Re: NHL 25 for PC

The only way you are getting an NHL video game on PC is with a different company who is solely focusing on an NHL PC game. Chances of that are extremely doubtful, there hasn't been another simulation NHL video game released that is anywhere near to the level of EA's game since NHL 2K10 and even then NHL 2K10 wasn't on the PC. There is a purely simulation NHL game where you never step foot on the ice but that is more like a front office type game and probably not what you are looking for. 

Every year the same thing: "If the cost would be profitable", "Porting it to PC is so hard", "So much cheating on PC", "Blah Blah Blah". EA would make so much money porting EA NHL to PC after 15+ years that it would be ground breaking. Also, the last EA NHL I bought was EA NHL 14 for XBox 360. Yes I still play it and I play it on PC monitor because its the only way I can play EA NHL on my PC monitor.

@kirkvillian 

If a PC version was going to be as successful as people think, it would have been done by now.

What are the roadblocks? 

What qualifications do EA need to consider PC ports for their sports games? 

@ZorisX 

That's not something I'm directly involved in so I could only speculate. I'm sure it has to do with the overall size of the playerbase versus the cost of bringing the game to PC as well as supporting it. This is a significantly higher cost than everyone realizes.

Can you please ask? 

@ZorisXSadly I feel it's one of those things that not even Aljo can't get us an answer for. I mean you would have thought from over the years we would have gotten a direct answer but sadly no.

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@ZorisX wrote:

Can you please ask? 

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I won't be able to find this out. All I know is that everyone here is extremely well aware of the request for a PC version. We'll have to wait and see if that happens.

@EA_AljoI've read a lot of the post throughtout the years on this topic and dont buy the reasoning. Clearly the support is there you have massive communities still playing 2004 on pc. And now in the year 2024 we have steam decks that would be absolutely ideal for chel. Consoles are on the downfall overall as well as pc gaming continues to become way more accesible for gamers.

I made this account to be another supporter for this cause. The only console i have is a ps4 i havent touched in 5 years. Console exclusive games are antiquated get with the current year 2024. The entire franchise must hang on a thread financially year to year if its impossible to make a pc release. Sad.

Oh come on EA, that would be the first NHL game on PC in years, probably decades. It would make you money. Since NHL isn't very popular on either platform, even if it doesn't sell that well on PC it would be money for you. And since porting is extremely cheap and easy i just don't the reason why NHL isn't on Steam yet. It's such a shame. Even NFL is on steam which is only popular in USA. NHL would be popular among europeans, americans and canadians.

So who would we talk to? Point us in a direction. Thanks for your engagement and insight on this.

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@ZorisX wrote:

So who would we talk to? Point us in a direction. Thanks for your engagement and insight on this.

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I can't stress this enough. We are extremely well aware of the requests for a PC version. Sadly, it's not as easy and inexpensive as people think. Also, the chances of it selling as well as the community estimates is most likely not realistic. We have seen these requests for years. It's been researched and will most likely always be on the table for the future. We'll have to wait and see if that happens. If it were as cheap and easy as assumed, it would have been done.

I think what we're all looking for here from EA is actual documentation or the contact info for those who can provide the evidence that is influencing the decision to not port NHL to PC so that we as the fanbase can crowd-source our own counter-research and present it so that we can try to push that needle in our favor if the aforementioned reasearch contradicts EA's conclusion. If we, as the community, end up coming to the same conclusion, EA would get less complaints due to public empirical proof they could share then.

Either way, if you let us do our own due diligence, it would only benefit EA. Please, we just want help understanding why we get alienated every year and not just a 'we thought about it, trust me' response.

@669da90c05730fe3 

We don't give out contact information for who to provide evidence to. It's also unnecessary. If you all want to crowdsource your own research, there's nothing stopping that. If it's posted here or Reddit, we're going to see it so you don't need to send this to whomever makes this decision.

We're just going in circles here. As we have done for many years now. We all want a PC version. It's just not a viable option currently for reasons I've repeated ad nauseum. I sincerely hope this changes someday.

This was my intent, glad to see we have similar momentum to push this.

 Is there a chance we can see, without any direct potentially compromising information, the marketing research data that was conducted to come to this conclusion? At least partial data?

I understand your frustration and your position, this is hopefully a growing annoyance. 👿

Please see what you can acquire for us

@ZorisX 

We're not posting a document detailing our research. I think the community is failing to understand just how much it costs to support the game on PC. It's not a situation where we just copy and paste the game to PC and call it a day. There's so much more involved. Again, if it were going to be as popular as everything thinks, I'm sure w would have put a team in place to make this happen. This isn't FC or Madden. Which are not the niche sports that hockey is. 

https://gameworldobserver.com/2023/05/22/tape-to-tape-revenue-marketing-steam-hockey-game

What about a game like Tape To Tape; A hockey game that hit Steam and made $600k?  A quick google search estimates that porting a console game to PC can take anywhere from $5k to $100k. Even if worse case scenario it takes the $100k, if a small indie developer can pull in $600k just from existing on Steam, a large AAA developer like EA with an actual marketing department should be able to pull in more than that; Right?

Network engineer and Cloud Admin, I'm not completely naive to the efforts and costs of porting. Either way, it's not about me. 

It's about a clear desire on our side vs market research that was done by EA. 

@669da90c05730fe3 

This is what I'm talking about when I say it's more than just porting the game. For one, there's NHL licensing to consider. Which, is obviously not cheap. Yes, we have it for the console versions, but I imagine that would need to be expanded to cover PC. We also have to expand our server support and build in cross-play. Again, this isn't a quick and easy process. We also have to have support in place to cover technical, account and purchasing issues as well as having a team dedicated to bug fixing. The PC version needs to support a myriad of configurations which is going to require a heavy amount of testing. 600k is probably a great return for an indie studio. I just don't see that being enough to cover the cost of releasing a PC version. As I've said many times, it's significantly higher than what everyone is assuming.

Then don't give us the opportunity to assume;  Share some data... 

I can't even find the simple answer of how many copies of NHL 23 or NHL 24 EA has sold.  Can you share something as simple as that for starters?

Agreed, 

Please share some information that can help us understand the justifications as well, what qualifications are needed to consider the delivery of the product to the platform..

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@669da90c05730fe3 wrote:

Then don't give us the opportunity to assume;  Share some data... 

I can't even find the simple answer of how many copies of NHL 23 or NHL 24 EA has sold.  Can you share something as simple as that for starters?

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I don't have any data I can share. That's not something I'm involved in.

Is there a specific email address or phone extension for someone in marketing analytics that would be privy to that information that you know of?

If i want to attempt to call EA offices, would you suggest main corporate or EA Vancouver?

It would be great to line up some resources if you can't deliver from your end understandingly, we'll see if can get some additional information from one of the HQs