EA Sports PGA TOUR Impressions (Console)

[Freakywwe]

Quote: Originally Posted by jbd345

I have absolutely zero expectations Just hate how these games say they are a “live service” but just for 1 year. Gotta love the current state of gaming. Even 2k was the same thing. 1 year of content for a 2 year dev cycle.

I think companies like EA are very confused on how to do business anymore. They see games like COD and Fortnite making billions of dollars while, generally. not doing anything different over the years. They thought they could get away with this with sports games (Especially "niche" ones that don't necessarily require a yearly title, like golf and UFC), but the dynamics just aren't there.

Nobody new is buying EA PGA. That's just a fact. You might get the occasional sale here or there, but anybody who wanted this game already has it. Unfortunately for the consumer, once people stop buying the game, there's little incentive for the company producing it to continue updating or adding onto it. Epic and Activision already figured this out, your only going to entice so many people to buy a 30-60 dollar game.

Those games thrive off of two things:

1. the games are always evolving. You could certainly call both of the games mentioned "Live service" games because they get regular updates, with regular changes, and oftentimes even going away for a few months and coming back can feel like a completely new game. No EA game has ever been able to say this, sports or otherwise

2. They're F2P. I really think this is a massive deciding factor on whether a "live service" game can work. I think it's very hard to advertise to a consumer to pay up 60 dollars for a game, that may or may not be completed when you get it, and may or may not be completed after a year of owning it. It's a tough sell, IMO, especially in the landscape that is sports gaming, where everybody is at least always a little skeptical.

I mean, I can only imagine how many people gave up on this game after a couple weeks of owning it and never even seeing any of the updates that, frankly, should've been in the game to start with. It's not so much that games as a "live service" aren't a good idea, it's that EA has never executed the idea with any sort of plans in place other then "We'll figure it out down the line"

Or course, all of this is a wash when the majority of live service games are just a quick cop out to make some money before it gets abandoned, but competent developers have shown that it's more then possible if executed properly. Whether that can ever be done on a sports game is yet to be seen, EA UFC is heading the same way as PGA in about 6 months I reckon

[scagwi]

Great post Freaky! ^^


I don't understand why someone in golf doesn't try the F2P (or maybe $10-20 base game) + content and courses over time via subscription.


If priced right and packaged well, along with ongoing bug & feature fixes, it seems like a slow burn model that could work


The way they are doing it now --- half baked release at full price that just fades and dies -- really doesn't seem to work any better than just releasing a full price "complete" game, as was the case in yesteryear.


In fact the current method seems worse -- as so many people sour on the title before ever seeing a somewhat completed product.


Just comparing actual features from current vs older titles ... none of these hold a candle to things like TW14. More courses maybe I guess, but as an overall package the modern games just don't have it.


It's such a bummer. I wonder if we'll ever get a direction change again?

[MrArlingtonBeach]

Quote: Originally Posted by scagwi

Great post Freaky! ^^ I don't understand why someone in golf doesn't try the F2P (or maybe $10-20 base game) + content and courses over time via subscription. If priced right and packaged well, along with ongoing bug & feature fixes, it seems like a slow burn model that could work

I think that's kind of what the Golf+ is on Meta Quest, if I remember correctly...it's like $30 to get the game, but it only comes with 3 fictional courses. Then all the real courses are an extra cost per course.

Or, you can buy a subscription for like $80 a year and get access to everything.

[bigkev]

Well one of the community manager just wrote on the EA Answer HQ:

"While I don't have any updates to share currently, the team is still hard at working providing updates to PGA Tour. As we have more information become available, I will make sure it is provided here on Answers HQ as well. "

Let's see what they're coming with next week.

[scagwi]

Quote: Originally Posted by bigkev

Well one of the community manager just wrote on the EA Answer HQ: "While I don't have any updates to share currently, the team is still hard at working providing updates to PGA Tour. As we have more information become available, I will make sure it is provided here on Answers HQ as well. " Let's see what they're coming with next week.

Yeah….but would they ever post… “work has stopped mostly and the game is what it is”?

(Obviously not)

[bigkev]

They could have done what they have done for weeks, post absolutely nothing.

[MrArlingtonBeach]

The community manager is actually engaging on some posts now, too, asking for specific feedback from some of the commenters.

https://answers.ea.com/t5/General-Di...3595492/page/2

[scagwi]

From EA Forum:


I can't believe that anyone has to even ASK for this?
(below in italics)


This is the kind of omission that just blows me away ...

Like -- nail the gameplay and physics BEFORE building anything else about the game. EA has it all backwards.


The request is basically saying (correctly) ... "Hey EA .. can you make the golf game behave like real golf"?





As far as physics go, there is seldom any difference between whether you are in the rough, sand or fairway. There should be a premium for being in the fairway... hitting out of the rough should decrease the amount of spin you can apply to the as well as lost of distance/control. There also is a fair amount of drop off with the amount of spin on mid irons when hitting a ball into a green.