The NCAA Football Video Game is Returning
Sometimes in life, you truly never know how much you love something until it is unexpectedly taken away from you. This was certainly the case for college football fans across the country in 2014 when they were informed NCAA Football 14 by EA Sports was the last of the series, learning that no future games would be released.
What happened?
In 2014, GamesRadar.com rated NCAA Football 14 4.5/5 stars, while only rating Madden 25 (2014) 4/5 stars. NCAA Football 14 also generated tens of millions of dollars in sales the 1st month of it’s release (July 2013). Obviously, sales were no problem at all, so why did the top video game of our childhood one day vanish?
Long story short, that same year, the NCAA filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against EA for using their players likeness (looks, skills, etc.) without the NCAA’s permission, even though technically not using the player’s names. There was no way EA could give the players compensation for appearing in their games, given that the athletes were still amateurs on no salary.
After the lawsuit was ultimately settled in June 2014 for $60 million, the expenses and limitations placed on EA were too much to overcome, and EA was sadly forced to discontinue the game’s series.
What’s next?
After this eventful and devastating sequence of events, the chances of the game returning seemed extremely unlikely. Fans across the country finally had to accept the truth: the NCAA football video game is never coming back. Despite the occasional buzz about a possible return of a new game, no game was ever released or discussed. Hope was lost, tears were shed, and grieving was unconditional.
This continued, until on September 1st, 2017, during a college football game, a very convincing yet mysterious commercial was shown on ESPN.
The commercial includes former college football legends Derrick Henry, Deshaun Watson, and Joey Bosa, and current coaches Jim Harbaugh (Michigan) and Urban Meyer (Ohio State).
The commercial initially seems to be nothing but the ordinary football ad, with the 3 legends defining greatness, as silhouettes of players appear again and again running through the shapes of PlayStation buttons. The questions begin to raise when Harbaugh says, “Coming back stronger? You got that right.” The commercial ends with Henry saying “Are you ready?” as the screen displays “Greatness Awaits” as the main 4 PlayStation buttons appear in the background.
Critics say this ad could be used to advertise a PlayStation viewing app for college football. To call this opinion absurd would be an understatement.
After watching players run through PlayStation buttons, you have to ask yourself; how could that imply anything but controlling players with these same buttons in the form of a video game? Also, when Jim mentions a comeback, how could he be referring to anything but the comeback of the likely most loved game ever that we haven’t seen since 2014?
To add to this speculation, IMV Gaming released a video of NBA player Spencer Dinwiddie and NFL player Lamar Luis promoting the return of the game, asking for more investors while committing to investing themselves:
The convincing video also contained information that game would return with the name “Gridiron Champions” instead of “NCAA Football”. IMV Gaming also announced on September 1, 2017 that they were pairing with Big Ant Studios to start developing this video game, which just so happened to break the news world on the same day the PlayStation commercial came out. Has to be a total coincidence, right?
Why would the game come back?
The goal of any company ever is definitive and clear: make as much money as possible. There is such a high demand for this game to return, developers and gaming companies are willing to do all and everything they can to maximize their profits.
Statistics have shown the return of the game would be a wild success:
- I posted a Twitter poll to both male and female followers, both sports fans and non-sports fans, and both video game-players and non video game-players. I asked if they would buy the new college football game if it were to come out again. Out of the 477 voters, 89% said yes, with only 11% saying no.
- According to USA Today, NCAA Football 14 easily outsold then-popular games like Minecraft, NBA 2k13, and Call of Duty Black Ops 2.
Although the progress of negotiations between video game developers and the NCAA remain unknown, the recent buzz about the demand for the game, the recent open-ended advertisement, and effort to develop the game are just way too many facts to ignore such a speculation.
So…what do we do now?
Given the circumstances and the huge demand for this game in the market, I would almost be surprised if a new game was not released in the near future. The drive of companies to make money, the recent buzz about a return, and our nations burning passion for college football is more than enough to bring a return to this game soon. So what do we do now? All us college football fanatics can do now is sit, pray, and wait for more news/developments — the return of this game looks more than promising.
-Wyatt Harnage
