Electronic Arts Demanded $100 for Opportunity to Play Game Three Days Before Release. Over 2 Million People Took This Offer, Even Though EA Sports College Football 25 Isn't Out on PC
Electronic Arts announced that more than 2 million gamers were tempted to buy the $100 special version of EA Sports College Football 25. Interestingly, Internet users aren't at all surprised that fans weren't discouraged by such a high price for a game that isn't even available on PC.
Electronic Arts made a really great move by offering college football fans the opportunity to play EA Sports College Football 25 three days before its official release. It turns out that the Deluxe Edition, priced at $99.99, was pre-ordered by 2.2 million players. Some of the players definitely chose an even pricier option, valued at $149.99, the MVP Bundle edition, similar to the ED edition offering early game access and 4600 College Football points, along with the Madden NFL 25: Deluxe Edition game and several other bonuses.
For most of us, the idea of paying such an amount for the opportunity to play the title several dozen hours before others sounds surreal—especially since its "regular" version isn't cheap, costing $69.99. However, fans of the most popular games in the USA had a quite sensible reason for doing so. The last installment of the series was released in 2014, which means that they had to wait a whole decade for the new title.
How much fans wanted the return of a game about college football is evidenced by the discussion that sparked under a Reddit post informing about the extraordinary popularity of the game. One Internet user wrote that his co-worker intentionally took off work an hour earlier so he could play EA Sports College Football 25 for 12 consecutive hours. Among the comments, there were also opinions that university competitions are almost a religion in the United States.
EA's return to the series abandoned ten years ago turned out to be positive not only in terms of popularity but also in the reception of the game itself. The sports game is highly regarded by industry critics. On Metacritic, EA Sports College Football 25 for the PS5 console can boast an average rating of 88/100 (based on 10 reviews). The average rating for the Xbox Series X/S edition is 83/100.
It's even more surprising that Electronic Arts chose not to release its popular game on personal computers. Although the official reasons for such a decision aren't known, one of the fan theories suggests that it might have been related to the image rights of the players and potential unauthorized modifications to the PC version, which could violate these rights, and which EA was afraid of.
PC Gamer journalists, in turn, speculate that the lack of EA Sports College Football 25 on PC is the result of lower sales of this type of game on personal computers. The dominance of consoles in the American market, which is the target in this case, may also be significant.
EA Sports College Football 25 was released on July 19. The game can be purchased at Xbox store and PlayStation Store.
