ESPN on the future of NCAA football videogames

[Kodos]

Will there ever be another NCAA football video game?

[albionmoonlight]

Originally Posted by Kodos

Will there ever be another NCAA football video game?

In order to make a game worth buying, EA is going to have to use the players' likenesses again.

Sigh. I hate being in the minority of gamers.

[cuervo72]

Good topic but am I the only one who feels like he learned next-to-nothing from that article? "Will there be another NCAA game? Not looking great - but who knows, maybe someday!" Hard-hitting, Rovell.

[ISiddiqui]

Several athletic department sources suggested that the lack of an NCAA football game in particular has been detrimental to the sport, as young players have had to gravitate to other games. One AD wondered aloud whether schools would be willing to forgo their royalties and put the money into getting a game back on the shelves. He wondered how many kids have started watching European soccer games instead of college football on Saturdays as a result of playing EA's FIFA game.

I'm a big soccer fan, but REALLY?

A) EA's FIFA series has been around for a while. If kids are gravitating to watching the Premier League, it's not because all of a sudden there are no college football video games that they'd play instead.

B) European soccer comes on Saturday mornings and one "late game" at 12:30pm Eastern... due to time zones. Plenty of time to watch BOTH European soccer and College Football.

[Kodos]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

Sigh. I hate being in the minority of gamers.

Yeah. Real rosters don't matter a lot when they'll be gone after 4-5 seasons anyhow.

[tarcone]

I dont get the whole likeness thing.

I played career mode. I wanted guys that could play. Not guys that looked like Joe College Football Player.

Why does there have to be a likeness to any player?

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by Kodos

Yeah. Real rosters don't matter a lot when they'll be gone after 4-5 seasons anyhow.

I'd argue they matter more to the companies to justify pushing a new version every season.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

I'd argue they matter more to the companies to justify pushing a new version every season.

That's exactly it. EA or another company isn't going to spend the money to make a college football game if they figure that they can't just print money by selling an update each year. And the update really only makes sense if it includes new values based on what every team did the previous season.

[digamma]

I agree that career mode is what matters to me, but I think the vast majority of buyers are trying to get to realism for the season. I remember reading a list of complaints people had about specific uniforms for that year, and it was amazingly silly stuff like not having the right stripe on a sock. That carries over to the players. You want Baker Mayfield to win the Heisman if you buy the game in Oklahoma, not Jay McJohnson.

[tarcone]

But I would rather see the team stats and players with attributes that were similar to the players.

I wouldnt need a QB for Iowa that looked like QB CJ Beathard. May a dude of any color wearing number 16 would suffice.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by tarcone

But I would rather see the team stats and players with attributes that were similar to the players.

Well... attributes similar to the actual players is very close to being a "likeness" isn't it?

[General Mike]

Originally Posted by tarcone

I dont get the whole likeness thing.

I played career mode. I wanted guys that could play. Not guys that looked like Joe College Football Player.

Why does there have to be a likeness to any player?

I don't think it's the likeness so much of the individual players, but the expectation that Alabama, Ohio State, Florida State are gonna be great teams. Kansas, Purdue, Wake Forest are gonna be bad. Navy to run the triple option, Oregon to run the spread. How do you manage that without making the teams based on the real players? I don't know.

[tarcone]

I guess likeness to me is of the physical nature.
Im not sure schemes matter to what a player looks like.

If I play Navy and keep using the triple option in my career, would the players look the same 6 years down the road? You know what Im trying to say?

As far as attributes, I guess that would be likeness. But maybe not. I mean fast is fast across the board right? And I go back to my career example. Fast in 2035 doesnt mean my unborn grandson is a freshman at Iowa who is really fast. Get what Im saying?

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

That's exactly it. EA or another company isn't going to spend the money to make a college football game if they figure that they can't just print money by selling an update each year. And the update really only makes sense if it includes new values based on what every team did the previous season.

Yep, it's this. The likeness thing would be easy to solve by including the ability (already present in the games) to customize the look and ratings of a player. It wouldn't take very long for the mod community to come up with likenesses and reasonably accurate rosters for everyone to download. But then that puts that much more pressure on EA to actually come up with new features and improvements to gameplay to encourage folks to shell out $60 for a new version each season.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

I'm a big soccer fan, but REALLY?

A) EA's FIFA series has been around for a while. If kids are gravitating to watching the Premier League, it's not because all of a sudden there are no college football video games that they'd play instead.

B) European soccer comes on Saturday mornings and one "late game" at 12:30pm Eastern... due to time zones. Plenty of time to watch BOTH European soccer and College Football.

That whole hypothetical question probably just serves to remind us that a lot of AD's are not a loss to brain surgery.

[Groundhog]

I'm with most of you on the "who cares about likeness" topic, but I think the likeness thing matters a lot to the guys who grab this for online play or just to play exhibition games with mates.

[miami_fan]

I was curious about those Alabama residents who are doing the Kickstarter to have a game produce by 2019.

400 Bad Request

[nol]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

I'm a big soccer fan, but REALLY?

A) EA's FIFA series has been around for a while. If kids are gravitating to watching the Premier League, it's not because all of a sudden there are no college football video games that they'd play instead.

B) European soccer comes on Saturday mornings and one "late game" at 12:30pm Eastern... due to time zones. Plenty of time to watch BOTH European soccer and College Football.

