Devin Schelske, sports editor
For the first time since 2013, gamers have a new college football video game to enjoy. The excitement was monstrous leading up to the release of “EA Sports College Football 25” on July 19. The hype from the gaming community was seen especially on social media. One area in particular was on the NFL Instagram page which posts about the new Madden game every year, where the comment section for each post about the upcoming “Madden 25” game has been riddled with fans expressing their disinterest in purchasing the game in favor of the new college football game. A post about Madden 25 gameplay from the NFL page on July 23 featured comments such as “game look trash. CFB is better” and “ain’t nobody buying this. We got NCAA now, y’all had y’all chance to reel us in.”
According to Esports Illustrated, “College Football 25” pushed past $500 million in sales within the first month of its release. According to Sports Business Journal, the game became the top-selling game of the year within the first month of its release. “Madden 25” sales came in second in sales largely due to EA offering “College Football 25” and “Madden 25” in a bundle pack to save customers money.
According to Esports Illustrated, “College Football 25” pushed past $500 million in sales within the first month of its release. According to Sports Business Journal, the game became the top-selling game of the year within the first month of its release.
esports illustrated
The differences in the system of college football compared to the NFL can be more appealing to gamers. One big selling point for “College Football 25” is the dynasty mode which is based around building your team towards glory. Much of your time outside of gameplay is spent recruiting players by scouting, scheduling visits and attributing hours to recruits whereas Madden is based around building the team through trades and drafts. “College Football 25” is more customizable than Madden. “College Football 25” features a teambuilder mode where gamers can design and create their own team. These teams can then be used in exhibition games or in dynasty mode. The game also allows you to customize conferences within dynasty mode so gamers’ teams don’t have similar opponents year in and year out.
But is “College Football 25” really a better game? Several Auggies seem to think so. In an interview with the Echo, Augsburg football player and experienced football gamer Andrew Hahn said, “The college atmosphere and college football in general is more fun than pro football. Players are all around the same level in the NFL. In college, many teams are at different skill levels so it feels like lower skilled teams need to scheme themselves to win versus in the NFL where it’s more about playmaking using similar playbooks.”
He also spoke on how similar and different the game is to Madden. “Players have room to make more mistakes so it’s a more unique product than Madden. The aspect of recruiting players in dynasty mode is more fun and rewarding than drafting players in Madden,” said Hahn. “In college, you are constantly having to deal with player turnover due to graduation or being drafted so your team can look a lot different each year. In Madden, you can re-sign players for what seems like forever and have a very similar team each year.”