2.2 Million People Were Willing to Pay $100 to Play College Football 25 3 Days Early

[Fenton]

Paying more for Deluxe Editions of games in order to get a head start on those who wait for the official release date has become the norm, with a number of triple-A publishers selling early access as part of expensive editions of their games.

College Football 25 is the latest to do it, granting three days of early access for a pre-order of the $99.99 Deluxe Edition on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S. Doing so would mean you were able to play from July 16, rather than having to wait until today, July 19 to jump in.

And you can see why publishers do this now, because EA has just announced it saw 2.2 million unique players of College Football 25 during this early access period. On top of that, an additional 600,000 were playing via the EA Play trial.

2.2 Million People Were Willing to Pay $100 to Play College Football 25 3 Days Early - IGN

An incredible 2.2 million unique players played College Football 25 during its early access period, showing millions of people were willing to pay more to play the game early.

www.ign.com

 

[voke]

3 days early for premium versions are going to be industry standard by the end of the generation.

GTAVI is going to make serious bank with this strategy. Easy way to get the most thirsty consumers to hand out an extra $30-50. There's actually a few developers and I would cave and do this for...

 

[Zzero]

And the game was broken at launch too, bravo guys.

 

[Evilnemesis8]

2.2M copies sold within a 3-day Early Access period for a game that sold/will sell the vast majority of its copies within a singular country is crazy. I knew the thirst for the return of this franchise was very real but I underestimated it.

This is an actual console mover, at least when it comes to the US market.

 

[peter42O]

No surprises here. As a football fan, I was tempted to buy the $100 edition as well but due to having a consistent stream of games to play for the rest of the year, I wouldn't have had any time to play it. So instead, I will just wait until EA adds it to EA Play next Spring give or take and then play it.

As for early access editions, this has been going on for a decade, give or take. I have no problem with it because if im buying your game anyway day one, why wouldn't I want to play it a few days earlier? Also, people always act like the Early Access version of games is only that when it includes a bunch of other stuff and in the case of Ubisoft, expansions. So yeah, gimme, gimme, gimme.

 

[CrackmanNL]

Now it's a business model to use FOMO and extract more money, cause everyone has that game or franchise they are willing to pay more for.
Additional 66 million of revenue of those 2,2 million buyers.

 

[quest4441]

This is more maybe due to this being the first one in more than a decade, if this becomes an annual release like madden then it will go down to the normal number of premium edition pre-orders maddens usually get

 

[ethomaz]

Well it is actual gamers that will buy the Deluxe Edition no matter what.
So why not buy it to get the early access?

I see no issue here.

 

[Remember_Spinal]

whatever helps curren gen console adoption is good news to me.

Hopefully all the other annual mega sellers cut off past gen games soon

 

[MrAss]

This is more maybe due to this being the first one in more than a decade, if this becomes an annual release like madden then it will go down to the normal number of premium edition pre-orders maddens usually get

those 2.2 million people are probably the most hardcore fans who are willing to buy the game every year

 

[quest4441]

those 2.2 million people are probably the most hardcore fans who are willing to buy the game every year

No I don't mean they wont buy the game if its yearly, I meant they would not buy the deluxe ultra premium edition that gives 3/4/5 days early access in huge numbers like this if its an yearly release

 

[ethomaz]

No I don't mean they wont buy the game if its yearly, I meant they would not buy the deluxe ultra premium edition that gives 3/4/5 days early access in huge numbers like this if its an yearly release

I believe most hardcore ex-FIFA and now EA SPORTS players buys the deluxe edition already.
It is not even related to the 3 days early.... the bonus already is the big deal for them.
This game Deluxe Edition gives you 4600 College Football Points.

Another example....

EA Sports FC 24 Ultimate Edition Sold Over 6.8 Million Units

EA confirms it sold 6.8 million units of the game for its one-week early access period, which is up 35% from last year's FIFA 23.

gamingbolt.com

6.8 million players brought the Ultimate Edition for FC 24 last year... it was up 35% compared with FC 23 (~5 million).

 

[JAHGamer]

I wanted to get this game but I'm never subscribing to PS+ again and it's not on PC

 

[ethomaz]

BTW these 2.2 million tells you that around 1/3 of the hardware FC Deluxe buyers is buying College Football 25 Deluxe.
Not sure if that was EA expected