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**VUSO 2018 and Announcement**

Fri, Jul 6 2018 4:20 PM (116 replies)
  • jacktrade51
    10,831 Posts
    Sun, Mar 4 2018 7:00 PM

    As a club owner I can only say 1 thing.  I have a number of 5, 6, 7, 8 year club members threatening to quit because no new courses.

    Actually worse.  Who cares about Bandon and we lost Oakmont!  So we are down one.

    It is in my club forum.  3 threatened to quit in last week.

    WGT/Top Golf better get their act together.

    Tom.

  • jacktrade51
    10,831 Posts
    Sun, Mar 4 2018 7:03 PM

    If one doesn't have money to film new course, bring back Oakmont and buy out TruGolf so we get Whistlers and Cabo for free.

    Then you won't need to create a course for a while.

    And guys who like Whistlers/Cabo, stop buying rounds.  Then it will become free sooner.

     

  • alanti
    10,563 Posts
    Sun, Mar 4 2018 9:21 PM
    kavvz:
    We've delved into a half a dozen or so different topics it seems.
    Welcome to the WGT forum lol.

    kavvz:
    To be able to pinpoint it at 1 reason (i.e. friends leaving due to glitches) is suspect at best. 
    Actually I can name 2 players that I know of that quit for this reason.Going back two or three years ago, multi-player games got so difficult to play, it was hardly worth the effort.....at least now it is pretty stable.This was before your time based on your join date, and regardless, you play very limited multi-player games, nor have that many friends......which is fine of course, we are all different.

    Whilst I understand what you say, the simple fact is people get bored faster when there is a lack of new courses. Best of's and par threes do not cut the mustard.

    A number of years ago, there was a Forbes article, and by their analysis, the development costs of a new course were recovered quickly....simply by the high demand......which equates to ball sales of course. Every year, players would churn out the rounds to qualify for the VUSO.... sleeves and sleeves were chewed up....for a 20 buck prize and the Kudos of qualifying.

    Bandon Dunes is probably a cheap option.......probably nice courses but it does not have the Kudos of a US Open course. US Open courses will be at a premium......but that investment in the past paid off ......falling numbers? Personally, I have never played the par three mash.....no interest.....but maybe it is because I am a golfer and would never contemplate playing a par 3 course unless hell froze over. It will be there to appease mobile users.

    But unless WGT migrate the flash based game to a different platform......it will not be happening on the PC.......mobile maybe, and that is where they have headed for at least the last 2 or 3 years.

    WGT may have over 7 million registered users......take out multi accounters, dead accounts that have never been used or players who quit a long time ago lol......it may have had over 3 million downloads for IOS and over 10 million rounds whilst Merion had 3.3 million rounds played in 2013......in true WGT, figures do not stack up.

    What is so difficult in being transparent, and WGT/TG management telling us why Shinnecock is off the menu, what will happen in 2020 for PC users..... No-one since Chad counted his cash and fled has bothered or is allowed to to engage. That is not good business sense.....if you think it is, you obviously have never been in business yourself.....if you had, you would have gone broke!

  • Jimbog1964
    8,378 Posts
    Sun, Mar 4 2018 9:34 PM

    Bandon Dunes 2020.................Two years busy working on a very few pitch n putt holes, and nothing else voiced. 

    That's a contraction - One very underskilled singular kid fitting it in between animated Emojis and Snapchat time?

    Golf play generally - Down.

    TopGolf: Aimed at a condensed time frame crowd, kids Snap chatting or the odd corporate chits and giggles reward.

    As I understand it driving range balls, and lots of "winner lights" if you get one in a large unmissable target (range ball anyway effectively).............. Does the CC Clash start to sound familiar?

    This thread would have been way longer a few years back and so the forums are some gauge, IMO.   CC Event wise a thread sped along to many many pages with people that cared saying WTF.  Now the expectation is so much lower....

    People come and go in games of course.  The Andyson analyses suggested the balance, PC wise at least, was the wrong way.  It's reflected in what so many see (perceive at least).

    Fundamentally a super game still, but it's been taking in water PC wise to say the least.  Budget wise they were stretched before TG (Mod admitted as much).  Post TG the pro shop is the last one left in town selling legacy premium balls or your selection of ones that bark or meow.

    Flash will finish soon. I hope some war chest or entrepreneur is there to migrate the game to another, more secure, platform.  My head says everything stacks up only one way, and I do not see how it can be read differently.

    Fun to be had still but no new course is one big dent, yet again, in the value proposition.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • bubbsboy
    6,879 Posts
    Mon, Mar 5 2018 12:53 AM

    kavvz:

    We've delved into a half a dozen or so different topics it seems.

