EA Sports PGA Tour Releases in Spring 2023

[VoltSwoosh]

EA Sports PGA Tour Releases in Spring 2023

Agreed on the TW 14/annual release side of things.

It wasn't the Night Club Challenge that killed EA's golf series for over 5 years. It was the amazingly poor word of mouth and reviews the game received when it shipped with only 8 real courses (TW14 had 20 on-disc out of the gate) and sold at the AAA title price of $60.

They stripped it down to the bare bones...no one had anything to do in the game when it released. For all its faults and silliness, Night Club was the only thing that had any substance to it, especially when compared to what career mode looked like in TW14 vs. what it looked like in Rory. We had to wait about a year to get the "full" game, which still had fewer real-world courses available in it than TW14's standard version.

Arcade stuff in these golf games is silly, dumb, and something we all kind of complain about. But it's there for a reason, even in the most recent golf games to come out. They don't add that stuff for everyone's health...it appeals to the casual player and broadens the player base. And the games that went more to the "real" side of things were not as successful, or at least weren't planned as big-time AAA games.

Even the very first TGC games, which simply had the course designer, local rounds, and societies - with no career mode or anything - sold very few copies (the first The Golf Club on PS4 sold 130K copies, per VGChartz...TGC2 sold about the same). They didn't have a broad appeal to casual players. They were a niche product, and marketed as such.

PGA 2K and the EA Sports games are not niche. They are mass-market. They need to appeal to all kinds of gamers, and that's why we get ads and posts for pumpkin heads, fish putters, and NBA clothing in a golf game.

I’m going to go ahead and confirm EA will not be marketing any pumpkin heads or fish putters at any point in marketing for PGA 23. I could be wrong.

2K should be ashamed for it and if you read comments below this stuff it’s overwhelmingly negative.


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[MrArlingtonBeach]

Re: EA Sports PGA Tour Releases in Spring 2023

I’m going to go ahead and confirm EA will not be marketing any pumpkin heads or fish putters at any point in marketing for PGA 23. I could be wrong.

2K should be ashamed for it and if you read comments below this stuff it’s overwhelmingly negative.


Sent from my iPhone 13 Pro Max

Oh, I know...I don't like the pumpkin head and such. I just know why they include it.

[bigkev]

Re: EA Sports PGA Tour Releases in Spring 2023

PGA 2K and the EA Sports games are not niche. They are mass-market. They need to appeal to all kinds of gamers, and that's why we get ads and posts for pumpkin heads, fish putters, and NBA clothing in a golf game.

Exactly that. The TW series was 2 games in 1, PGA and Arcade. And contrary for what I believed for years, the Arcade side is more popular than the PGA side.

[MrArlingtonBeach]

Re: EA Sports PGA Tour Releases in Spring 2023

I guess I don't know why there's any argument around this...arcade parts of mainstream golf games have been around for a long time. It's just the way it is.

Tiger Woods games had them, Rory had them, PGA 2K21 had them, and there's a fairly strong likelihood that EA Sports PGA Tour will have some kind of arcade aspect to it - even if it's just having mid-air spin and a power boost on the player's backswing like in the EA games of old.

Speaking of which, those power-ups are some of the most super cheesy arcadey stuff in any golf game, since it was purely gameplay-based and was most assuredly NOT real golf. But they were a staple of EA's series for many years. We all probably turned them off, but the features kept coming back, year after year.

You don't like the arcade aspects, and I don't like the arcade aspects. But they're a necessary evil for us hardcore fans to have to endure, so these games sell to the non-golf fan.

In a way, these parts of the game are key to help ensure the survival of the series. The more non-traditional golf fans that play the game, the better chances the series has to survive.

There's no way around it...mainstream golf titles need some kind of arcade/casual appeal.

Now, marketing it on the other hand...that's a different story, and we all seem to feel the same way when it came to the PGA 2K21 fish putter/pumpkin head posts. Those are embarrassing to us, yes. But again, you and I weren't the target audience there. But I do agree that EA won't go that route, and will have much better marketing of their game.

[VoltSwoosh]

Re: EA Sports PGA Tour Releases in Spring 2023

I guess I don't know why there's any argument around this...arcade parts of mainstream golf games have been around for a long time. It's just the way it is.

Tiger Woods games had them, Rory had them, PGA 2K21 had them, and there's a fairly strong likelihood that EA Sports PGA Tour will have some kind of arcade aspect to it - even if it's just having mid-air spin and a power boost on the player's backswing like in the EA games of old.

Speaking of which, those power-ups are some of the most super cheesy arcadey stuff in any golf game, since it was purely gameplay-based and was most assuredly NOT real golf. But they were a staple of EA's series for many years. We all probably turned them off, but the features kept coming back, year after year.

You don't like the arcade aspects, and I don't like the arcade aspects. But they're a necessary evil for us hardcore fans to have to endure, so these games sell to the non-golf fan.

In a way, these parts of the game are key to help ensure the survival of the series. The more non-traditional golf fans that play the game, the better chances the series has to survive.

There's no way around it...mainstream golf titles need some kind of arcade/casual appeal.

Now, marketing it on the other hand...that's a different story, and we all seem to feel the same way when it came to the PGA 2K21 fish putter/pumpkin head posts. Those are embarrassing to us, yes. But again, you and I weren't the target audience there. But I do agree that EA won't go that route, and will have much better marketing of their game.

Yes , but there’s a huge gap between mid air spin and say massive hats and race car golf balls.



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[MrArlingtonBeach]

Re: EA Sports PGA Tour Releases in Spring 2023

Yes , but there’s a huge gap between mid air spin and say massive hats and race car golf balls.



Sent from my iPhone 13 Pro Max

Honestly, the goofy hats are cosmetic. No impact on gameplay. Dress up your avatar however you want. Pointless and dumb, but harmless.

Racecar golf balls only happened in a separate arcade mode that was not part of career mode play or any "sim" area of the game. It only happened if you specifically were looking for an "arcade" style of game to play in the Night Club Challenge.

Mid-air spin, power boosts, putt previews, etc. could happen pretty much whenever the player wanted. You could win a bunch of PGA Tour events in career mode, shooting -60 in two rounds, using side, forward, and back spin on a ball with any club, from any lie. I remember friends playing TW games back in the day with these aids on, shooting rounds in the 40s with ease. Thankfully, Augusta made you play with these things off, and you could always turn them off on your own.

But these were gameplay aspects that were totally unrealistic, and could be used in the "realistic" parts of the game, like career mode. I think you could even use these features online and such, too (I never really play any golf game online in matchmaking or anything like that, so I don't know for sure).

Now, if someone wanted to play the offline game that way on their own, that was totally fine. Have at it, it's your prerogative, and you should have fun with the game however you want. But these gameplay arcade options had actual impact on how the game behaved. Silly hats are dumb and useless, but they don't have an affect on how the core game operates.

So, to me, the racecar ball and big hats are just diversions that don't impact how the game plays in terms of "reality". However, the power boots and mid-air spin could impact how the "sim" or "real" parts of the game could play, really making those things feel totally arcade-like if played with the boosts on.

And this isn't just an EA thing, either...PGA 2K21 has most of this silly arcade gameplay stuff, too...putt previews, no timing swing, a massive swing meter, aiming that sets itself up for you and takes lie into account so all you have to do is pull back and push forward, haptic feedback that vibrates to tell you exactly when to swing, etc. All these gameplay aspects are super arcadey. And all golf games have them.

Heck, even the official PGA 2K21 society MAKES you play with lots of the aids on...it's all designed for the "casual" player.

I guess the point in my long and incoherent rambling is that all these things work together to allow people to turn even the most "realistic" side of a golf game into a wildly "arcade" experience. Big hats and skull-patterned shorts can be worn on your player as you stand on the 1st tee at the Players Championship, hitting a 400 yard drive with 50 yards of forward-spin rollout, or something like that. These games are made to be, as bigkev said, arcade and sim, and can also be made into a combination of both for whatever appeals to the most people.

[scagwi]

Re: EA Sports PGA Tour Releases in Spring 2023

We shouldn't forget the golf "purists" who want all the games to have a mode of play that is so impossibly difficult (no aids, lots of guessing) that nobody will have any fun...

They call it a "simulation of golf" - lol

Nothing says "simulation of real golf" like having no information, no sense of wind, no way to really know about or get a true feel for breaks on the green .... while staring at a 2D tv screen and jockeying around with a little rubber thumb stick


(I'm all for having all the modes of play -- just cracks me up with how worked up folks get about their particular vision for a "simulation of golf")

[MrArlingtonBeach]

Re: EA Sports PGA Tour Releases in Spring 2023

We shouldn't forget the golf "purists" who want all the games to have a mode of play that is so impossibly difficult (no aids, lots of guessing) that nobody will have any fun...

They call it a "simulation of golf" - lol

Nothing says "simulation of real golf" like having no information, no sense of wind, no way to really know about or get a true feel for breaks on the green .... while staring at a 2D tv screen and jockeying around with a little rubber thumb stick


(I'm all for having all the modes of play -- just cracks me up with how worked up folks get about their particular vision for a "simulation of golf")

Haha, for sure. There's a "True Sim" society on TGCTours that uses very few aids and no green grids, no scout cam, no wind marker, etc. It's fairly popular, but sounds like torture to me, hahaha.

[scagwi]

Re: EA Sports PGA Tour Releases in Spring 2023

Haha, for sure. There's a "True Sim" society on TGCTours that uses very few aids and no green grids, no scout cam, no wind marker, etc. It's fairly popular, but sounds like torture to me, hahaha.

Me too (on the torture front)

Curious -- what aids are "ok" for that society?

[MrArlingtonBeach]

Re: EA Sports PGA Tour Releases in Spring 2023

Me too (on the torture front)

Curious -- what aids are "ok" for that society?

Hmmm, let me see here...most are self explanatory, I think, but I added some info to a few:

Swing Difficulty: Pro
Swing Timing: On
Distance Control Meter: Off
Putt Preview: 0
Course Yardage: On
Pro Vision: All Off
Scout Camera: Off (this means no zooming to the landing zone)
Lie Grid: Off (this grid shows you how much of a side/up/downhill lie you might have...it's off here)
Green Grid: Off
Pin Preference: Open (you can leave the pin in or take it out)
Aim Marker: Marker Only (just an arrow showing you where you're aiming, I believe)
Wind Display: Meter Only (I think this means just an arrow showing the direction, with a circle that fills up with white, giving you a general sense of wind speed)
Distance Display: Carry (I think this means you have to determine if it's uphill or downhill...no elevation info is provided)

One thing to mention...2K21 does have a yardage book. That is able to be used on the tour, but really just shows distances to points you might select, like bunkers, water, etc.

[OnlookerDelay]

Re: EA Sports PGA Tour Releases in Spring 2023

Haha, for sure. There's a "True Sim" society on TGCTours that uses very few aids and no green grids, no scout cam, no wind marker, etc. It's fairly popular, but sounds like torture to me, hahaha.

I played in that society for a while... you're right, it was torture. I rarely broke 80, and I'd say my average score was maybe 86. It just too often felt like I was playing blind. Information was not available to me that would have been available in real life. It was nice have a clean HUD and no grid lines, but I was never able to read a multi-break putt using the cameras. I can sort of understand the allure of it to skilled players, but it just felt like a contrived difficulty to me.

[C.J.S.]

Re: EA Sports PGA Tour Releases in Spring 2023

EA wants better sales so why not release on both current and next generation and even PC. They have the wrong people in charge because doing what they are, isn't the way to get the most money.

[lowpaiddonkey10]

Re: EA Sports PGA Tour Releases in Spring 2023

EA wants better sales so why not release on both current and next generation and even PC. They have the wrong people in charge because doing what they are, isn't the way to get the most money.

Since I don't own the PS5 yet just the 4 I would be happy with that but the graphic quality might suffer if they have to develop for the least common denominator. I am not a dev so I don't know for certain if this is the case.

[VoltSwoosh]

Re: EA Sports PGA Tour Releases in Spring 2023

EA wants better sales so why not release on both current and next generation and even PC. They have the wrong people in charge because doing what they are, isn't the way to get the most money.

No reason at all this game should ship in 2023 with any resources at all dedicated to a console that shipped 10 years earlier.


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[bigkev]

Re: EA Sports PGA Tour Releases in Spring 2023

Hopefully EA PGA is not going the way of EA NBA Live. They cancelled 20, 21 and 22 because they're working on it for the new consoles... and no announcement for 23 so far.