EA Canada shipped NHL 13 on September 11, 2012, and put a Philadelphia Flyer on the cover for the first time in more than a decade. Claude Giroux won that spot in a fan vote, not a marketing meeting. The game landed on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Nine days later, GamesIndustry.biz reported that NHL 13 had posted the best first week of sales in the franchise’s history.
That is the headline, and it is worth taking seriously. EA Sports has spent two decades selling annual hockey, and the 22nd installment is the one that finally moved the most copies out of the gate. The reasons are not mysterious.
Trailer, via EA SPORTS MADDEN NFL.
Claude Giroux and the 25 Million Votes
EA opened the cover decision to anyone with an internet connection. The bracket started March 29, 2012, with 60 NHL players in single-elimination matchups, two per vote. It closed June 4. More than 25 million votes came in worldwide.
On June 20, at the 2012 NHL Awards in Las Vegas, Giroux was named the winner over Pekka Rinne. The Philadelphia forward became the first Flyer on an EA Sports NHL cover since Eric Lindros in NHL 99. He is also the first Flyer on any hockey video game cover since Jeremy Roenick on ESPN NHL Hockey in 2003. With that, Philadelphia holds more cover athletes than any other team.
The vote is the smartest thing EA did with NHL 13. A bracket gives fans a reason to return to a page for weeks, and 25 million votes is not a number you get from a passive poll. It also handed the game a genuine story heading into the summer, one that had nothing to do with a new skating engine or a roster update.
What Shipped on September 11
The release schedule was tight and conventional for the era. The demo arrived first, then the full game, then the collector’s edition alongside it.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| March 29, 2012 | Cover vote opens with 60 players |
| June 4, 2012 | Cover vote closes |
| June 5–7, 2012 | E3 2012 |
| June 20, 2012 | Giroux named cover winner at NHL Awards, Las Vegas |
| August 21–22, 2012 | Demo hits Xbox Live Marketplace and PlayStation Store |
| September 11, 2012 | NHL 13 releases in North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand |
| September 20, 2012 | GamesIndustry.biz reports best first week sales in franchise history |
The demo window is worth noting. EA put it on both storefronts across two days in late August, three weeks before launch. That is a short runway, and it worked.
Hayley Wickenheiser and Angela Ruggiero Break the Roster
Here is the change that matters most in NHL 13, and it has nothing to do with sales.
For the first time in the series, two playable female characters are in the game: Hayley Wickenheiser and Angela Ruggiero. In NHL 12, a user could create a female character, but no real-life women were on the roster. NHL 13 puts two of the most decorated players in the sport’s history into the game as themselves.
That is a small line in a feature list and a large line in the history of the franchise. Wickenheiser and Ruggiero are not created players. They are named, real athletes in a licensed sports sim, and the gap between a character-building tool and a roster spot for a real athlete is the whole point. One is a feature. The other is recognition.
Gary Thorne and Bill Clement Return to the Booth
The commentary team carries over from NHL 12. Gary Thorne handles play-by-play and Bill Clement handles color, the same pairing as the previous year.
Continuity here is a feature, not a failure of imagination. Thorne and Clement are the voices a generation of American hockey fans grew up with, and their return keeps NHL 13 sounding like the sport rather than like a generic sports game. EA did not fix what was not broken.
The Stanley Cup Collector’s Edition
EA shipped an exclusive “Stanley Cup Collector’s Edition” alongside the standard game. It bundles several things:
- Five random Hockey Ultimate Team player packs from the two 2012 Stanley Cup Final teams
- A Gold Jumbo HUT pack that includes legend Wayne Gretzky
- A boost pack featuring the CCM RBZ stick
The Gretzky card is the hook. A legend pull in a HUT pack is exactly the kind of thing that keeps a mode’s economy moving, and packaging it with the collector’s edition gives the high-priced tier a reason to exist beyond a box.
The Modes and the View
NHL 13 is a sports simulator, built for single player and multiplayer, played from a bird’s-eye or isometric perspective. It was developed by EA Canada and published by EA Sports. It is the 22nd installment of the NHL series. It appeared at E3 2012, which ran June 5–7.
None of that is surprising. What is surprising, in hindsight, is how much of the game’s identity in 2012 came from things outside the rink. The cover vote, the collector’s edition, the demo timing, the first-week sales record. The on-ice product is the foundation, but the story of NHL 13 is a story about how EA sold it.
What the 8.4 Actually Means
The published critical aggregate for NHL 13 sits at 8.4 out of 10 across six outlets.
That is a strong score for an annual sports title, and it is the right one. NHL 13 does not reinvent the series. It refines it, adds two real women to the roster, keeps its best commentary team, and executes a cover campaign that got 25 million people to care about a bracket in the offseason.
The Wickenheiser and Ruggiero addition is the part that will look more important with every passing year. In 2012 it read as a bullet point. In retrospect it is the moment the series acknowledged who actually plays and watches hockey. EA did it without fanfare, as one item among many.
The sales record is real but it is also the least interesting fact here. First-week numbers measure marketing reach and install base as much as quality. NHL 13 had a popular cover athlete, a well-run vote, and a demo that hit both consoles three weeks out. Of course it sold. The number tells you EA can run a campaign. It does not tell you the game is good.
The 8.4 tells you the game is good. Six outlets landing on that figure is a consensus, and the consensus is correct. NHL 13 is a confident, complete hockey sim with a genuine historical footnote in its roster and a cover story that worked exactly as designed.
The things worth watching going forward are not the sales. They are whether EA keeps Wickenheiser and Ruggiero in the game, whether the cover vote becomes a permanent fixture or a one-off stunt, and whether the collector’s edition model of bundling a legend card with a premium tier becomes standard. Two of those three are about how the series treats the people who play it. One is about how it treats their wallets.
NHL 13 earned its first-week record, and it put two real women on the roster as themselves. That is the part that lasts.
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