Pre-Ordering

It makes no sense to pay full price for a video game at launch. I never do it, because I am a responsible adult and know discounts are just weeks away. I understand the urge with some games, wanting to be in the first wave of a new experience. But for a sports game? Annually released, iteratively produced, changes invisible to the naked eye? That’s pure insanity.

Naturally, I’ve pre-ordered the latest EAFC 27 football game. The Ultimate Edition, no less, 130 dollars. I barely understand it myself.

It might be defensible if I had skipped the previous game, but I’ve been playing EAFC 26 nonstop since receiving it free from PlayStation in May. The double pull of that promotion and the summer’s World Cup proved too hard to resist, especially the online Ultimate Team mode. Hardly the first time either, I’ve lost myself in this franchise a number of times over the past decade. The one caveat is that I never bought it at launch, only succumbing when the game was either on sale or free altogether. I consider myself a principled man.

But even after all these months of hyperfocus, with my team maxed out and the grind completed, I keep playing. Despite my attempts to find a new game, flitting from Helldivers 2 to Spider-Man and even a minor affair with EA-adjacent NHL 26, I somehow come back to the comfort of my football club. I jump from mode to mode, complete challenges, engage in the player slot machine. To want the next edition makes sense, right?

Only, how does it make sense? Why am I buying a mirror copy of a game I already own? What am I even paying for? Twelve more months, match after match on repeat, until the next edition arrives and the cycle restarts?

This is the looming shadow behind every menu click. EA Sports and their behavioral scientists know exactly how to keep me hooked on gameplay loops and randomized rewards. Store packs are always available, if I want to pay money to save time. In my pocket is a companion app to keep me “engaged” even away from my PlayStation, exploiting my fear of missing out. Social engineering is embedded in every screen, and it’s almost enough to put me off the whole thing entirely.

Except, it’s football. An entire universe built around the simplest of sports, accessible and understandable to everyone, now layered with a complexity that exceeds understanding. It starts with the ball and the nets and the pitch, then layers on the 11 players per side and two managers on the sidelines with their tactics, overseen by the entire executive apparatus that operates above it all, repeated infinitely by semi-identical organizations in every major city everywhere in the world, a fractal of football.

It’s within this structure that EAFC operates, letting you step into any level of the sport, be it as a player, the whole team, the manager or the director of football. The point of view is a choice, a different mode for any mood. Play a match to chill or sweat it out. Adjust tactics after a loss or because of an idea in the shower. Dive into the raw numbers, build a proper squad, lose yourself in the grind. Buy, sell, trade.

EAFC takes its content from the ongoing football season, the real world affecting the players and teams inside the game. If Erling Haaland scores a hat-trick on the weekend, he gets a special card a couple days later with a dynamic graphic and elevated stats. The same happens for Kylian Mbappe in La Liga or Harry Kane in the Bundesliga, because this isn’t a single league like the NBA or the NFL, but a vast interwoven multitude spanning the entire globe.

Play long enough, run enough games, and EAFC becomes dependable, a comforting presence. There’s an internal rhythm, with a predictable schedule – Team of the Week on Wednesdays, new themed cards every Friday, new season pass every month – and the game becomes part of the ritual, for better or worse.

So even after all the deliberation, I decide on the 130 dollar Ultimate Edition and its 7-day early access bonus feature. I know the choice isn’t entirely my own, that the algorithms have conspired to inform my decision. I also understand the hidden cost of my time and attention, and yet I willfully pay full price.

This is the grey area familiar to any modern sports fan. Why attempt to find a proper resolution, when it would only leave a football-shaped hole in my life?