Tiger Woods Not on the Cover of his Own Game
Thursday, January 6, 2011 at 6:36AM 
Last year, Electronic Arts made the troubled golfing great share the cover of his bestselling game with Northern Irish rookie Rory McIlroy for the first time ever.
This year, following the controversy away from the green and lackluster play on it, Woods has been dropped from the cover of the March 29th release of "Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12: The Masters" on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii.
Woods has been replaced with a shot of the iconic yellow flag at Augusta National Golf Club, which is a major focus for the new game. It's the first golf video game that takes you to Augusta National.
EA Sports has worked with Woods since 1999 on what once was a perennial bestselling title. But last year, sales of the game dropped in the U.S. and around the globe dramatically.
According to videogame analyst David Cole of DFC Intelligence, sales of "Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11" were down 50% to 60% on a worldwide basis from 2009.
"The sales issues of the Tiger Woods video game are much broader and deeper than Tiger's personal problems and has more to do with the entire golf sport struggling in 2010," said Jesse Divnich, Vice president of Electronic Entertainment Design and Research.
During a media conference call to discuss the new game, EA Sports President Peter Moore said that the game publisher is standing by the former number one golfer in the world.
"Obviously, it was a difficult year last year, but you saw toward the end of the season Tiger starting to get back to his old ways," said Moore. "We all, as both a sports industry and sports fans, are hopeful he comes back in full force in 2011."
Tiger will remain a featured playable character in the new game, along with 20 other professional golfers like 2007 Masters Champion Zach Johnson and Bubba Watson, a Team USA member of the 2010 Ryder Cup - Team USA.
Two of the best announcers in golf, Jim Nantz and David Feherty will call the action in a new television broadcast presentation for the game.
Electronic Arts has spent the past year focusing on bringing The Masters to its game franchise for the first time. The studio employed new laser scanning technology to scan every hole, bush and tree of Augusta National Golf Club.
