The Tiger Woods PGA Tour series will end its 16-year run in 2013 as EA Sports announced it has parted ways with the star golfer. EA Sports will continue a golf simulation under PGA Tour branding on next generation consoles, the publisher said today.
Daryl Holt, the vice president and general manager for golf for EA Sports, gave the news alongside a comparison of Hole No. 17 of TPC Sawgrass in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14, and in the work-in-progress next generation version. You may see that below.
“EA Sports and Tiger Woods have also made a mutual decision to end our partnership, which includes Tiger’s named PGA Tour golf game,” Holt said. “We’ve always been big fans of Tiger and we wish him continued success in all his future endeavours.
“Moving forward, we will continue to work with the PGA Tour exclusively to create groundbreaking golfing titles and our partnership remains strong.”
Holt did not say when this new PGA Tour-licensed game would release; the Tiger Woods PGA Tour series had released in late March each of the past three years. No golf game has been among the upcoming titles in that window in guidance Electronic Arts provides to investors.
In the spring, Kotaku reported that the Tiger Woods PGA Tour series was at minimum taking off 2014 to focus on delivering for the next generation of consoles. Originally the plan was to outsource current-generation Tiger Woods PGA Tour to another studio, but that plan was scuttled after former CEO John Riccitiello stepped down.
Tiger Woods had been the titular star of this series in all of its forms — from an online version for PCs, to a mobile adaptation, to 16 different releases on PC and home consoles going back to 1999. His name had, in its own way, become synonymous with playing video game golf, similar to another longtime EA Sports partner, John Madden.
The first Tiger Woods PGA Tour game released in 1998 for PC and the first PlayStation. Before that, EA Sports had published a series of games under the PGA Tour brand.
First Next-Gen Golf Details Revealed [EA Sports]
Comments
4 responses to “Tiger Woods And EA Sports Part Ways, Ending 16-Year Run Together”
Not really surprising, even though they stuck with Tiger through the sex scandal, EA slowly started to move away from Tiger as the primary focus.
Tiger 11 – Tiger shares the cover for the first time ever, to coincide with the Presedent’s Cup.
Tiger 12 – Subtitled as “The Masters”, although the subtitle was larger than the name title, also the first video game to have Augusta, EA were right to focus on Augusta.
Tiger 13 – Master’s Collector’s Edition, focusing on the Green Jacket, standard version Tiger is sharing the cover again.
Tiger 14 – Master’s Historic Edition, focusing on Augusta in 1934 vs the current champion at the time Bubba Watson, standard version Tiger is sharing the cover again.
Even though he is still a huge draw for crowds, has won tournaments (although not a major) I feel as though the Augusta license is FAR more valuable to EA and golf than just arguably the 2nd greatest golfer (so far) to have played the game. Rebrand the game “The Masters : PGA Tour xxxx” and it will keep on shifting units.
Certainly expect Adam Scott to grace the cover for the 2015 version which should release around April next year!
I seriously doubt it was a “mutual decision”, though – I can’t imagine Tiger just saying “I’m sick of getting all that money every year for doing pretty much nothing”.
Maybe he’s run out of places to store it. Probably keeps having to change banks ‘cos they keep getting filled up (to paraphrase Terry Pratchett).
“We’ll license your name for the next five years but we want to pay half as much as we used to because you’re not as good a marketing opportunity any more”
“I want the same amount of money”
“No”
“Okay then”
Mutual decision.
16 years?! C’MON!
Welp time to go tell kids to get off my lawn.