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.

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.

College Football 25 was an enormous success before it even properly launched; we are now at the point where a game’s early access release date is the de facto release date. For over two million fans, College Football 25 came out on July 16 priced $100.

Daryl Holt, SVP and Group GM, EA Sports, said the company “couldn’t be more excited to welcome millions more into the game with today’s launch.”

Circana’s Mat Piscatella said the firm’s Player Engagement Tracker suggests EA Sports College Football 25 “may indeed be the mass market breakout hit this console gen really needs right now.”

Looks like EA Sports College Football 25 may indeed be the mass market breakout hit this console gen really needs right now.

— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) July 18, 2024

Just in time for today’s full launch, EA released its promised Team Builder feature that lets players create their own custom teams. Fan feedback has been mostly positive, though our EA College Football 25 review-in-progress is mixed.

“Right now, EA College Football 25 feels like a college quarterback who left school for the NFL too soon, got drafted way higher than he should have because a team was desperate, started under intense scrutiny from a fanbase and an owner who are tired of losing all the time, and then flamed out of the league because he just wasn’t ready for prime time,” we wrote.

Stay tuned for our full review, and make sure to check our complete guide to College Football 25.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.