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| Tiger Woods Golf Forum - Although Worlds Appart The Result Might Be? - Page 1 |
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jurgie |
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United States of America |
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| Joined: 11/27/2005 |
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B-Day: 1/12/1948 (77) |
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Posts: 192 |
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| Posted: Saturday, April 19, 2008 at
2:55:49 PM |
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| The result might be sadly all too familiar. There have really only been two serious efforts in the last ten years or so to introduce the public to a simulation of the Royal & Ancient game of golf. Both the Links and the TW platforms managed to find argueably two of the greatest names in golf to have a marketing relationship with. Access Software was the initial company that started this whole craze and continued to do so until Microsoft aquired the rights to market the game in 2001. Included in the game was a course architectual designing program known as the APCD or Arnold Palmer Course Designer. This designer program remained virtually unaltered until 2002 when Microsoft introduced the last platform in this series, Links 2003. Even by todays standards, the APCD even though it only has 2D rendering capability is still a very sophisticated designing program. Both Access and Microsoft continued the practice of making add-on courses and expansion packs available for all the Links platforms. On the surface, this seemed like a great marketing ploy. So what happened? Why did this popular platform virtually die, and more importantly, why the hesitancy to revive it and upgrade it to a 3D rendered Patform? This is the point were some all too familiar paralellisms exist between the Links and the TW series. First of all, why as a marketer would you make available a CA program that was probably the same or at least close to the one the designers were using to create the stock courses that appear in the actual game? This is really the key question because the APCD is the bullet that killed the gold egg laying goose. In my opinion, there were two reasons. The first and obvious one was Arnold Palmer himself. We all know that this man portrays integrity to its fullest extent. I am sure he insisted that if his name was to be associated with this platform that it would be done so in the highest standard possible. Since the architectual program also bears his name you would have to assume that this standard also applied to the APCD. In other words, if you are going to give the public the tools to create their own designs, these tools would be state of the art and nothing less. Marketing suicide? I dont think it was perceived as being that initially, just a great market strategy to boost sales. I dont think any of these guys invisioned that a handfull of very creative guys mastered the APCD program technique and were soon turning out much superior looking custom courses than the stock ones within the game as well as the add-ons available for purchase. Infact, these custom designers like Mike Jones, became so good that they were selling their own designs at the APCD website. Because of the time consuming complexity of the APCD none of the game designers really thought that anyone would be able to rival their stock designs, because afterall they did this for a living. Needless to say it did not take long for the Linksters to totally ignore any stock courses that were introduced, and the prime focus became custom designs. Does this sound vaguely familiar to any of you TW fans? The continued practice of allowing custom courses to be introduced into the TW Platform will in my opinion lead to the demise of any future PC versions of TW. A couple of changes have to occur in order to keep the PC version alive and well. This will probably involve investing a considerable greater amount of money by the designers. The question is is it in their best interest to take such a marketing gamble? In the last couple of years there has been an obvious attempt to disrupt the practice of any custom applications in relation to the game. from a game manufacturers point of view, if you are going to eliminate any use of custom designs, you must hike up the realism within the game and create stock courses that will blow the consumers socks off. It is the only way to sustain PC maketability. Superior graphics is key, and the technology exists. The trick is creating a
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TruBluMich |
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United States of America |
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| Joined: 9/11/2001 |
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B-Day: 9/11/1978 (47) |
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Posts: 1,236 |
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| Posted: Saturday, April 19, 2008 at
3:35:43 PM |
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I cant say I agree 100% with your statement, but about 75% is absolutley true IMHO.
Sports games hold a different market then other games, they come out every year, this works great for games with Rosters and Stadiums. But Golf has neither of those, the players dont change very often and a course may get small subtle changes once in a while. Ive been playing Pebble on this game since 99 and other then the graphics and few trees moved the course plays exactly like it did in 99.
My personal believe is that EA Should go with a Bi-Yearly approach to the game and release course expanison packs. These expansion packs include new
Where I disagree the CA can either bring an end to the game or it can help make the game grow, its completley on how its marketed. |
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