Rumors True??: No Roster Creation; No Teambuilder

[tessl]

Quote: Originally Posted by rjsuperfly66

They need real rosters because they want the revenue from pay-to-play modes. Casuals would just wait for Madden. EA made almost $2 billion on Ultimate Team modes in 2021. NCAA would make peanuts compared to FIFA and Madden, but it's still a revenue stream.

The potential downside to that is the game could become MLB the Show where the developers spend very little time on franchise mode and enormous time on the "pay to play" modes.

[illwill10]

Quote: Originally Posted by tessl

The potential downside to that is the game could become MLB the Show where the developers spend very little time on franchise mode and enormous time on the "pay to play" modes.

Sucks, but that's the direction most of these sports games are already heading. It's all about the "pay to play" modes. All you can hope for is that the primary offline/non-P2P modes have a solid enough of foundation to build off of or withstand not updating as frequently. Even MyLeague in NBA2K(before the Eras this year), hasn't received much attention in a long while.

I want to think that Pay to Play modes won't have as big of impact in CFB as the other sports games. Outside of the first couple years, the game might sell just 2-3 million copies a year. Especially if it doesn't come to the last gen consoles. I think it'll just be Ultimate Team. I think the big thing you'll see with Ultimate Team in CFB, is periodically adding former College Legends.

[ODogg]

Quote: Originally Posted by tessl

I suppose that depends on how many "real" players per team get paid $2,000. 85 man roster X 2,000 = $170,00 per team. That could push to around $20 million or so.

True, and I don't know if the $2,000 is a real figure or just something that was postulated. I'm sure EA knows the economics and what will be profitable, and as has been stated here, the fact that roster makers were so huge before shows that they know that is what people want out of a college game.

[canes21]

I have never seen an exact figure before, but we do know that back when the NCAA games were releasing regularly that even with its lower sales numbers EA was already willing to pay for real players. Obviously times have changed a little, but if the game was selling 1-2 million units per year back then and EA thought it was profitable to go after real players, I have zero doubts that they would find it profitable with the new CFB series.

Although we had Ultimate Team in NCAA 14, the mode had not taken off like it has these days, and EA was willing to pony up the cash for real players, so I'd imagine they're even more willing to do so these days now that it is something they can pursue with the NIL rules, and knowing that CFB Ultimate Team is likely going to print them off millions of dollars annually. They'll probably make enough just off Ultimate Team to pay for the named rosters a few times over.

Another possibility, and this is something none of us likely know enough about, is that EA may be using some of the profits from their cash cows, FUT and MUT, to help offset the costs of getting real players in the college football game. It's not exactly an unusual business practice for a company to use the money from one cash cow to help develop other products.

The reality is, though, that most kids in the FBS, legitimately like 99% are not getting great NIL deals left and right and are likely going to take what they can get. College football is not a star driven sport. For the vast majority of these kids, even if EA's offer is an extremely low figure like $50, it's better for them to take it than not because they will have zero negotiating power. For every Bryce Young in CFB, there are literally thousands of other players that nobody knows about. You could probably take your average CFB fan and they'd be hard pressed to name even 5 offensive lineman that don't play for their favorite team. You could take some more diehard fans an they probably could tell you Bryce Young, Will Anderson, and that would be about all the Bama players they know and Bama is public enemy #1 in CFB.

[tessl]

Quote: Originally Posted by illwill10

Sucks, but that's the direction most of these sports games are already heading. It's all about the "pay to play" modes. All you can hope for is that the primary offline/non-P2P modes have a solid enough of foundation to build off of or withstand not updating as frequently. Even MyLeague in NBA2K(before the Eras this year), hasn't received much attention in a long while. I want to think that Pay to Play modes won't have as big of impact in CFB as the other sports games. Outside of the first couple years, the game might sell just 2-3 million copies a year. Especially if it doesn't come to the last gen consoles. I think it'll just be Ultimate Team. I think the big thing you'll see with Ultimate Team in CFB, is periodically adding former College Legends.

MLB the Show has a solid franchise mode but fixing problems and adding new content is at a snails pace. It takes years to fix problems and some don't get fixed at all but still a great game. Different developer and perhaps EA will pay more attention to dynasty than the Show pays to franchise.

[illwill10]

Quote: Originally Posted by tessl

MLB the Show has a solid franchise mode but fixing problems and adding new content is at a snails pace. It takes years to fix problems and some don't get fixed at all but still a great game. Different developer and perhaps EA will pay more attention to dynasty than the Show pays to franchise.

I'm fairly optimistic that won't be the case for Dynasty. I felt the NCAA games had a little more creative freedom than Madden. They have devs like Ben Haumiller and Christian McLeod who worked on the previous NCAA games in house. McLeod, if my memory is correct, worked on Road to Glory in past and Twitter says Lead Producer now of CFB.

I say that because the expectations are different for CFB compared to Madden or other pro games. The revenue CFB will bring is nothing compared to the other pro sport games. NCAA games didn't sell great in the past. Average was about 2-3 million copies. You want to think with the hype surrounding the game that it should sell great first couple years coming back after a decade. But if it is PS5/XS only, I think that limit sales because of the scarcity of the current gen consoles. Madden and Fifa/EAFC is pretty much subsidizes the rest of the games, so they probably aren't dependent on the revenue of CFB. So, I think the developers should have more freedom to do what they want outside of having "back of box" features.

Starting back after a decade, I think it'll be important to focus on core modes the first couple years before focusing on the P2P modes(outside of UT). If the core modes(Dynasty and RTG) are solid, you'll get the hardcore crowd to continually come back. That's when you focus on bringing in new customers

[jerwoods]

i heard i think from rayweather that they will go after just the 2-deep not the full 85 man roster