Electronic Arts Sticking With Tiger Woods For Video Game Franchise
Posted on December 12, 2009
Electronic Arts completely branded its PGA Tour video game series with Tiger Woods. For years Tiger Woods has appeared on the cover of EA Sports' annual PGA Tour video games. You can see some of these game covers above. Tiger Woods' name is even part of the game's title. Tiger Woods' affairs and decision to leave golf indefinitely could cost Electronic Arts a lot of money if it impacts sales of the golf video game.
Venture Beat reports that Electronic Arts plans to stick with Tiger Woods despite the golf star's actions. Venture Beat says Woods' star power is hard to beat in golf, but that EA Sports will find another cover star if sales of the Tiger Woods games slow because of his tawdry scandal.
EA Sports issued a statement saying, "We respect that this is a very difficult, and private, situation for Tiger and his family. At this time, the strategy for our Tiger Woods PGA TOUR business remains unchanged."
Electronic Arts doesn't have a lot of choice. They named the game after Tiger and rebranding it now would be very expensive. Electronic Arts' best option is to wait and see what happens with Tiger Woods. Electronic Arts will be hoping that Tiger Woods can repair his image and eventually return to the game of golf. Everyone expects that Tiger will play again. He is nowhere near retirement age.
You can catch some glimpses of Tiger in the PGA Tour 14 launch trailer.