In a Michigan basement decked out in maize and blue, a father sat with his son.
They would bond over a football video game. One with a story mode that would transport the 7-year-old into a college dorm room, where letters from fans filled his mailbox, the campus newspaper teased a championship, and a list of Heisman Trophy candidates adorned his computer screen. If he played well enough, his name might even appear there.
It wasn't real. But who was to say it couldn't be?
"You know, we'd always joke, because he was a big kid, that 'Hey, maybe you're going to be on there someday,'" said the father, Bill Swartout.
Today, more than a decade later, that 7-year-old — Brayden Swartout — is a college football offensive lineman at Central Michigan, living the story mode in real life.
Countless versions of that game, not made in more than a decade, collect dust in basements alongside phased-out gaming systems. It's the inevitable fate of old discs, gaming cartridges, RCA connector wires and the like.
Give it all a good blow, though, and the dust clears to reveal an enduring cultural phenomenon that, in this modern world, is on its way back.
More than a game
For a generation of youth, the college football video games produced by EA Sports — slogan: "It's in the game!" — fueled their aspirations in the sport.
From the early versions in the 1990s to the immersive experiences in the 2000s that revolutionized create-a-player modes, they became must-have items for fans of both college football and video games.
As they grew more popular, however, something else grew, too: the chorus of voices that said the college athletes depicted in the game should be getting paid. It was a notion that seemed preposterous in the student-athlete era. But as opinions morphed, it started to make sense.
Before 2021, college athletes were not allowed by the NCAA to profit from their brand, commonly known as their name, image and likeness — or NIL — via endorsements, depictions or the like. EA Sports tried for years to differentiate in-game rosters from real-life players.
"Quarterback No. 10" remembers this clearly.
"I remember when I was in the game. Obviously in high school and all that you want to be in the game, but then when you get to college, you're in the game, and I'm No. 10 from Baylor, before NIL, and I am No. 10," Robert Griffin III, one of the game's 2013 cover athletes and the 2011 Heisman winner at Baylor University before going on to the NFL, told The Associated Press.
"And that's my name, 'Quarterback No. 10 from Baylor.' But I'm like, white with a buzz cut fade and no arm sleeve on my arm, and I'm from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. They completely tried to change the character just so they don't have to pay the guy. Or say, 'Oh no, that's not his name, image and likeness, he's not even the right color.' But everybody knew who No. 10 from Baylor was."
Eventually, EA Sports gave up. And so the franchise was sidelined after its most version in 2013, dormant for 11 years.
AP photo by Vasha Hunt / Fans cheer during Alabama's A-Day spring game on April 13 in Tuscaloosa. College football's 2024 season will bring lots of changes, including Alabama being joined in the SEC by Oklahoma and Texas of the Big 12 and the playoff's expansion from four teams to 12. But before then, EA Sports will add something old and new with the revival of its college football game, set to be released this summer.It's back (for real)
Society has changed a lot since the 2010s. So has Bill Swartout's basement, now decked out in maroon and gold, a reflection of support switching from the Michigan Wolverines to the Central Michigan Chippewas.
Gamers' voracious appetites for immersive sports video games have not changed as much. And with the NCAA's decision to allow college athletes to profit from their individual brands, the time had come.
In 2021, EA Sports announced it would be reviving the franchise. Three years later, the game is scheduled to be released this summer, with a full reveal promised later this month. Details have been few so far, but players' names and likeness will be real.
"I personally believe that NCAA football is the greatest game ever made," Griffin says. "A lot of kids growing up with the game wanted to be able to see themselves grow and develop into those players they were creating."
EA Sports has offered Football Bowl Subdivision players a minimum of $600 and a copy of "EA Sports College Football 25" to be featured in the game. More than 10,000 players have accepted.
The game will seek to differentiate itself from other offerings in the market — sports franchises that have had the advantage of time to evolve. There's a difference, though: None of those have tackled college football.
"Video games, as popular as they were, they've just evolved so much based on how society has evolved and having so many different modes and options," said Nicolette Aduama, the senior associate director at Northeastern University's Center for the Study of Sport in Society.
Out with the old
EA's 2006 college football game was monumental in the sports video game realm. It was the first to completely immerse gamers into an athlete's life. It had a killer soundtrack. Perhaps its only story mode rival in the early 2000s was "NBA Ballers."
It also was problematic, including a feature that — like much entertainment from the past, even recent years — does not stand the test of time well. In the create-a-player's dorm room, hanging from the corner of the computer screen was a wallet-sized picture depicting a woman. As the player performed better on the field, the depiction shuffled through presets. The woman's body type sometimes became thinner; her bust, hair color and smile changed.
"I remember seeing that like, when I was a kid, and even then I was like,`Why does the girlfriend get more attractive if you win more games?'" said Eli Mouser, 21, of Russellville, Alabama. "I was like, 'That doesn't make any sense.'"
EA Sports jettisoned this feature in later editions. It added another that had gamers pick a major and keep their GPA up to compete on the field. The developer has made strides in its equity through other games, such as its professional soccer franchise that now includes female players, and its newest golf game, which asks gamers for their pronouns when they create players.
"Girls are gamers, too," Aduama said. "We see it in movies and on TV shows now where people are breaking those stereotypes, and we talk about that in our trainings all of the time. It's about exposure."
EA Sports said it is offering female athletes opportunities to be involved with the game through its ambassador program, which pays athletes to promote it.
"I know one game right now that would certainly blow it out the water, it would be women's college basketball," Griffin said. "Caitlin Clark on the cover. You've got all the girls over there with Angel Reese at LSU. Like, that game would mop the floor."
Given the college football game's aspirational features, it's easy to wonder: When the new version comes out, what preteens will play it, find inspiration and end up on a college football field a decade from now? What dreams of 2024 — embedded in what will surely be the most immersive iteration of the game ever — will fuel paths to athletic success and deliver tomorrow's aspirations in hi-res?
For Mouser, growing up in Alabama as a Tennessee fan was tough. EA Sports' college football games gave him a space to let out some of that orange in an overwhelming tide of crimson. Like Bill and Brayden Swartout, the game also gave him a chance to bond with his father.
"I bother my friends all the time," Mouser said, calling the virtual world his "Roman Empire." "They're like, 'Dude, you're not a real football coach.' And I'm like, 'This is important to me, all right?'"