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.

titus1029 wrote:

I do see some pretty in depth feedback that gets zero interaction by EA here

I would actually challenge you to point to a thread that has in-depth feedback (and not just a wall of text ranting about how nobody knows hockey) that didn't have a response from EA. I'm not saying it didn't happen, but I'm on the forums a lot and I can't remember a time recently where someone took effort into providing clips and genuine non-ai generated feedback and didn't get a single response from EA.

titus1029 wrote:

I haven’t personally seen much public-facing outreach from EA about PC interest

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. They invest real money into these surveys and that data drives product decisions. EA has a history of being in the PC market - especially NHL - so they have intimate knowledge of exactly why they aren't pushing a PC NHL release these days.

I'm someone who lived and breathed the NHL PC days. Quite honestly, it's probably the reason I do what I do now. I spent countless hours doing custom jerseys, ads, broadcast graphics, ice overlays.. it was endless. Shout out to the OG's who remember NHL-Depot.net and TheBreakAway.net 

PC leagues were amazing and EA had complete dominance over the PC market.

But things changed when gaming consoles started taking more market share and EA shifted around NHL 04 to being primarily a console title. 

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. 

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. 

Hey. Just wanted to touch on this real quick:

I agree but there is still a lot of quality feedback, which I think gets drowned out by the amount of grievances. But I do see some pretty in depth feedback that gets zero interaction by EA here. What others have touched on here is that there isn't a lot of engagement with all of the feedback, which understandably if Aljo is the only EA rep for their NHL series he can't possibly read and comment on every post.

I try to at least let people know their feedback was seen. Obviously, not every message has been responded to. A lot of it is for modes I don't personally play so I don't have much to add to those. Which is why I normally just thank them for their input. While NHL is my primary forum, I'm also actively working other titles as well so my time here is pretty divided.

KidShowtime1867 wrote:

But again, there's a lot of 'feedback' here that isn't really feedback and more just an airing of grievances after a loss.

I agree but there is still a lot of quality feedback, which I think gets drowned out by the amount of grievances. But I do see some pretty in depth feedback that gets zero interaction by EA here. What others have touched on here is that there isn't a lot of engagement with all of the feedback, which understandably if Aljo is the only EA rep for their NHL series he can't possibly read and comment on every post.

KidShowtime1867 wrote:

Needs to be more competition in the market, but it's expensive and difficult to make quality games these days.

I agree with this as well, a lack of competition with hockey games likely reduces pressure on EA to innovate or take interest in the communities ideas. Most similar game I can see is 2KHS which is available on pc via patreon (last I checked), graphics are poorer but its something, from what I seen it brings back the broadcast vibes older versions of NHL had which I was a huge fan of. Being honest thats what I enjoyed the most about the older NHL games, just how much depth they went into making the game. Also something EA should change or refresh the community with is new broadcasters, we've had the same play by play dialogue for years and at this rate I can say exactly what Cheryl Pounder or James Cybulski is saying at the same time, its old and needs to be refreshed, even if they would only redo the dialogue every few years I would be happy about that.

KidShowtime1867 wrote:

Nobody is saying the PC market is dead. EA has smart people to analyze markets and they've done the math; there's no ROI on a PC NHL game. You have to uplift so much infrastructure to support a PC release and there's just no market for it on the PC. A few hundred devoted forum members who religiously play PC doesn't equate to real-world market share.

I think this is slept on heavily, you can look at PC games that are available on steam that are nowhere close to EA's NHL and they have tons of downloads and pretty decent active playerbases. Think a couple of the top games I seen was Slapshot Rebound and another called Puck which both are free, both are like first person low-poly hockey games. While I dont disagree that they may have people that run the numbers and do the math, I haven’t personally seen much public-facing outreach from EA about PC interest, so from the community side it feels like the demand has not been meaningfully tested or communicated. If they don't push out a PC version of NHL they should at least run a proper survey of the community to get full feedback. I'll provide some screenshots from the steamdb for the games I mentioned, I highlighted the estimated ownerships. Those numbers make me question whether the PC audience is really as nonexistent as people claim. I do not know EA’s costs, but I think it would be worth EA addressing why that audience is not considered viable. Now I don't know what their console sales are but its not just game sales we are talking about, there are in game transactions as well, and I'm not saying ownership of these steam games will turn into game sales for EA but it also shows there is definitely a big interest for hockey games on PC, Obviously this would not translate 1:1 into EA NHL sales, especially for a full-priced annual title, but just as a rough hypothetical, using those ownership estimates would put potential gross sales somewhere between roughly CDN$37 million and CDN$189 million before accounting for development costs, licensing, support, and other expenses.

KidShowtime1867 wrote:

Why does it matter to you if EA's sales numbers are garbage? I never understood why some people put so much weight into how many copies of the game gets sold. I couldn't care less if EA sold 5,000 copies of the game. All I know is that there's always a ton of people to play against online and it's an active base of really good players. Being concerned about sales numbers just seems to weird to me.

