It has been eight months. How much longer do we have to wait?

The sad and unfortunate truth is that nobody knows. College sports have left the video game world and shut the door behind them. When EA Sports announced that they would be discontinuing the NCAA Football series, a significant portion of sports gaming disappeared – just like that. The real question becomes: how much longer are we going to have to wait, and who is going to be the one to bring college sports gaming back?

At first, the list of candidates seems thin. Over the course of sports’ gaming history, there have only been a handful of publishers to put out a college sports title. More recently, it has been even worse. A single publisher (EA Sports) has released a college sports title in the last six years. That said, I have a strange belief that we won’t have to wait that much longer. After looking into putting together a viable list of candidates to bring college sports back to video games, the results were much more profound than you may expect.

 

 

Candidate Number One: The Big Name Publisher

This is the first thing that comes to mind when talking about the revival of gaming in college sports. In fact, the first thing you probably heard after EA announced the cancellation of NCAA was that it opened the door for other publishers to make a game. Sadly, it is not that easy. The lawsuit that EA was roped into was like a big, flashing warning sign to other publishers to stay away from the NCAA.

Oddly, EA Sports themselves are probably the most likely candidate to return to college sports. The NCAA series made EA a significant amount of money, so much so that most assumed EA would take whatever hit they had to in the lawsuit just to keep the series alive. Obviously, that didn’t turn out to be the case. That said, it would be very surprising if EA were not the first one back in line if and when the NCAA is on its way out. With talk of the major conferences separating themselves from the NCAA altogether, it could be sooner rather than later.

Candidate Number Two: The Little Guy

The Little Guy has had a lot of success recently. With games like Minecraft, Flappy Bird, and State of Decay, independent developers have made millions on top of millions of dollars. Consoles and handhelds are becoming increasingly easy to develop games for, and micro-transactions (however controversial) have proven to be a viable form of revenue. Recently, sports titles like Powerstar Golf and the freshly announced return of R.B.I. Baseball have received a chunk of positive reception. Who is to say someone won’t take a shot at a college football or basketball game?

It is important to keep in mind, however, that even if we do see the return of sports gaming by the hands of an independent developer, it would not be a fully-fledged title. With the increasing price of the NCAA license, there’s no way “The Little Guy” could afford a licensing fee. But maybe that would not be such a terrible thing. Consumers, especially here at Operation Sports, have been asking for a fully customizable sports title. An independent developer might be the most likely candidate to give us one.

 

College Lacrosse 2012

 

Candidate Number Three: The Start Up

The video game industry is huge. In fact, it is so huge that according to Forbes, it actually surpassed the film industry way back in 2009. Since then, it has only gotten bigger. More and more often, we are seeing games being built from the ground up. The weird part is that they are starting with no money. That wouldn’t have been possible ten years ago. But now, with websites like Kickstarter, the mere idea of a game is enough to get people to support you with donations. The call for a college sports title is high, and will only get higher the closer we get back to college football season. It might not be so unlikely that someone takes the initiative and puts together a team of developers to make a college sports game.

Candidate Number Four: The Big(ger) Name Publisher

Perhaps the best sign of how things are going in the video game industry was when the sales numbers were released for Microsoft’s Xbox One, and Sony’s Playstation 4. Both sold millions of copies over the course of a month or two, and neither is giving any indication that sales will slow down. That said, the competition between two of the biggest names in gaming is bound to help create new and exciting things. Games like MLB: The Show are stone cold system sellers that can help sway a ton of console purchases one way or the other. When will we see either Microsoft or Sony (or perhaps Nintendo or Valve?) put faith into a new sports title to help them sell their console? It isn’t likely their first sports game would be a college one, but it is very possible that one would emerge eventually. With the increasing size of hard drives, it is possible we could even see a single game with two different sports attached (ala Wii Sports).

At first glance, it may not seem too likely. But if you put together a timeline of possibilities, it almost seems inevitable. Assuming that new rules eventually provide clearer guidelines for what games (and other forms of media) can and can’t include, there would be less fear of a lawsuit. It may not take much longer after that for college sports to make their return to gaming.

It has been eight months. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait much longer.