Community ManagerSoccer and Football were already huge sports before video games. Yes, games can bring in some fans. I'm a perfect example. I always had an interest in hockey when I was a kid, but I also grew up in an area where it wasn't that popular. Southern California. Yes, the Kings are there and this was the 80s, but none of my friends remotely cared about the sport. Had a few of them been into it, chances are good my interest would have grown. It wasn't until the early 90s when I started playing hockey video games that I became a big fan of the sport. So, I definitely get it helps, and I'm sure some new fans would find a love for hockey they didn't have previously, but it doesn't resolve the issue that the PC version would have a small community that requires a very high amount of resources to support.
@EA_AljoDo you know what the highest concurrent played games are? Hint they arent played on a consoles.
Did you know more people watch a League of Legends tournament then watch the superbowl, worldseries, or NBA/MLB/NHL finals. Madden twitch streaming is also very successful, but thats why Amazon bought twitch. PC gaming owns a majority of the market.... Until it comes to sports games for some reason. When microsoft has made it easier then ever to simply plug in an Xbox controller into a PC so you even are given more options to play to your style.
To act like the PC community is small is massively underestimating the gaming industry and the direction its moving. Coivd/WFH movement has increased the number of house hold computers. Digital sales of PC games has increased 3 times over the last half of decade. This isnt a coincidence. But at this point I just feel like I'm pounding the table for a company to invest in future growth instead of their typical money grabs like Anthem. Remeber when EA said they would make the game suitable instead of pushing out an unfinished product?
I wonder how much longer EA will hold a monopoly of sports games being that 2k is now starting to move back into their territory since EA hs been slacking for the last half a decade. One would think it would be in the best intrest of the company to attempt to Hold onto these IPs instead of giving way to 2k.
The problem is that the best thing that could happen to the ice hockey genre is for other developers to take over a new hockey game and destroy EA's "market".
I don't think I'm the only one who's tired of EA not respecting the players, just look at EVERY post on social media about EA NHL, just because it's legal doesn't mean it's ethical, doesn't mean it's right.
I understand that it's a very big company and that changing things must be hard if not impossible, I just hope that EA NHL will go in the right direction (which it hasn't done for many years...) because deep down, all the people who are complaining on this forum (and rightly so 😛) love this game deeply.
When you see games like TapetoTape coming out, we know we are not alone, hockey game on pc have a community potential and the fact that EA ignores it is frustrating.
Courage to the community managers to manage all these complaints ( including mine 🙂 )
Community ManagerI'm not personally deciding whether or not the game releases on PC. You can see my previous responses for why there is no PC version currently.
Well y'all, the NHL 23 tech test is not coming out for PC, most likely meaning the game will not be on PC. Will have to wait another year (most likely more) for an actual PC release. In the meantime, we will be able to play NHL 23 on PC when XCloud opens its service to all owned games. Meaning you can buy the Xbox version and play it on your PC (in the future, most likely December).
Are you sure that with Xcloud you can play console game on PC ? Because right now, NHL is already in the "cloud", but not on PC. If it's the case it would be a VERY good news 🙂
@neo_dakin Xbox Cloud Gaming will support your game library later this year - The Verge
Well NHL technically isn't already in the cloud, it is just on Game Pass. However, they could easily make NHL 22 open to Xcloud right now if they wanted to with no implementation on their part. Unless of course the Stadia deal is in place for NHL too? Even though NHL never released on Stadia.
Basically select games will be available that are outside of the Game Pass Library to be streamed via Xcloud, opening Xcloud's service to thousands of more games. Since the games aren't on Game Pass (which NHL 23 won't be at the beginning of the year) you would still have to buy the game but I'm fine with that, I just want to play it lol. All EA has to do is to allow NHL 23 to be able to be streamed via Xcloud once Microsoft implements this feature. If they don't, well I think we would all have the right to be angry. It's no implementation on EA's part and it allows for hundreds of thousands of more gamers to be able to play NHL, whether it's on PC, Mobile, or just a SmartTV! So yes, you can use Xcloud to play console games on PC (You can currently play MLB The Show and NBA 2K through Xcloud on PC, and used to be able to play Madden before they made a deal with Stadia for a year or whatever it was).
Community ManagerI am personally not involved with this research. It's just what has been discussed every time this topic comes up. I'm sure people can look up the sales for games released on multiple platforms to see the general difference in numbers. However, you still have to take into consideration that hockey is not as popular as people think. It's that underground band that has a passionate following 🙂
More underground than...
Lacrosse? https://store.steampowered.com/app/584150/Casey_Powell_Lacrosse_18/
Cricket? https://store.steampowered.com/app/1701380/Cricket_22/
Handball? https://store.steampowered.com/app/526980/Handball_17/
Cycling? https://store.steampowered.com/app/1767570/Tour_de_France_2022/
All games that have cross-platform releases including PC.
I think the thing with EA's business decisions comes to margins. The "margins" for NHL don't appear to be there so it doesn't warrant the "risk" for the port. EA Sports in particular seems reticent to give much of anything back when it requires any type of cost. This has nothing to do with the devs and everything to do with time allocations from upper-management and the perceived growth which then gets spun to investors. It's not really the investors either, it's business management telling investors "we shouldn't do this because X, Y and Z".
I would imagine the decision for which platforms a certain title goes to comes from sales/business management in co-operation from investors through stakeholder calls. So it is absolutely within EA's wheelhouse to delegate that this title should and/or can come to PC. EA has not really operated in the way many other game studios do with just going to every platform possible in many, many years though.
Aye. I guess I'll go another decade without playing it. Consoles just don't make sense to buy for me when everything I do is on the PC. Hopefully someone else gets a license and does more with it.
