17th year without a PC release

KidShowtime1867 wrote:

EA typically surveys the player-base every year in some fashion and there's always questions related to people's most-used and most-preferred platform for playing NHL.

I've been playing for years and years and my club has not seen any surveys related to this at all, not saying that means EA does not do surveys but when you have a group of people that are very interested in this and they have never been asked for their feedback, some of can't play anymore either because they don't value buying a console to play one game when they have a PC, it makes me question how broad those surveys actually are and whether they’re reaching the people most interested in a PC release. You also have people that only game via PC, if they only survey the player-base how do they reach those people who can't play the game? Maybe this is something EA can do differently. 

KidShowtime1867 wrote:

But things changed when gaming consoles started taking more market share

I get what you mean about consoles taking more market share, which probably was true during the xbox 360/ps3 era when publishers were heavily shifting and pushing games to console and consoles started to dominate. But I think that point needs to be viewed in the context of that time period, the PC market now is not the same as the 2004-2011 PC market, steam is massive now, pc hardware is more mainstream, cross-platform releases are super common now, You also have gaming laptops and pre-built gaming PCs now that offer a much more console-like plug-and-play experience than PC gaming used to, with many of them outperforming current consoles. If the blocker is still ROI, infrastructure, anti-cheat, or support costs, fair enough, but I’d like to know whether that conclusion is based on current PC demand rather than the market conditions from 15–20 years ago.

KidShowtime1867 wrote:

I'm not denying there's a PC market out there. But for NHL specifically, there isn't enough of a market to justify the ROI. People vastly underestimate the infrastructure needed to support a PC release in addition to consoles. They may appear to be 'the same' on the surface, but there's far more involved. 

I dont disagree, there are lots of things that go into making a game and how to support it and I have seen it underestimated here, my issue is treating the ROI question as a settled fact when we don't know what the modern NHL demand for PC looks like. Like I previously wrote, the overall PC market is vastly different now and its continuously growing, by player-base it surpasses console, and there are projections for PC to pass console in revenue by 2028. 

So I’m not denying the infrastructure argument. I’m saying that if infrastructure/ROI is the blocker, it would be helpful for EA to actually explain that in modern terms instead of the community relying on assumptions based on old market conditions. Without EA giving any real explanation, none of us can confidently answer that either way.

I think its completely reasonable for the community to ask and expect a good explanation from EA as to the why or why nots without a PC title for 17 years and what it could look like going forward. 

KidShowtime1867 wrote:

Regarding cloud play - I think that's fine for offline players, but the meat and potatoes of NHL is HUT and EASHL/WoC. Those are unplayable via cloudplay. 

100%, but even for offline modes its not much playable either, its less punishing since its not online competition but you get the same experience. I typically remote play via my PC which is way more stable than cloudplay, some minor connection issues here and there.