Something cool happened in the world of American sports this year: the NCAA, the organization that puts on college sports at the highest level and rakes in over a billion dollars a year doing it, settled on a deal that allows college athletes to be paid for their services—something that should've been happening all along. The deal is a huge win for student-athletes who previously destroyed their bodies for free, but it's also a big deal for publisher EA, as it means it can finally go back to making college football games.
EA's first college football game in over a decade, now simply called EA Sports College Football 25, is already one of the biggest games of the year. During CF25's early access period last week, which you could only get into by pre-ordering the $100 edition of the game, players noticed that over 600,000 people were online at once. Before it was even officially out, College Football 25 was putting up Helldivers 2 and Baldur's Gate 3 numbers.
Unfortunately, you won't find College Football 25 anywhere on PC. As far as we know, EA isn't making a PC version this time around, and it's not really clear why.
The PC snub is somewhat surprising, but not unbelievable given EA's track record. Madden and the PC haven't always gotten along: EA dropped Windows support entirely from 2008 - 2017, finally bringing it back to PC in 2018. Then for a stretch, up until last year's Madden 24, the series had developed a habit of releasing the last-gen versions of its yearly games on PC. These are the versions that EA develops specifically for older consoles that often lack the new features introduced that year, and the decision to make them the only versions on PC understandably gave fans the impression that we were an afterthought for EA.
Madden 24 PC snapped that streak and Madden 25 PC will keep us current next month, which makes it all the more disappointing that College Football 25 is completely absent on the largest gaming platform.
Some fans have theorized that, after the whole player likeness rights kerfuffle, the potential for CF25 to be modded with unauthorized content scared EA away from a PC version, but there's no evidence of that reasoning from EA.
Another possible explanation is simple: EA's football games don't sell all that well on PC. The Steam version of Madden 24 is rated "Mixed" with fewer than 7,000 user reviews, which doesn't suggest the sort of monster sales that EA probably expects (perhaps those years of sub-par releases were a bad idea?). EA's soccer game FC 24 (formerly FIFA) has 77,000 Steam reviews.
It's true that both Madden and NCAA have always been considered console series. The people in my life who play football games do more-or-less fit the stereotype of a console gamer who only buys sports games and Call of Duty. At the risk of drawing an erroneous connection between "football bros" and console gamers, maybe there's something to the idea that football fans want their fix on the most accessible and affordable box they can get (consoles), and don't think about it much beyond that.
Looking at those EA Sports College Football player counts... pic.twitter.com/1PfAlD8At0July 19, 2024
That's not by accident: EA's football games have always been designed with controllers in mind and sold heavily to console owners with Sony or Microsoft as marketing partners. If it wasn't feasible to make a PC version of College Football 25, that's partly EA's fault for not making its PC audience a priority. To be fair, EA's not alone here. Sony's MLB The Show baseball games have still never made the jump to PC, despite making the unlikely leap to Xbox a few years ago.
Going all-in on consoles wasn't a weird move 15 or even 10 years ago, but it is much rarer now. If you haven't heard, PC gaming is mainstream now. A huge chunk of the Call of Duty and Fornite audiences are on PC. Helldivers 2 sold better on PC than PS5. And as mentioned, EA's FC games do really well on Steam. In an era that embraces playing games anywhere, Madden might very well be the most "console" console series left not made by Nintendo.
Some fans are still holding out hope that EA will randomly announce a late release of College Football 25 on Steam. It's possible, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
