One of the purely most exciting development for college sports fans in recent years was the return of college football video games. While you can certainly quibble with parts of features or the gameplay in EA Sports College Football 25 or 26, we’re generally willing to deal with them at this stage, just because it had been so long.
One thing that had not come in junction with the football video game was the return of a basketball one. Even before EA had their hand forced in stopping making the CFB games, they had already given up on CBB ones for a couple years.
Advertisement
However earlier this year, that was seemingly set to change. Back in June, EA had seemingly confirmed that a college basketball game was on the horizon, however even generous timelines forecasted it being a few years away. Since then, things have gotten a bit messy.
In addition to not having a CBB game, EA also hadn’t dipped their toe into the NBA waters in a while, as their last couple NBA Live editions had not been received well. Meanwhile, elsewhere 2K Sports had become the go to NBA video game maker for a while, and still hold that mantle to his day. As news that EA was looking to get into the CBB water, not surprisingly news came out that 2K was looking into it as well.
Earlier this week, we got the news that 2K was in fact making a new college basketball video game, and EA was bowing out. However, the reasons for that make for somewhat frustrating reading for college basketball fans.
EA was reportedly looking for exclusive rights to schools and conferences, knowing that 2K was dipping their toe in the water. With 2K already having somewhat of a basketball game base via NBA 2K, they could probably get a game out much faster, and plenty of schools apparently would prefer the quick licensing fee that sign over rights to EA for the future.
Advertisement
You might think “well, that sounds fine,” but I have to be honest, as someone who would love to play one of these video games, there’s something about 2K’s proposals that leave me a little sour. The planned EA games were reportedly set to include all of the men’s and women’s teams of every Division I program. In their announcements, 2K says theirs will have “over 100” teams. While that’s a lot, there are over 350 D1 schools.
Now, yes, I am a North Carolina fan and would certainly play with the Tar Heels, a large part of the joy of the old games was having the entire D1 universe. Sure it’s unrealistic, but it was fun to build up Marist or Grambling State or whatever other small school you like into a blue blood. Also, who wants to play a NCAA Tournament where the #16 seed you face in round one is another power conference school instead of the champions of a one-big league. (I say that knowing that’s exactly what some powers that would be would like to happen in real life.) Getting just the major conferences plus the next biggest mid-majors might satisfy the casual college basketball fans who just want to play UNC vs. Kentucky or whatever, but it would be a bummer to the people who would sustain those games into the future.
EA having exclusive rights wouldn’t be ideal either, but I can’t say I’m feeling particularly positive about where the first round of new college basketball video games are going.