Don't get this. Are you saying it's not possible for someone to become interested in a sport after playing a video game of it? That's got to be particularly relevant to football as participation at the youth and high school levels has declined in recent years.

[stevew]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

Good topic but am I the only one who feels like he learned next-to-nothing from that article? "Will there be another NCAA game? Not looking great - but who knows, maybe someday!" Hard-hitting, Rovell.

Yeah, his reporting usually hits as hard as a slice of american cheese. I feel like I basically draw that exact conclusion for all of his verbose puff pieces.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by nol

Don't get this. Are you saying it's not possible for someone to become interested in a sport after playing a video game of it? That's got to be particularly relevant to football as participation at the youth and high school levels has declined in recent years.

What I'm saying is that is seems silly to say that kids aren't into college football because there is no college football video game and the culprit is European soccer because of EA's FIFA. You can believe that the lack of a video game is hurting interest in the sport. You can also believe that soccer has gotten a kick in the pants in the US through the FIFA video games. However, to say that people are watching soccer now instead of college football on Saturdays as a result is silly - for the reasons that EA's FIFA has been around for decades and games generally don't overlap (just the 'late game' for European soccer and the 'early game' for college football)!

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

What I'm saying is that is seems silly to say that kids aren't into college football because there is no college football video game and the culprit is European soccer because of EA's FIFA. You can believe that the lack of a video game is hurting interest in the sport. You can also believe that soccer has gotten a kick in the pants in the US through the FIFA video games. However, to say that people are watching soccer now instead of college football on Saturdays as a result is silly - for the reasons that EA's FIFA has been around for decades and games generally don't overlap (just the 'late game' for European soccer and the 'early game' for college football)!

I would say FIFA is easily the favorite game of many of the players I have coached over the last several years, (14-18 yr old demographic) even over Madden, yet when I ask them if they watch soccer, most don't. They just think FIFA is fun.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

What I'm saying is that is seems silly to say that kids aren't into college football because there is no college football video game and the culprit is European soccer because of EA's FIFA. You can believe that the lack of a video game is hurting interest in the sport. You can also believe that soccer has gotten a kick in the pants in the US through the FIFA video games. However, to say that people are watching soccer now instead of college football on Saturdays as a result is silly

Plus, there's the whole thing of how soccer doesn't draw that many eyeballs in the U.S. even when it isn't up against college football.


MLS fails to make positive impression onÂ*TV ratingsÂ*during big soccer weekend - World Soccer Talk

The top ten EPL matches last year for US TV ratings drew 1.3m to 1.4m viewers (total)
Which U.S. cities are watching the Premier League on TV the most? We’ve got lists. - The Washington Post

College Game Day gets around 2m average (not peak), even NBCN got 2m for ND over a crappy BC team. FS1 averages around 3m per game, for a mediocre schedule.

Whatever issues may exist, people of any age in any noteworthy quantity in the U.S. abandoning college football on TV so they can watch soccer instead isn't one of them, video game or no video game.

[Kodos]

Peter Moore on NCAA Football, "We'll Be Back" - Operation Sports Forums

[Kodos]

Moore starts talking about NCAA Football at 56:13 in the video.

[nol]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

What I'm saying is that is seems silly to say that kids aren't into college football because there is no college football video game and the culprit is European soccer because of EA's FIFA. You can believe that the lack of a video game is hurting interest in the sport. You can also believe that soccer has gotten a kick in the pants in the US through the FIFA video games. However, to say that people are watching soccer now instead of college football on Saturdays as a result is silly - for the reasons that EA's FIFA has been around for decades and games generally don't overlap (just the 'late game' for European soccer and the 'early game' for college football)!

I'm not reading that guy's statement to say that young males have a binary choice of watching or playing either soccer or football. He's saying that the FIFA video games are an avenue to get kids interested in playing soccer and that colleges are foolishly closing that door by insisting that they (not the players) must receive licensing fees.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by nol

I'm not reading that guy's statement to say that young males have a binary choice of watching or playing either soccer or football.

He wondered how many kids have started watching European soccer games instead of college football on Saturdays as a result of playing EA's FIFA game.

Seems binary to me...

[nol]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Seems binary to me...

Oh, I get it. You seem to be imagining a world in which everyone is obsessed with sports to the degree that if playing/watching football/soccer is someone's number one priority, the other sport is not far behind. That doesn't happen all the time - the AD quoted was only wondering how often it does happen, which is clearly a non-zero amount. There are lots of other things in the world for a kid to do besides watch football and soccer on TV and play football/soccer video games, so anything that bumps football further down the list (like parents waiting until kids are older to let them play football or the lack of an NCAA football video game or demographic changes where a higher proportion of young Americans are from cultures that don't really give a hoot about American football) is ultimately going to result in a shallower talent pool.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by nol

the AD quoted was only wondering how often it does happen, which is clearly a non-zero amount.

I'm not absolutely sure that's a slam dunk either frankly, not with the qualifier of video games being an influencer attached to it.

The correlation between playing sports games & viewing, particularly in the younger demographics (who anecdotally seem to be better at disassociating the two activities than us older folks)

Hell, I'd say less than 1/3rd of the HS football players I knew the past few years even played sports games period, NCAA or otherwise. But I'd put "watches college football" in the high 80s or low 90s percentile.

[Balldog]

Really is a bummer given the progress made in Madden these last few years...can't imagine what NCAAF would be like today ... And College Hoops 2k17 --- damn it


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