The Tiger Woods Scandal Affects Sales

The story that dominated the end of 2009 carried into 2010 with the discussion around whether Tiger Woods should stay on as the face of EA Sports’ golf franchise. The company stood by him and took a huge hit for doing so. Tiger Woods 11 sales were down 68% from Tiger 10. As predicted the biggest hit would be to the Wii version which has been the wow gold strongest version for the company this generation. The family-oriented audience there turned away from Tiger 11 which resulted in a drop of an almost unfathomable 86%.

EA Sports is sticking with Tiger Woods but that relationship may be coming to a close sooner rather than later. Recent comments suggest he will need to perform better on the golf course and start winning tournaments in order to stay relevant enough to carry the franchise.
“Online Pass” Introduced and Push for Pre-Orders

EA Sports was the first to lay out the concept of the “Online Pass”. Codes would be inserted in new copies of games that buy wow gold provide access to online functionality. Once a code is used though they are no good, meaning used copies or rentals would require a payment of $10 to get online (though they also offer a free trial period). This started with Tiger Woods 11 and has been in all EA Sports titles since.

THQ was the first to roll it out though with UFC Undisputed 2010 and in disastrous fashion. The company tried to hide the fact that web game they were even doing it, only admitting to it once it was first discovered by those who had early copies. The implementation was also poorly done which led to some consumers paying when they didn’t have to. THQ started with their “Online Pass” at $5 in UFC and then raised it to $10 starting with WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2011. Both SCEA and 2K Sports have expressed that they are considering implementing programs similar to the “Online Pass”.

How is the “Online Pass” affecting sales of games? Its hard to say at this point and the correlation may not be fully established, but  browser games early results (in games that didn’t crash like Tiger and UFC) are showing a trend of higher first month sales and sharper declines in later months. That combined with retailers pushing pre-orders with various incentives are making early purchases of games more attractive rather than waiting down the line for price drops or used copies.