The EA SportsNCAA Footballfranchise wrapped up almost ten years ago, leaving fans of college football in gaming limbo. Following debate surrounding the use of college players' likenesses, EA Sports scrapped the series after the release ofNCAA Football 14. As the franchise ticks closer to a decade of nonexistence, that same swan song,NCAA Football 14, now stands as one of the single most expensive games from the PS3 and Xbox 360 era.
On eBay and similar sites, loose copies ofNCAA Football 14regularly go for over a hundred dollars, with complete copies fetching nearly twice that. Despite theofficial announcement ofEA Sports College Footballearlier this year,NCAA Football 14still manages to rack up impressive resale numbers. In fact,NCAA Football 14may boast the highest resale value of its era—when not factoring in limited edition or box set titles.
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What Makes NCAA Football 14 So Valuable
The path to high resale value is generally straightforward. In the case of a title likePanzer Dragoon Saga, the explanation is simply scarcity. Selling around 1,000 copies in PAL regions,Panzer Dragoon Sagais extremely hard to find. The same is true of other resale juggernauts likeEarthbound. ForNCAA Football 14, a title that sold over a million copies, the road to a high resale value is slightly more complicated.
A major factor is that fans likely didn’t expectthe debate over NIL andNCAA Footballgamesto last for almost an entire decade. When the franchise was forced to wrap up in mid-2013, college football fans almost certainly didn’t anticipate waiting until the announcement ofEA Sports College Footballthis year for a new game. So, when their enjoyment waned,NCAA Football 14was likely quickly relegated to storage or the trash with the expectation that a title would be forthcoming in a couple of years at most.
It’s also worth noting that, unlike other typical examples of high-resale games,NCAA Football 14is a sports title. Aside from the perspective of die-hard college football fans, the franchise was never seen as irreplaceable, especially witha newMaddenevery single year. After a brief mourning period for their beloved franchise, it was likely easy for most fans to find a game to fill the void, which meant even more copies ofNCAA Football 14gathering dust in storage or being sent to a landfill. The combined effect is that the supply ofNCAA Football 14copies probably plummeted in a fashion that few other games ever have.
Why Fans Still Want NCAA Football 14
With the release ofEA Sports College Footballdelayed until 2024,NCAA Football 14will remain the sole way to experience college football in-game for at least another year or more. For this reason alone, despite the fact that it was released almost a decade ago,NCAA Football 14still holds massive appeal for hardcore fans. Not only that, but through the dedicated effort of fan modding, theNCAA Football 14roster has been continually updated since its debut, meaning a current college football game—albeit with dated graphics—is available to those who can get their hands on a copy.
There’s also the question of its growing resale value. It remains to be seen howthe return ofEA Sports College Footballwill affectNCAA Football 14’s price. Logically, it should hurt the value considerably when it launches and cements itself as the premiere college football gaming experience, but its announcement should have already caused prices to plummet and yet has had virtually no impact. If that’s the case,NCAA Football 14may be able to continue its enduring legacy as a collector’s piece long after its gameplay value has departed.
NCAA Football 14is available on PS3 and Xbox 360.
