Is EA Sports PGA Tour Losing Its Sim?

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Submitted on: 07/01/2014 by Ben Vollmer

There are a lot of mixed emotions when you see one of your favorite sports titles get invaded by a gigantic battleship right in the middle of a round of golf.

During EA's brief showcase of their Tiger Woods-less PGA Tour during E3, they threw a fairly shocking surprise at us in the last few seconds. If you haven't seen the video, EA shows off a bevy of the world's most famous golf courses only to follow it with the Battlefield 4 map Paracel Storm, in the form of a golf course. So the question definitely has to be asked: Should we worry that PGA Tour is straying from simulation golf? Something that only recently EA was able to truly capture? I'm not so sure.

It was clear when EA announced that their partnership with Tiger Woods was being dropped that there were big changes in store for a franchise that probably needed them. According to VGCharts, the Tiger Woods series sold about a tenth in 2013 of what it did a decade before that. So even though, from a simulation perspective, the series certainly improved, sales did not.

Again, I'm not sure that means that PGA Tour won't strive to be the best possible simulation that it can be -- some wacky golf courses aside. In all honesty, for a golf video game to be successful in the current climate of video game sales, it probably needs to strike a perfect balance of simulation and fantasy. How EA will try and manage that remains to be seen, but at the very least, I think it's important to hold out for more information before jumping to any kind of conclusion. Especially when the real courses that we did see looked absolutely gorgeous.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the expanded power of the PS4 and Xbox One should allow EA to make the game more customizable than ever. While it's almost certain that they'll be trying to reach an expanded audience for PGA Tour, and they should, there will probably be quite a bit there to keep their more hardcore fans happy as well. If the images shown in the E3 trailer are anything close to the reality of what we'll get when the game comes out, I can't imagine that they would ignore other aspects of simulation like improved swing animations, better ball physics, enhanced short game, and a lengthy career mode.

Ultimately, I don't think that the trailer gives much of anything to worry about. If EA's other games like UFC, Madden, and NBA Live are any indication of what they're trying to do with their sports games, I'd like to think that PGA Tour will developed to recreate the game of golf in as accurate a way as possible. Outlandish courses like Paracel Storm should intrigue a wider audience into giving the game a shot, and simulation golf might be what keeps them there.

Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Videos

Member Comments

# 21 DirtyJerz32 @ 07/02/14 08:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cusefan74


	Since when was any of their Golf games a sim. What kind of sim lets you power up your shots and stuff like that?

Exactly! Guys were shooting in the 50/60's on the the hardest setting. Nothing about their game has technically been sim.

With that said, I won't be purchasing it. With the other golf game soon to hit shelves, I only need one golf game in my life.

# 22 tHurley2010 @ 07/02/14 10:27 PM

I don't think EA is going to go away from the simulation golf they have attempted to provide with past iterations of golf games. It's important to remember that the enhanced capabilities of the PS4 and XBOne will allow the developers more room to incorporate more sim features. Nobody should be worried about that.

From an EA perspective though, you have to ask what about the game led to a decrease in sales to such an extreme such that sales in 2003 were 1/10th of what they were in 2013. Could it have been that Tiger Woods was significantly more popular in '03 than '13? Could it be that the series just grew stale? Could it be that a purely sim golf game doesn't appeal to the amount of audience EA wants to reach?

# 23 hawley088 @ 07/04/14 04:12 PM

dont see what the big deal is...there have always been fantasy courses

# 24 Matt10 @ 07/04/14 05:18 PM

Might be another year of TW08 on the PC

# 25 Triggerfish @ 07/04/14 09:11 PM

for me at least Golf Club is a breath of fresh air!! Have it on the PC and awaiting the PS4. EA be gone.. :-) Wish they would put it on Vita also!

# 26 P4ntherBe4r @ 07/05/14 02:16 PM

As a man who loves sports games, but has never played PGA Tour, or any golf game out there, I do play golf, which might contribute to my sudden Interest in this game. I personally think it is a good idea to include these fantasy maps. When I first saw the trailer; I said "hmm, another golf game." When I saw that they branched out and included the fantasy maps, I thought it was actually something UNIQUE in a golf game, if on the title screen you hit "Play" Then "User Created" or "Fantasy Maps" Which would not be playable in a career mode, would not take away from the actual golf sim, and just be a cool addition, and if you dont like it, dont play it. but for people like me, its something cool, and would make me give this game a try.

# 27 supermanemblem @ 07/05/14 11:12 PM

To be perfectly honest, there are no games out there that are pure sim that allows for user controls, and that goes for NBA2K, The Show, Madden, Fifa, NHL, UFC, etc. With that said, EA has done a decent job making their golf game playable for folks who want a true sim experience. Video games aren't real life, and none of us have the skill set to compete on a true sim level, otherwise we'd be out there with the pros getting paid to endorse EA's games. All we can hope for as gamers is for the game to be a good representation of the sport we love. My two biggest beefs with the Tiger franchise were the ball physics and swing animations. The ball flights were not natural (in-flight and putting) and the swing was not 1:1.

# 28 Raider510 @ 07/06/14 02:47 AM

Here's a hint for EA on how to increase sales (maybe):

Stop nickel-and-diming your customers. I shouldn't have to pay an extra $3 or $4 every time I want to play a course in the Career mode that hasn't been downloaded. The game is $60 when new, the least you jerks could do is make all of the courses available! I for one will never buy another EA golf game until they fix it.

# 29 KYExtemper @ 07/08/14 03:35 PM

I'm not offended by the trailer, but I will probably not purchase PGA Tour 15 unless it has more customization in it. Why can't we set up the playoffs like we want to? Why can't we create our own custom TOUR schedule in single player mode? It'd be cool if they could get some of the European Tour stops in the game as well.

Does anyone here still play PGA Championship Golf 1999 or 2000 from Sierra Sports? Those games were awesome with custom courses you could download and you could design your own tours, set up the tournaments for those tours, etc. It was loads of fun and I feel like golf games have regressed since that point.

# 30 pietasterp @ 07/08/14 03:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KYExtemper


	Does anyone here still play PGA Championship Golf 1999 or 2000 from Sierra Sports? Those games were awesome with custom courses you could download and you could design your own tours, set up the tournaments for those tours, etc. It was loads of fun and I feel like golf games have regressed since that point.

Yes, and I agree 100%. I would also add the Jack Nicklaus series on PC, as well as the Links series. The peak of video golf for sure. It's actually hard to believe that while almost every other genre of game has gotten better by leaps and bounds (look at 14-year-old basketball or football games, for example), golf has actually gone backwards by a significant amount. Shows you what complacency and lack of competition for 15 years will do for you...

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