Tiger Woods Scandal Blamed for Declining Game Sales


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EA notes a 68% year-over-year drop in sales of PGA Tour series.

By Steve Watts, 07/19/2010

The Tiger Woods sex scandal may finally be taking its toll on the EA's sports franchise that shares his name. GamesIndustry.biz reports that Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 suffered a 68% drop in U.S. sales compared to PGA Tour 10. The Wii version alone declined 86%, which Doug Creutz of Cowan & Company called "particularly catastrophic" in a note to investors.

"Although this is probably due in part to the fact that last year's version shipped bundled with Nintendo's new MotionPlus controller," he wrote, "we are concerned that Woods' scandal woes may have permanently damaged the sales potential of what we believe to be EA's third most important sports franchise, behind Madden and FIFA."

EA Sports president Peter Moore dismissed the idea that sales were impacted earlier this year, but that was before the release of PGA Tour 11. Now that their newest game is seeing flagging sales, the company must be wondering if the scandal that dominated headlines has something to do with it. So far the company has been approaching the subject cautiously, supporting Woods while simultaneously gauging fallout. Even impacted by scandal, though, Woods is the biggest name in professional golf, so we doubt this will change EA's official position on using him as the face of the PGA Tour series.

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3180446

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It couldn't possibly be the fact that you have to pay to play it online if you buy it used..

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO..

:rolleyes:

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^ So we're expecting low sales for Fifa and NFL this year then? :p

Also, you can't blame the 2nd hand market, the game hasn't been out for long enough. Even if there was a connection there it's money EA would never see anyway.

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I can blame second hand market as one of many reasons why i will never buy any EA sports game again, or any game that follows suit. Could care less about his scandal. I dont buy sports games for the guy on the front of the box. I buy them to play the sport at hand.

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I don't think it has anything to do with his extra-marital activities.

I've always classed myself as a typical gamer and I have bought 5 of the Tiger Woods games (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 & 2010). Have I bought 2011? No. Why? I bought Crackdown 2 instead.

Having played all the other TW games over the years, there are only very slight differences year on year. What I find frustrating is that you always start with a player that can't hit the ball far or accurately, so you have to improve his skills until you get the player that you want in order to play the game better. This takes a while to do, and as I've gone it 5 times before, I'm a little loathed to go through it all again.

My point is, for regular followers of the game, it's just too samey. For everyone else there are other games out there that are more appealing.

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^ the idea behind that is obviously not everyone is tired of it the same year, so there will be a balance of numbers each year that buy it.

i.e with your example someone who bought 2000, 01, 02, 03, 04 & 05 stopped, you effectively "took over" from them, and maybe now they'll return to buying them for 2010, 11, 12, 13 etc etc

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^ the idea behind that is obviously not everyone is tired of it the same year, so there will be a balance of numbers each year that buy it.

i.e with your example someone who bought 2000, 01, 02, 03, 04 & 05 stopped, you effectively "took over" from them, and maybe now they'll return to buying them for 2010, 11, 12, 13 etc etc

i gave up on the whole golf thing after PGA tour 96 on the Playstation1.

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I think this drop has to do with a number of different reasons. Firstly, you have the obvious reason of people not wanting to buy it every year. Then there's also the online pass thing which might have annoyed people. Also, i think i read it somewhere that last year's game was really successful compared to previous years which may have skewed the figures for this year and making it appear worse than it is.

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Yeah last year's version sold really well, but it never even made the top 10 chart this year. Which I'm pretty sure it always does every other year.

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Tiger woods is a big A hole, no seriously. He has a house in one of the cities where I live and all he has done is harass local business owners with lawsuits. I wont go into details here why but its a pity.

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Nah...I don't think it has anything to do with Tiger's recent scandal. It's probably just that the series is getting long in the tooth and the changes are minimal. The economy as well is a factor.

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