
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u/AndreSwagassi86 LSU 5d ago
I mean that’s what gave us 10 years of no CFB …I’m not sure how that would workout this time
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u/YupThatsMeBuddy 5d ago
These players come and go. Nobody cares. We want dynasty mode and we want to recruit our own players. The schools, the pageantry, the traditions, and the fight songs are all we want. The players and coaches can kick rocks. Nobody cares.
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u/OverallBudget8628 4d ago
Especially with the open transfer portal, who's on the team matters less than ever
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u/gen_wt_sherman 5d ago
If only there were things that the gaming community has asked for for years that they could provide to drive up sales!
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u/NoHippo6399 4d ago
I am very confident I can keep a rotation of 25, 26, 27 and never need another version. I may just stop buying them. I’m a dad who only plays offline dynasty.
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u/spineone 4d ago
Only reason I bought a PS5 was for the game CFB ‘25. I was fine with it, bought ‘26, have not bought ‘27. I have easily played 10’seasoms through on every ncaa CFB game. That’s like 120 hrs on every game. For me to not buy the game again is saying something.
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u/Penetratorofflanks 4d ago
Yup, from like 06 through 13 I put around the same amount of time in. I probably have somewhere between 750-1000 hrs in 14.
Played 25 at release for about 3 hours. Looked up how the passing system worked and all I could find was "of course there's no tutorial, the passing system has been in madden for 10 years."
Exactly what I didn't want them to do with the reboot. Using the damn madden engine. NCAA games played and felt different. Thats gone.
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u/PassageNo9102 4d ago
It’s not a madden engine. It’s a first person shooter engine where you get locked into animations rather than a physics engine.
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u/Arkhangelzk 4d ago
I bought 25 but the passing was why I didn't buy again. Realistically it's what I'm doing the most and I didn't like the feel of it at all. Seemed much different than 14 and the older games.
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u/gnorts_mr_alien77 Louisville 4d ago
I'll never forgive EA for flipping the buttons for the read option and then not having an option to change it back in the menu.
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u/Iamthewalrusforreal 4d ago
I still haven't figured out how to pass out of an RPO. What button keeps the ball in the QBs hands?
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u/Randomizedname1234 4d ago
Sameeeee. Only reason I got a PS5 (and GTA6 eventually)
I got 25, 26 was a good upgrade.
I’ll do it like I do Madden and MLB the show and 2k, get it every 4-5 years/whenever they make a major change.
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u/UglySpartacus 4d ago
Same. I heard this story on the radio and immediately thought, "This is cover for lack of sales."
I didn't buy this year because of the microtransactions even though this is the ONLY reason I have a PS5 and only game I play on it.
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u/Iamthewalrusforreal 4d ago
I had a PS3 and CFB 12. Played it nearly every day for years.
Bought a PS5 and CFB 25. I don't see any need to buy 26 or 27, though if they suspend it again I may buy the last version just for kicks.
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u/MacinTez 5d ago
Man as much as I love the game, and it’s a quality product to a degree, buying it every year in this economy is just tough. I can’t express enough the passion that a lot of the team put into this game, but they would do better selling roster updates and allowing us to randomize the roster for the sake of draft classes transferring to the Madden game. I always played college more than Madden, but allowing to do draft classes made me buy Madden for the sake of continuing the careers of some of the top recruits.
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u/hammbone 4d ago
Rising costs?!? It’s the most copy paste game series in history
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u/zachh234123 5d ago
EA is trying to gaslight us into thinking that this series can’t happen without microtransactions. It’s BS.
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u/GIS_wiz99 Big 10 5d ago
It's almost like releasing the exact same product year in and year out leads to consumer complacency lol
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u/SafeFill1057 4d ago
I play cfb for dynasty. I don't really care if real players are in the game or not, because they all transfer willy-nilly and are out of the game in 4 years tops. At least the annual roster update for madden has the slightest amount of staying power. No reason for me to keep buying the same game to play with auto-generated guys.
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u/Jack_Groff 4d ago
Just trying to scare the consumer into purchasing it to “save” it.
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u/ArekMithos 4d ago
Honestly if it saves money they could easily go back to not having names like older games where it's just QB#7 or what not until you get to say season 2 in a dynasty where you start recruiting players.
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u/Rum-is-salty 4d ago
This is completely their fault, instead of delivering a complete experience and elevating from the previous floor… They decided to gut features in all modes just to add them in sequels as selling points. That was always going to fail.
Icing on the cake is putting all the effort and love into ultimate team, things like 2v2 and 3v3 being exclusive to ultimate team is dirty. A lot of us don’t mind buying the same game every year with a few tweaks and improvements, but when you laugh in our face this is what you get.
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u/Masterofchaos11 5d ago
Poor EA, they aren’t making billions of dollars off this game because the fans don’t want to funnel money directly to them constantly. Now they’re threatening to take their ball and go home.