I have an interest in this as well as its the main argument used for defending denying a PC release by most people. A common argument, including one you mentioned, is that EA has likely run the numbers and does not see enough ROI. This is where people including me want some transparency, for me it goes with the timeline of the last PC title as well. its been so long since the games been on PC, we want to see the numbers people refer to that claim does not support a PC title. I understand EA likely won't release those numbers but even a good official explanation as to why a PC title isn't viable from EA would be sufficient.

 I also see lots of people say just wait until its on gamepass but that's beyond the point of having a PC release. Waiting for gamepass means waiting for the games lifecycle to basically be in its last quarter, leaving anyone solely on PC to wait until around the time playoffs start IRL for the game to be accessible to gamepass subscribers or people who play via cloudplay, people that have to wait for this miss out on earlier WOC/Seasons and in NHL 26's case, will have a very steep learning curve with the gameplay changes with only months before the next title releases. An easy alternative to that would be making it cloudplay on release (not via gamepass), meaning people purchase the game then they can play on PC via cloudplay on release, this would be a good middle ground/compromise to a PC release despite Xbox's somewhat unreliable cloudplay service.

alxkk wrote:

There's been TONS of genuinely great feedback that would greatly improve the games from a consumer standpoint, most of which never see the light of day.

That's just not fair. A lot of "feedback" here is just "make X better" or "make X more realistic". 

EA definitely keeps all the feedback. Many years ago, I had the chance to visit the studio and at one point we were shown an internal platform used by the team to track all feedback. Basically a software they use to track all of the ideas the community and others had for the game along with progress in terms of implementation. 

But again, there's a lot of 'feedback' here that isn't really feedback and more just an airing of grievances after a loss.

alxkk wrote:

So EA is allowed to sit on their hands, updating one offline game mode per release, because nobody will challenge them. 

I agree with this. Needs to be more competition in the market, but it's expensive and difficult to make quality games these days. You need a high profile publisher to pay the NHL licensing fees or an indie developer willing to tackle the sport. There's a promising game called 'Puck' on PC that looks like a really fun time. I wish it would translate to consoles. 

alxkk wrote:

It's not dead in the water like it was in the mid 2000's to 2010's.

Nobody is saying the PC market is dead. EA has smart people to analyze markets and they've done the math; there's no ROI on a PC NHL game. You have to uplift so much infrastructure to support a PC release and there's just no market for it on the PC. A few hundred devoted forum members who religiously play PC doesn't equate to real-world market share.

alxkk wrote:

AJ has also claimed they don't release sales numbers, which is a good indication they are garbage. Companies love boasting when they have great sales numbers. Looks good for future potential investors.

Why does it matter to you if EA's sales numbers are garbage? I never understood why some people put so much weight into how many copies of the game gets sold. I couldn't care less if EA sold 5,000 copies of the game. All I know is that there's always a ton of people to play against online and it's an active base of really good players. Being concerned about sales numbers just seems to weird to me.

alxkk wrote:

It doesn't help that they probably aren't getting a ton of investor money, but maybe they just suck at sales pitches, lol. EA was just bought by the Saudi's, tons of Oil Prince money waiting to be invested. Do better

Again "do better". This is the "quality feedback" you think is being 'ignored'. 

"the onus should be on EA Sports to clearly communicate and at least show it is trying to engage.  But we get nothing.  Zilch."

That's just the thing. No shade to AJ or the other community managers, but I wonder how much of the "thanks for the feedback, I'll pass it along" just gets thrown into an empty email that the devs don't bother checking. There's been TONS of genuinely great feedback that would greatly improve the games from a consumer standpoint, most of which never see the light of day.

There's no competitor for NHL games. So EA is allowed to sit on their hands, updating one offline game mode per release, because nobody will challenge them. 

They've said it will cost too much money, but they aren't factoring that PC gaming isn't like it used to be. It's not dead in the water like it was in the mid 2000's to 2010's. There is a whole untapped market out there just sitting, waiting to be able to play the game but won't, because EA needs to meet their sales/micro-transaction quota with overpriced HUT cards that will be irrelevant in 6-8 months. 

AJ has also claimed they don't release sales numbers, which is a good indication they are garbage. Companies love boasting when they have great sales numbers. Looks good for future potential investors.

It doesn't help that they probably aren't getting a ton of investor money, but maybe they just suck at sales pitches, lol. EA was just bought by the Saudi's, tons of Oil Prince money waiting to be invested. Do better

+1

Whats crazy Is theres crossplay now why is it still an issue they will recieve sells eitherway, its a money grab for XBOX gamepass. Cheap company thats why I stopped buying from them.

I don't understand why nhl doesn't appear on the pc because now a lot of people play on the pc and then have to get a new console so that you can play nhl.

This is a fair opinion. But I think they could at least leverage the option to bring the game on GamePass as Xbox Cloud version. The infrastructure is already there, and they could sell it as a standalone copy instead of a part of the subscription. I bet a lot of people would buy it, when it would deliver 1440 with 60FPS instead of only 1080 with 30FPS. Would not even need to maintain a dedicated PC version.