What EA Sports College Football 25 can teach us about brand publishing

It’s really silly how much people love immersing themselves in the world of video games.

I say this because I count myself among those people. As far as my life goes, mine is pretty unremarkable, so I don’t mind indulging in a little escapism from time to time, especially when it has something to do with my favorite sport. For example, in the real world, I stopped playing football competitively after high school. But according to my PlayStation, I run 40 yards in 4.58 seconds, can throw a football a cool 65 yards, and am a three-time Heisman Trophy winner.

Like so many of my peers born in the 1990s, I spent an embarrassingly large portion of my childhood and early adolescence playing EA Sports’ NCAA football series. I was never good at first-person shooters like Call of Duty or patient enough to excel at open-world fantasy games like The Elder Scrolls, but I managed to carve out a comfortable niche for myself as a capable player of sports simulation games. I still have fond memories of the many create-a-player and national championship programs I produced in the basement of my parents’ house, and I can still hear the steady hum of computer-generated crowd noise and whatever school’s fight song often lulled me to sleep. Simpler times.

A lot has changed since then. I rarely play these games anymore, mainly because the series was canceled shortly after the release of NCAA Football 14 in 2013. But like the infamous Michael Corleone, EA Sports brought me back just when I thought I was out.

I’m talking, of course, about the July 19 release of EA Sports College Football 25, EA’s highly anticipated reboot of its original NCAA football franchise. Not only was this game the long-awaited push I needed to pick up the controller again (or, as the kids say, get back “on the sticks”) and rekindle my childhood dreams, but it also marked the grand return of college football to the gaming universe after over a decade of inactivity. Yeah, it’s a pretty big deal.

So, beyond my incredibly fascinating personal gaming journey, what can EA Sports College Football 25 teach us about a small (or really big) thing called the world of brand publishing and content strategy. The game didn’t just come out of nowhere to captivate the nation; it took a developer with a clear vision, a lot of determination, and a commitment to giving consumers the most authentic experience possible.

Take the time to do it right

Eleven years between installments is an eternity in the gaming world, especially for sports franchises that typically release a new version of the same game every year. Before its production hiatus, EA released a new college football game every year from 1993 to 2013, establishing a regular rhythm that its loyal fan base quickly became accustomed to.

But that long hiatus wasn’t just EA Sports’ fault. NCAA Football wasn’t put on hold because of the game’s declining popularity or the developer’s demise, but because of a lawsuit against the NCAA over the use of college athlete likenesses for commercial purposes, including in video games. When a judge ruled against the NCAA in 2014, EA was forced to put its signature series of college sports games on hold.

Consumer demand for a college football video game never waned. In fact, I would argue that the longer fans went without a new version of the game, the greater the demand became. I know I spent many of those “lost” seasons watching and wondering what it would have been like to play with video game versions of the many legendary players and elite teams that shaped the sport. Some people (who had a lot more time on their hands) even got creative and continually modified NCAA Football 14 to reflect more modern rosters.

Now, do you see what I mean? That put EA in a pretty unusual position. Yet, according to ESPN, when enough time had passed and the Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) rules had changed enough that reviving the franchise was a real possibility, the company was ready. By the time EA publicly announced the game’s final return in early 2021, it had already spent over a year laying the groundwork for the new product. Then it took the next three years to get it across the finish line.

EA’s patient approach paid off, with 2.2 million copies of the deluxe edition of College Football 25 sold before the full version of the game on July 19. For comparison: NCAA Football 14 sold in total of around 1.5 million copies.

That said, EA took the time to do it right. They didn’t rush to release a hastily made, recycled game that left their loyal fanbase dissatisfied. They essentially built a new game “from the ground up” that pushed all the right buttons of tradition and nostalgia while also offering enough new features and sleek graphics to appeal to the modern gamer.

I know the pressure to create content can sometimes lead to a frenetic approach to brand publishing. There’s often a feeling that more content produced at shorter intervals equals better results. But as EA shows, sometimes it’s worth moving at a more considered pace if it means delivering impactful, high-quality content that your core audience will love.

Authenticity is important

There’s a reason it took EA over five years from the initial project proposal to the release date of College Football 25 to complete this massive undertaking. It’s all about the details.

EA knew from the start that fans play college football games because they feel like the real game. They pay their hard-earned money for an immersive experience. To give them that, EA couldn’t afford to cut corners, even if that meant spending long hours researching traditions, putting together touchdown celebrations, perfecting uniforms, or acquiring assets from each of the 134 FBS schools.

The development team built entire stadiums — nearly 150 in total — using a sophisticated lighting system and custom “toolkits” to replicate each school’s real-life home stadium as closely as possible. Each took about a week to build, and that’s before fans even got in. Then there were the mascots (Colorado’s Buffalo Ralphie took nearly a month to animate), the playbooks (unique to each team), the fight songs and the game commentary (more than 115 hours recorded remotely over two years). And, of course, there were the players.

More than 13,000 athletes have chosen to use their NIL on College Football 25 in exchange for $600 in cash and a free copy of the game. (Sounds like a great deal, right?) Using machine learning software, EA animated each player’s appearance and adjusted their player ratings to create full 85-man rosters to match all 134 teams. Every eye color, player bio, and football attribute was taken into account. And all of this, and we haven’t even talked about the actual gameplay!

It’s no wonder the phrase “authenticity is foundational” became a common refrain among game developers, according to ESPN. This was EA’s vision from the beginning, and they recognized that they had the time and motivation to pay attention to every last detail.

And therein lies the problem: when it comes to building a trusted, authoritative brand, authenticity is key. That goes for brand publishing, SEO marketing, or even reinventing a popular video game series after a long hiatus from production. It takes time, resources, strategy, and careful execution. But as long as you’re committed to giving your core audience what they need, you’ll always be in the running to win.

This article was created and syndicated by MediaFeed.us.

More from MediaFeed: