If it weren’t for that pesky Ed O’Bannon and all of those college athletes who wanted to be paid for something anyone else in their position would have been paid for, I’d be playing NCAA Football 19 right now.
But, no. They just needed to milk the poor NCAA for all the money they could get, so I’m forced to dust off my outdated Playstation 3 and play NCAA Football 14 — which came out exactly five years ago today — if I want my virtual college football fix.
Today marks 5 years since NCAA Football 14 was released… (h/t @RedditCFB) #RIP 😢 pic.twitter.com/EW1BlTcfLK
— Jim Weber (@JimMWeber) July 9, 2018
EA Sports’ college football series came to an end in 2013 after the NCAA decided that allowing the video game giant to pay players for likeness rights, which EA was willing to do, would impact the integrity of these amateur athletes. And so, we’ve gone a half-decade without a college football game on major consoles.
There are alternatives, however. The community has done a good job of keeping NCAA 14 fresh with roster updates. But gamers aren’t getting the next-gen graphics, updated uniforms, new schemes (RPOs!) and improved gameplay they would if the series was still in production.
That could soon change.
iMackulate Vision Gaming announced in April it was aiming to release a new college football game, titled Gridiron Champions, on Playstation, XBOX and Steam in 2020.
Via iMackulate Vision Gaming:
iMackulate Vision Gaming (iMackulate or “IMV”), is excited to announce that plans are underway towards “Gridiron Champions,” a college football video game which anticipates filling the void in today’s marketplace with an expected launch date of 2020.
iMackulate Vision Gaming
Of course, the game will not include licensed universities or real players, but it will allow gamers “to customize player uniforms, stadiums, fan atmosphere and recreate pageantry though this unique college football experience.”
Gamers are a resourceful bunch, so it won’t be long before Gridiron Champions looks like a fully licensed NCAA game.
We’ve seen this before with other titles. Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer, a competitor of EA Sports’ immensely popular FIFA series, doesn’t have the financial means to outbid EA for big-league licenses but does offer gamers thorough customization options. That allowed users to turn PES‘s generic English League into a spitting image of the Premier League…
College basketball fans got their video game fix thanks to NBA2K‘s customization options. One gamer created realistic rosters, uniforms and arenas for most major college programs…
Gamers would have no problem turning the “Mississippi A&M Raptors” into the Mississippi State Bulldogs and “Oklahoma Tech Cyclones” into the Oklahoma Sooners in Gridiron Champions, but you have to believe the NCAA would do everything in its power to stop a separate company from profiting from its product.
There’s also a moral dilemma for gamers, who will allow a company to profit off the work of unpaid college athletes. That has never stopped us from enjoying college sports video games in the past, however. And, at the very least, the NCAA will not be making any money from the sales of the game. For once, the organization will know how its employees student-athletes feel.
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