Today has been one of those days in which I had a very difficult time wrapping my head around several things. The New York Giants, who are currently 2-6 in the NFC east are only two games back from being in first place in their division, Selena Gomez introduced a song called, “Slow Down” and is everything but slow and finally, EA Sports and Tiger Woods ended their 16 year relationship.
This evening, EA Sports published this statement on their website. While it is not exactly clear why they decided to mutually end their partnership, it seems like EA Sports will be taking a big risk in not having Golf’s biggest superstar on the cover. For years, Tiger Woods was not only the face of the EA Sports golf game, but professional golf in general all over the world. And although he has had several setbacks in the past couple years, he was able to push through the rubble and remain as golf’s leading man on and off course. Each year, this game franchise has broken it’s own sales records time and time again. But maybe, Tiger was really not the only reason why the game has continuously done well year after year. And I think that is why EA Sports is willing to make the risk.
All Tiger has done was lend his face and name for the game, however, it’s the people behind the game that make gamers like me come back for more. Tiger wasn’t the one designing the courses or offering new online challenges year after year, it was the engineers from EA Sports. I feel that what Tiger really did for this franchise was promote the game of golf. I believe that his legacy increased the popularity for the game of golf and the PGA. But if you look through the past five years, the covers for the new Tiger Woods games have somewhat changed. 2010 was the last year that Tiger was solely on the cover. In 2011, he was featured with favorite Nike buddy, Rory McIlroy. In 2012, he wasn’t on the cover at all as they tried to promote Augusta National finally being allowed to be played in a video game. Last year, Rickie Fowler joined Tiger on the cover. And this year, depending on which version you bought, you could of have Tiger and Arnold Palmer on the cover or Bobby Jones and Bubba Watson. And for European gamers, you also had the option of Tiger, Rory and Seve Ballesteros on the cover. So maybe all along they were trying to eventually fade him out of the game?
Losing Tiger on the cover will be the end of an era, but it is up to EA Sports to keep the gamers coming back for more. They released one screen shot for what they are calling, Next Gen Golf. The graphics look insane, virtually life like; I thought it was a screen grab from television.
And although the graphics might look insane, it’s what EA Sports is willing to offer in the game to make the consumers happy. Initially they were only able to offer 10 to 12 courses for people to play on, but as they years progressed, more and more courses have become available. However, some courses that were on the original games are now only available if you download them off XBOX Live which costs money. It seems like it’s becoming more and more complicated. If you venture onto the gaming forums, you will find a lot of very unhappy gamers who are tired of games becoming more and more expensive, for what seems just like the bare minimum. People are tired of throwing money around for downloadable content. How much do we really have to spend to make ourselves happy?
The 2015 season in the “gaming” world will be a very interesting one. Both PlayStation and Xbox are releasing new consoles for consumers. It will be fun to watch how game developers try to keep up with these new consoles. Based on the preview from EA Sports, it seems like they have no problem working with the new systems. However, EA Sports took a huge loss this year already, when the NCAA backed out of all college football games after the 2014 season. EA Sports will now be looking for Madden and “TBA Golf Game” to carry the workload now.
Do you think EA Sports made a smart move? What do you think the real reason was for the split! Let us know!
