17th year without a PC release
Yep, preorder site only shows PlayStation and Xbox. Huge let down EA, again.
Forum Discussion
Did I not just do the math right in front of you? Did you want me to go further? SURE
Take that 11.2 million and take 30% of that to give to Steam/Valve for use of their product. Leaves you with 7.8M
Take approx 10% for refunds and chargebacks and it leaves you with just over 7 million.
Another 10% lets say for taxes and what not. Now it's 6.3 million.
So now you only have just over 6 million in revenue that you need to pay out to new developers/testers/support team/servers/new license with NHL specific to PC etc. Those guys also need to now work with the current team to get things up and running smoothly. Do you really think after all of this They really are making anything out of it? You say does it matter if they only make 1m because its a profit with nothing to lose? Yes that matters. Profit margins are very important for a business and there is something to lose in the quality of the product that is designed for the current platforms.
Look I'd love for it to be on PC as I know I have buddies that no longer play the game because they are PC people and don't want to spend for a console to play one franchise game that's only on console and I get that. The reality is it is not worth it or in there best interest. As I have said in the past, I am sure there are people who are being paid much larger amounts of money to do this extensive research and much more complex math to see if there is value to it being ported to PC than the basic free research and Math I am doing. That's the big key though is there has to not just be profits but enough profits or value to make that next leap forward, otherwise is it even worth it?
The viewership of NFL and the actual amount of players on madden NFL are two completely different things and the only direct correlation is that they both are for the NFL, the overall viewership of the NFL does not reflect how many people will play madden on PC and if you think you can make a accurate number out of that then you are obviously high. By doing it that way you deal in probability not certainty, although nothing will be absolute certainty, a survey would be more accurate. Like many want is an official EA poll or survey directly for releasing NHL on PC, a way to voice their concerns or opinions in a way that actually matters and will be used in a decision. That way they can obtain the numbers and determine cost and if it would turn a profit.
But the facts are simple, thousands of people have wanted NHL to come to PC, enough that roughly 8700 people went out of their way to sign an unofficial, unannounced petition, those are just the people that went out of their way to look for a petition, there are countless others who lost hope in voicing their opinion or their want for NHL to return to PC because EA never publicly addressed the issue and more.
Let’s also not forget that the NHL has an international market as nearly 30% of the players are from outside of North America and roughly 10-12 different countries have Olympic ice hockey teams, IIHF has 84 member countries, whereas the NFL isn’t exactly associated with the olympics at all, being so the closest thing to it is “5v5 flag football” in the Olympics instead of the NFLs 11v11 full contact. In a North American market the NFL will dominate but internationally hockey is wildly more known and popular. I’ll also say this because the EA game doesn’t just include NHL teams but also includes teams on the IIHF level and lower international leagues.
As I mentioned before, NHL is built on frostbite, frostbite 3.0 to be specific which is tailored for cross-platform play including windows, switch, Xbox and PlayStation which makes a port to windows much easier and cheaper than a game that isn’t designed for windows OS at all, I’m not saying it would be free of charge or a “push of a button”, I’d say the bigger question is how much it would cost to modify an anti-cheat used on FC or NFL to protect PC players on NHL, as well as if they want to allow or disallow mods, and before anyone says anything, cheating and modding are two completely different things. I also mentioned that literally every game in modern day is designed using a PC and it is highly more than likely that a PC version of NHL exists for the NHL developers. You can research this for yourself, I’d be willing to bet you would arrive at the same conclusion that a development version already exists on PC given modern development standards.
Additionally NHL is filled with micro transactions, if the estimated profit from game sales alone is low, EA will definitely earn the profits from their micro transactions. Hell even sales may not even be bad, I’ve asked a few friends if they’d buy both a PC version and console version and they said yes, one would be for offline typically for on the road or for any case where they could bring their console but not their PC. I’m not saying this is the case for everyone but there will be people that would do this, possibly myself included if I find myself in that position. But it’s obvious there is a lot of profit earned off of micro transactions and this isn’t specific to EA, most games that offer this typically earn a big buck. Who knows, maybe EA would earn even more on micro transactions if people didn’t need to spend money on subscriptions to play online either?
Overall I’d say the minimum EA should give the PC community is an official survey that is properly advertised so it reaches most potential customers, even some publicity would be earned from smaller news companies which would cover such a thing as each year you can find articles from various independent companies about how NHL isn’t coming to PC or articles that underscore this. This way EA can obtain actual feedback directly related to the release of a PC version and their people who “run the numbers” can actually accurately determine if it is feasible and would result in a profit.
If EA actually conducts a survey directly for this and the result turns out to be against the release, genuinely I would respect and live with the decision if it’s based on actual data that is accurate and collected from the community and potential customers for NHL, not some survey that collects information for every EA game. I may disagree with it if that happens but we would have an official decision based on the communities wants.
If they let the community have access we could eliminate cheats as the arise. I dunno if Madden will be there main focus though. They literally just need to copy the new version of college football (2025) and it will crush.
Id bet the NFL and Colllege football don’t cover 25% of FIFA though so there is that. Not to mention that the few people that do play NHL and would on PC would stand out if cheating as there would be such a close eye on them (console users and EA themselves). Guessing though if NHL had even 5% of EA sports playerbase id be surprised.
This I feel comes down to how challenging setting this up would be. I just can’t see it being that rough as it’s only an OS issue. However, my knowledge about it is about as minimal as my knowledge on the pain of childbirth being a male (no offense to anyone). It sounds quite easy in my head though (not the child birth part) haha.
I am still in the belief that Sports fans have a direct correlation to a player base in sports games but if you are really telling me that NHL sells more than Madden then I will tell you that there is no way that is true. I doubt NHL 15 (the best NHL game that's always referenced, doesn't even come CLOSE to Madden in sales. The hierarchy will always be FIFA -> MADDEN -> (F1 maybe) even -> NHL. Its just the sad truth we have to learn to live with.
I am pretty sure Cricket sells more than NHL. I hear this game sells like 25K copies a year or something small like that. We will probably never see it.
I do hope they release it on the Switch 2 though!