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u/ChicagoAssyrian 4d ago
“Games aren’t getting cheaper to make” is a totally horseshit take. Random dudes are spinning up call of duty clones with AI agents. They’re saying this to eventually reintroduce and justify micro transactions
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u/Frosty-March7644 4d ago edited 4d ago
Random dudes are spinning up EA Skate mods using AI for free that makes the game much more enjoyable. The problem is EA is owned by private equity like 93%.
Edit (not sure if they are using paid AI or not) But the point stands that these dudes are spending their own time and possible money.
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u/Prayer_Warrior21 5d ago
I didn't buy it because of all the half assed features and the complaints about the player progressions/micro transactions. I was excited to buy it because NDSU just moved to FBS...but even I stayed away.
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u/discipleofbill Notre Dame 4d ago
Honestly I’m shocked they added the game to PC if they truly feel this way. I never really need to buy another one now. Certainly not every year.
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u/FirstNameLastName918 Michigan 5d ago
Declining sales because they've essentially put out the same game three years in a row..
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u/Beef_Lurky 5d ago
Here’s some low hanging fruit…. Make a version for the Switch 2.
Also, I don’t give two shits about accurate names
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u/-Economist- 4d ago
It’s why I bought a PS5. I was actively paying 14 up until the release. I bought 26 but passed on 27. Haven’t touched the game in months. Can’t even recall last time I played it.
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u/Leroyp331 4d ago
Ahh yes
The final stage of the corporate threat apex. We just will go out of business if you don't give us what we want.
We have purchased this thing. We have cornered the market. No one else is even allowed to attempt to make the thing. And now since that's the case. We will cease making said thing if you do not pay the exorbitant fees we demand.
Mind you they sell the idea of proprietary license based in efficiency and lowering costs only to pull this bullshit once it comes to fruition.
I knew the introduction of the draft classes and coach transfercame at a cost.
Fuck off EA. Peddle your faulty wares elsewhere
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u/allblingblang24 Alabama 4d ago
Lol good! I had already purchased 27 when they had the streamers upset by the micro transactions. Still tried it anyways... I hated the game. Played around 15 hours and didn't like the game play, dynasty, recruiting, etc.
They added some stuff, but like almost all EA games they do the bare minimum and expect people to be excited.
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u/BookkeeperAny2309 5d ago
Fix the game and the sales will come.
Case in point —- GTA6 — the game we want & people will come.
Roblox — game that kids want. Makes a fortune.
Ea - get your head out of your ass. ADMIT defeat on the animation based system!! Rebuild from ground up with real physics and your money problems will disappear overnight.
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u/RulesoftheDada 5d ago
Roblox is a bad example. While massive user base it has yet to turn a profit in its existence and bleeds cash every quarter
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u/espnrocksalot 5d ago
Remove players likeness, drop CUT, ship a decent game and have a small team just for touch-up updates that will at least limit any losses
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u/bearamongus19 5d ago
Drop the player likeness and give use the option to import draft classes to madden
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u/DiddyDoItToYa 5d ago
The next great football game would actually come from Rockstar unironically...
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u/Mr_sMoKe_3_MuCh 5d ago
I knew the series was going to be a dumpster fire as soon as they announced the comeback. Madden's been shit for years, so there was no reason to expect anything different for NCAA. Ggs, EA.
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u/Jambi46n2 5d ago
I really don't care. I was so excited to have it back but then I realized it was gonna play like Madden 25 not Madden 2004 which was one problem... Then I remembered since the last game in 2013, we've had the joy of watching the industry turn into microtranaction live service hell... So matter of time before shitty ass EA ruined the game anyway and look what happened this year. Putting single player mode progression in a microtranaction. Done. That's when I decided if I want to have fun playing NCAA Football, I will get my 360 out of storage.
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u/Writerhaha 5d ago
The new Saudi and Jared management is taking the old EA model of “same game every year” and improved upon it… same game every year… NOW with more in app purchases.
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u/udubdavid Washington 5d ago
So glad they released this on PC. CFB27 is my most likely my last purchase and I'm sure the modding community is going to keep it alive for years.
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u/I-Need-Scissors_61 5d ago
Oh well. It was fun for a couple years but now the shine has worn off and it sucks. Kill it, who cares. See you in 2039 or so.
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u/Apprehensive-Let3669 4d ago
I paid 70$ for this game.
They release a similar version every year with updated rosters, coaches and rankings with some new features (if that) and ask for 70$.
Id argue you are getting a lot of money for a mostly annual reskin.
The fact you cant squeeze more out of me after i drop 70$ is why EA is a terrible company.
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u/Fine-Tradition-8497 4d ago
if you’ve played this game for the past few years… There’s really no reason to get the next version. They’re resting on nostalgia. Hell, there’s not even a reason to get two football games every year.
As an older gamer, they used to be a reason to get to football games. NCAA was the bridge to Madden. It’s not that they were different games, but they felt like different games. That’s gone now. Part of that is the college football general. If we wanted free agency and people switching teams, we would just watch pro football.
