EA Sports College Football 27, the latest entry in EA’s College Football franchise and the first game in the series to be available on PC, has been out for less than 24 hours, and it’s already earned itself a “Mostly Negative” score on Steam, with only 33 percent of its reviews being positive.
However, according to both fans and reviewers, the game itself is actually pretty great, and a marked improvement over the previous entry in the franchise, EA Sports College Football 26. So, why is it getting dragged on Steam? Well, in classic EA fashion, the publisher has removed features that were available in the previous game’s offline modes and replaced them with microtransactions for EA Sports College Football 27.
According to reviewers on Steam, two of EA Sports College Football’s single-player offline modes, Dynasty mode and Road To Glory mode, no longer allow players to adjust the percentage of XP they would earn in EA Sports College Football 27. The previous entry in the franchise featured “fast” and “faster” sliders in these modes that allowed players to customize the amount of XP they’d earn in the offline modes, but now they’re expected to drop cash on “College Football Points” microtransactions for the same result.
Worse still, reviewers on Steam note that, while the amount of XP you earn in these modes has risen, the amount required to level up has also risen. Other reviewers have also stated that there appears to be a cap on the amount of XP you can earn without spending cash too.
And, as Insider Gaming notes, content creators who were given early access to the game have also stated that these microtransactions were not available in the preview builds they were granted access to, and some have accused EA of keeping the microtransactions a secret before launch in a bid to garner more favorable reviews.
While EA has yet to officially respond to the controversy, fans and content creators are trying to get the hashtag “#cfbplaydontpay” trending online in an attempt to warn other players against purchasing the game.