Press Start for Heritage: Representing University Sports Rivalries in EA Sports College Football 25
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33063/ijrp.vi19.1250Abstract
Abstract: Does university heritage appeal to gamers? The commercial success of EA Sports College Football 25 suggests it does. After an 11-year hiatus, NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) college football returned to video game consoles and became the best-selling sports video game in the United States. This article illustrates how universities can be compelling places for worldbuilding in games, by arguing that university heritage is both inherently conflictual and deployable as a tool for conflict. The video game College Football 25 portrays real-world contemporary university heritage through its representation of sports and rivalries with other schools. College Football 25’s success and popularity lie in the framing of selective authenticity, with near-hyperrealistic portrayal of game-day pageantry that fosters a sense of place and celebrates a positive representation of heritage from the 134 American universities included. This conflict-driven heritage shapes university place identity and aligns with common game design principles in which conflict resolution is central to play. The implementation of role-play mechanics in College
Football 25 invites fans, (former) students, and gamers, to enact and experience university sports heritage in different interactive ways from the perspectives of athletes and coaches. By applying a close reading analysis to College Football 25 and focusing on its conflict design choices, we argue that interactive digital media, especially with elements of role-play, can effectively preserve and promote conflict heritage, with implied allusions for transformative play to affect players in their out-of-game neo-tribal expressions relating to these universities.
Keywords: conflict, heritage, video games, role-play, universities
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