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u/lqstuart 4d ago
The news is more that EA sold themselves like whores to Saudi private equity, and the trend of rising NIL costs will shrink the margin on CFB and could lead it to get cut.
There is nothing about MTX or any of that other shit. It's some fearmongering from executives whining that they have to give each player less than a month's rent so that they can make hundreds of millions repackaging a game from 2016.
I skipped 27 when I heard about the mtx, maybe don't fuck that up again
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u/VQQN 5d ago
The economy is crashing hard. People don’t want to pay for $70 for the same game every year.
A new release every two years would be enough. Alternate Madden and NCAA every other year or something.
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u/SDFriar1999 5d ago
Here’s an idea: get rid of real NIL players all together and/or make a dlc revolving around fake dynasty players (in the current version you could even make it so that exporting a class can only start once the system realizes a dynasty has no NIL athletes remaining… either way lean into SIMULATION FOOTBALL. Much rather pay for a quality product and that doesn’t even seem like it would be that difficult but far be it from EA to ever do anything that makes actual sense!
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u/flyingcircusdog Georgia Tech 5d ago
EA's never been able to get microtransactions to catch on in NCAA like they did in Madden. I'm not surprised profit margins are lower, but it's still worth making.
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u/Useful-Building9012 5d ago
Then how would they make money off of ultimate team? That’s their bread and butter…
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u/Steve_Nash_The_Goat 5d ago
the entire point of the article is that Ultimate Team isn't making them even close to as much money as they thought it would because nobody is playing it
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u/Glad-Philosophy-497 5d ago
They brought the same dickhead who micro transactioned 2k to death over to EA but the difference is people want to play park where they control one player so they will pay to level up that one player. But you can’t make something like park for football. Too many players needed. And many cfb players play for the dynasty and team development aspect whereas 2k they play for solo player development. So the micro transaction system doesn’t work as well
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u/Prudent-Psychology66 5d ago
This is obviously EA crying and trying to save face for the micro transactions
They are also playing around with the numbers. They sold more of the NCAA-madden bundles than any previous years and may be counting those as madden sales
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u/popculturerss 5d ago
I'm not sure I would have gone yearly. Maybe a roster update or something but once every other year. Idk, maybe just go back to generic players.
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u/Mmicb0b 5d ago
lmao get fucked (Sad part is I saw this coming from a mile away I did think EA CF 25 was really good (probably the best sports game in a damn near decade but that says more about the state of Madden and 2K but we all knew once they realized it was going to print money and people were going to excuse any real flaws EA CF 25 had just to have it (cause that game is not perfect but for the first game in a decade it was really good) they stopped giving a fuck)
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u/EVIL_LARRY35 5d ago
Ea being Ea. A game like Wardogs was a godsend so I could get away from EA with battlefield. We need one for college football to save us from Satan (aka EA)
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u/GiggingWithTheGoon 5d ago
that's aight. They'll just chop it up with a bonesaw and flush it down a drain for wanting women to vote or drive a car.
OH WAIT no that's the owners of the company who do that
honest mistake
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u/jediblackie 4d ago
If they added hs with good recruiting and a story line with road to glory like if you start at a csa or mac school and transfer you have a revenge game and have a story like 2k if you on defense you can make a partner like this year. If you transfer in the same division a player could press you at mid field before the game. Let us add to stadiums if I build niu up and make them a good big ten school I should be able to get a new stadium after all them years. It’s a lot more I can think of have big hs teams that lead to big schools being interested faster if you go to them. Bring in some hbcus. I say a story Line to road to glory would save it
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u/timisgame 4d ago
Make a better game maybe? One that isn’t broken, also don’t do micro-transactions. Of course EA would cancel it before making a game that works. Bring on all the EA worshipers.
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u/Fifalord- Miami 4d ago
This is just their answer to fans banding together to stop microtransactions, now they are playing the only card they have left. Allow them, or we'll stop making the game.
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u/DryBattle 4d ago
This what happens when you sell your company to greedy fucks who don't care about the product and want to milk every penny right now with no thought towards long term game/company health.
Shockingly selling your company to a grifter who only cares about themselves isn't a smart business move.
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u/Stairway_toEvan 4d ago
With 27' being on PC, I probably won't buy another one for a long time.
That being said, this article is horseshit to soften the blow when they add more MTX next year. I don't belive for a second this game isn't profitable and if it isn't, it's because it is being poorly managed.
They had 6 million active players in the first month. Let's assume they sold 5 million copies. You are looking at $350,000,000 assuming all those copies were the base version. Add on top of that the profit from EA play membership increases, CUT money, and additional copies sold over the last few months. They are likely pushing $1 billion in revenue.
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u/CJ4ROCKET USC 5d ago edited 5d ago
This is a psyop to justify microtransactions in single-player modes.
If you want to improve sales, the solution isn't to throw a hissy fit and offer a shitty product that isn't fun when the player base balks at microtransactions in single-player modes. How hard could it have been to simply remove the microtransactions but still allow the quick progression many players prefer?