Editor’s Note: The following column is a satire piece.

They are coming back! Oh, sweet baby Jesus, they are coming back. We are finally going to see the return of college sports video games. I can finally play as Iowa State in multiple virtual sports games because I suck at them in real life and can’t get enough of college sports. Except now, they will actually have names and we don’t all have to pretend that quarterback #15 is just a randomly generated player that looks exactly like your team’s quarterback with a buzz cut. 

We have all had to wallow in the suffering of eight long years without an NCAA football game. Of course, we’ve had Madden, NBA2k, EA’s NHL and MLB the Show, but it’s just not the same. Sure, if you live in those cities with a strong pro fan base, it might ease the pain, but if you live in a state with no pro team, you live for college sports. If we can’t hate you for the athletes that are paid to represent your city, we sure as hell are going to hate you for your choice of higher learning — and then pit young people against each other and risk personal health and safety to justify it. 

But now, the NCAA has finally taken the steps needed to bring these great virtual extensions of this intense competitive spirit that we all love. Student athletes are now permitted to profit off of their images, name and likeness. Of course, the school still can’t directly pay athletes, but they can now seek endorsements. So now, more popular athletes will be able to have their own shoe deals and wear their own unreasonably expensive shoes instead of the unreasonably expensive shoes the school buys for them — shoes they get to keep, along with the rest of their gear. 

Since EA can now pay athletic departments and athletes separately, they have finally felt comfortable saying they have had college sports games on the burner for years. The president of EA said, “Have you seen some of our other games recently? Of course we have been secretly working on this project. We have updated rosters and everything already. We were just waiting for this to happen so we could get some much-needed capital back from hopeless fans.”  

Along with the statement, the company released a slate of new upcoming game projects, including NCAA Basketball, NCAA Baseball, NCAA Hockey, NCAA Track and Field, NCAA Wrestling, NCAA Gymnastics and NCAA Lacrosse, as well as a number of DLC packs for the multi-sport game NCAA Etc. The company’s CFO also released a statement stating, “We think it is important that many people be able to make money off of these students. It just so happens that they get the added benefit of doing it themselves now.”