Something great happened in American sports this year: the NCAA, the organization that governs college sports at the highest level and generates over $1 billion in revenue per year, struck a deal to pay college athletes, something that was long overdue. This deal is a huge win for student-athletes who have been working hard for free, but it also means big things for publisher EA, who can finally get back to making college football games.
EA’s first college football game in over a decade is called EA Sports College Football 25, and it’s already one of the biggest games of the year. Last week, during CF25’s early access period, which was only available to those who pre-ordered the $100 version of the game, players found that over 600,000 people were online at the same time. Even before its official release, College Football 25 was racking up numbers comparable to Helldivers 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3.
Unfortunately, College Football 25 can’t be found on PC. As far as we know, EA isn’t making a PC version this time around, but we’re not entirely sure why.
The PC neglect is a bit surprising, but not unbelievable given EA’s track record. Madden and PC haven’t always been a good match. EA completely dropped support for Windows between 2008 and 2017, only bringing the PC version back in 2018. Since then, the series has made a habit of releasing Windows versions until last year’s Madden 24. Final Generation PC versions of games that come out every year. These are versions that EA develops specifically for older consoles and often don’t include any of the new features introduced that year, and the decision to only release PC versions naturally gives fans the impression that we’re an afterthought to EA.
Madden 24 PC ended that streak, and with Madden 25 PC due to keep us up to date next month, it’s even more disappointing that College Football 25 has no presence on the biggest gaming platform at all.
Some fans have speculated that EA halted development of the PC version due to the risk of CF25 being modded with unauthorized content following the furor over player image rights, but there is no evidence from EA to support such a reason.
Another possible explanation is simple: EA’s soccer games aren’t selling very well on PC. The Steam version of Madden 24 has less than 7,000 user reviews and a “mixed” rating, which doesn’t suggest the kind of explosive sales EA is hoping for (perhaps after a bad few years of subpar releases?). EA’s soccer game, FC 24 (formerly known as FIFA), has 77,000 Steam reviews.
Indeed, both Madden and NCAA have always been considered console series. The people around me who play football games more or less fit the stereotype of console gamers who only buy sports games and Call of Duty. At the risk of falsely equating “football bros” with console gamers, there may be something to the idea that football fans want to be content with the most accessible and affordable box (console) they can get and not think much beyond that.
Just look at the number of college football players on EA Sports… pic.twitter.com/1PfAlD8At0July 19, 2024
This is no coincidence: EA’s football games have always been designed with a controller in mind, and are heavily marketed to console owners with Sony and Microsoft as marketing partners. If a PC version of College Football 25 wasn’t feasible, that’s partly EA’s fault for not prioritizing PC users. To be fair, EA isn’t alone: Sony’s MLB The Show baseball game has yet to make it to PC, despite making an unexpected foray into Xbox a few years ago.
15 years ago, or even 10 years ago, it wasn’t uncommon to go all-in on a console, but now it’s pretty rare. If you haven’t heard of it, PC gaming is now mainstreamThe majority of Call of Duty and Fornite users are on PC; Helldivers 2 sold better on PC than on PS5; and, as mentioned above, EA’s FC games sell very well on Steam. In an era of gaming anywhere, Madden may be the most “console” console series remaining outside of Nintendo.
Some fans are still hopeful that EA will announce a delayed release of College Football 25 on Steam. It’s possible, but it’s best not to get your hopes up too much.