17th year without a PC release

If you can't do math then just don't.

Porting is cheap. That's a fact. Console exclusives being ported to PC even when they sell 20k copies. And there's a reason why everyone is doing that.

Ice hockey is more popular than NFL. Check your facts before spreading misinformation. Football is number one hands down, followed by basketball, tennis, cricket and ice hockey. American football is one of the least popular sports.

You forget that every game is filled with mtx. Do you think NBA makes a billion just from sales? And this proves your logic is flawed. NBA is profitable on all platforms yet there's no NBA live anymore but for some reason there's the least popular sports game on earth - NFL.

You also keep contradicting yourself so maybe stop? You calculate sales numbers for NFL and clearly see it's on PC which means it's worth it to port even if i sells badly. If porting as you imply would be too expensive than no one would bother with poriting games which doesn't sell at least 500k copies. It doesn't matter how much they would get on top - 50m or 1m, it's still a profit with nothing to lose.

And NHL is ice hockey, it's a worldwide sports while NFL is exclusive to one country. NHL would be more popular outside USA while NFL sells great on consoles because americans prefer consoles.

NHL NEVER was a huge money maker and that's why it needs to be ported to PC - to increase the profits. Otherwise it's counting its last years as a franchise.

Even PGA is on PC. 2K will just snatch NHL too and it will be on PC eventually just like it happened with NBA because EA refused to release it on PC. PC is the main market these days.

"Porting the game would cost pennies"

Are you a developer and can explain how porting over everything and then also having the maintenance behind specifically PC related issues would cost pennies?

"The market is bigger than NFL"

"No one outside USA cares about NFL"

"NHL wouldn't sell less since there's interest in it in multiple countries and regions.

AND YET the viewership numbers say that they aren't even close to being in the same league as NHL...

Avg viewers NHL : 
2020: 391K / 2021: 467K / 2022: 465K / 2023: 504K

Avg Viewers NFL:
2020: 15.4M / 2021: 17.1M / 2022:  16.7M / 2023 17.9M

"but even if it can only generate 50mil/year it would be a huge win."

NHL will NOT generate 50mil/year extra by being on PC....
Using the Boxleiter method to calculate sales

4000 reviews on Madden 25, means roughly speaking 160,000 sales okay:

160,000 x $70 = $11.2M in sales and this is before thinking about anything like the cost to Steams/refunds and chargebacks that people do on games on PC/taxes in general etc. So NOWHERE NEAR THE 50M you think they would be getting.

Unfortunately there is 0 competition for EANHL. They know it and take advantage of it.

Thankfully, making a game today is a lot easier than it was 10, even 5 years ago. Give it 2-3 years, there’s gonna be some really good small indie games for 1/8 the price of EANHL that takes the hockey gaming community by storm. Then, we’ll see if EANHL makes a quality product, or if they just roll over and die. 

Sony revealed that their AAA ports cost 1-2 millions only to port to PC. Some games only 500k. It's nothing. Some people are living in their bubble which is frozen in time somewhere in mid 2000's. PC is the biggest market and every company realized that and trying their best to use the opportunity. Literally nobody except nintendo (for obvious reasons) wants console exclusives anymore. Besides we have an example and EA is still doing it. NFL only sold ~150k copies on steam. And it's still profitable. NHL wouldn't sell less since there's interest in it in multiple countries and regions.

It doesn't sell great on consoles either. So it's a win win situation for everybody if it would be on PC. More money for EA and people can play NHL finally.

Porting the game would cost pennies. And the market is bigger than NFL. No one outside USA cares about NFL and americans prefer consoles over PC's. While ice hockey is popular worldwide. Same with basketball. NBA 2k is selling like crazy on PC. By cancelling NBA live on PC EA basically said no to 300-500million bucks. Now NHL of course is much less popular sport in general but even if it can only generate 50mil/year it would be a huge win.

Ah yeah this why they put NFL which is only interesting for people in one country and football games on PC. 2K also making a fortune each year from NBA on PC.

The reason in reality is just that EA is ignoring the market and refusing free money because executives are still stuck in mid 2000's when PC gaming was in shambles. There's no other explanation why.

I don't think it would cost millions dude, its built on frostbite its not like they have to build a whole new engine just to put it on PC, frostbite is literally designed for cross platform play across literally every popular system. Do you honestly think it would cost them that much to make a PC version? I mean if you think about it too, all these games are designed on PC, im sure they already have some sort of framework for NHL on PC for the devs to test stuff on without needing a console.

It's actually hilarious to me this signature campaign from nearly a decade ago is the only anchor point we have for any evidence.  It's funny, because it completely exposes the absolute laziness of EA Sports to not even attempt to engage with the PC community at all.  Yes, we have a change campaign with 8,000 signatures.  That is only indicative of the people who were actively looking for a PC release at the time who managed to find this forum, login, search through comments on an outdated forum post, click through to the campaign link and then sign with an email.  So from my view, 8,000 signatures is actually a great number for something that basically had to be discovered through effort and curiosity.  

This forum itself is a small echo-chamber.  You have larger social communities on reddit, and even bigger ones on instagram, facebook, youtube comments, etc.  All of which you will see chatter about a pc version.  So really I don't understand why the onus is on the pc community to basically put all of this energy to "prove" to EA that it's worth it with what, what is the number - 10K signatures?  100K signatures?  1 million signatures?  It's ridiculous - the onus should be on EA Sports to clearly communicate and at least show it is trying to engage.  But we get nothing.  Zilch.  It just feels like we've been ignored now for over a decade, and it feels that way because it is that way.  There are freely available resources online that show the pc platform is as large as the entire console market combined.

Like I said, I respect the community mods for responding but most of the people who were asking for this nearly 15 years ago have either moved on or stopped caring all together.  It is extremely difficult to get any read on this situation other than general sentiment online, which btw clearly states: yes, people want this game on PC and other platforms like Switch.  Soooo yeah.

I asked EA Sports to open source the server code/game code for NHL Legacy so at least the PC community can have some variation of modern NHL available to them.  There are dedicated groups attempting to reverse engineer this stuff so we can at least play the game on PC.  The will is there on one side, but it's definitely lacking, and basically non-existent on EA Sports side.  Again, I am sorry to be so negative but it is beyond frustrating at this point. 

Just go look at the steam analytics for Madden since they started putting it on PC… and that playerbase is bigger than NHLs. That’s why they won’t do it. Also 8000 signatures is a lot different than 8000 preorders. One you are just saying I am interested the other is actually putting money down not knowing how it will turn out.

Side note: We are not even counting this factor. How many of those 8000 are people who are still buying the console version every year so it is not an increase in any sales but just someone who is switching where they play the game? 

Cuz 8000 people make for reasons to spend millions to make it work on PC.....

8000 LOL