    Players will always leave no matter what 

     

    True that, but more will leave if the game becomes stale. Same courses to play over and over again with no new additions till 2020, and then Bandon, oh great.

    Below is a safe link.......can you see how well i do with what we have. Familiarity breeds contempt.

    schedule

  • zagraniczniak
    1,984 Posts
    Mon, Mar 5 2018 6:48 AM

    jacktrade51:

    Who cares about Bandon

    There was something kinda half-assed about the par 3 medley from Bandon we got a couple of years back, but getting a full, genuine Bandon course would be superb in its own right even if none of those courses are US Open courses (yet) - they are world-class courses, as I understand. 

     

  • DAZZA501
    5,972 Posts
    Mon, Mar 5 2018 7:50 AM

    To be honest i was never expecting a new course this year. If 1 was coming then we'd of heard about it long before now. So Bandon is definite in 2020 and a course there with some par 4's & 5's would be a great addition. It's a long time to wait though so hopefully they can come up with something else in the meantime, even if it's just new pins on courses we already have. Royal St Georges new pins are long overdue.

    What i'd like to see though is a complete shake up of the tournaments we currently have. The Virtual Tour is ok and i look forward to playing it even if the 1st round is that slog it out unlimited borefest. Lets face it, that's not going to ever be changed.

    The weekly tournaments are fine (not that i play many) but the other monthlies are mostly more unlimited play nonsense with very small payouts. I like to play the premium monthly tournaments but i'd really love to see the multi-round be 4 x 18 hole events instead of the 9 holes we have now. All Pro events are 4x18 holes so it would be great to have that here. Then there's the weekly premium multi-round. Why is this only for a limited amount of players? Basically, if you don't get online to enter it on a Monday then it's always full up.

    Brackets. How long have we had the back 9 of Pebble? So why is the Pebble bracket only ever just the front 9?

    Ready Go's. I don't mind there being 50cr RG's. It gives those on a lower budget a chance to play tournaments for credits. What i would like to see is more around the 200/300/400 credit mark for those of us on a middle of the road budget. I play the odd 500/1000 credit RG but my meter doesn't hold out long enough for me to birdie every hole and compete with the top guys. Someone left a message on my wall once telling me to stay away from the 50/100 credit RG's and give the small guy a chance. Well i'm sorry but if i did that i'd have nothing left.

    So please Wgt/Topgolf. Have a think about the tournaments and start giving us something interesting and fun to do.

  • kavvz
    2,195 Posts
    Mon, Mar 5 2018 9:58 AM

    alanti:

    kavvz:
    To be able to pinpoint it at 1 reason (i.e. friends leaving due to glitches) is suspect at best. 

    Actually I can name 2 players that I know of that quit for this reason.Going back two or three years ago, multi-player games got so difficult to play, it was hardly worth the effort.....at least now it is pretty stable.

    2 players?  C'mon you must realize how silly that sounds.  You're talking about the ultimate demise of WGT as players leave because of glitches and no Shinnecock, and you mention 2 players.  It could be 2 players from every CC on here and it wouldn't mean much.  i.e. the numbers being so low compared to the player base.

    alanti:

    Whilst I understand what you say, the simple fact is people get bored faster when there is a lack of new courses. Best of's and par threes do not cut the mustard.

    A number of years ago, there was a Forbes article, and by their analysis, the development costs of a new course were recovered quickly....simply by the high demand......which equates to ball sales of course. Every year, players would churn out the rounds to qualify for the VUSO.... sleeves and sleeves were chewed up....for a 20 buck prize and the Kudos of qualifying.

    Do not cut the mustard is simply your (1 person's) opinion -- again not indicative of the masses.

    There was a Forbes article on the costs of developing a virtual golf course for a game?  Even if there was you're assuming that the reason for no Shinnecock is due to the cost to develop.  You don't know that.  They don't seem to mind incurring costs for the full Bandon course so I highly doubt cost is the reason.

    alanti:

    Bandon Dunes is probably a cheap option.......probably nice courses but it does not have the Kudos of a US Open course. US Open courses will be at a premium......but that investment in the past paid off ......falling numbers? Personally, I have never played the par three mash.....no interest.....but maybe it is because I am a golfer and would never contemplate playing a par 3 course unless hell froze over. It will be there to appease mobile users.

    Just more of your opinions here.  Bandon is hosting the US amateur -- I'd say it's pretty darn close to US Open calibre.

    alanti:

    But unless WGT migrate the flash based game to a different platform......it will not be happening on the PC.......mobile maybe, and that is where they have headed for at least the last 2 or 3 years.

    WGT will be playable after 2020 when Abode ends support for flash.  All we will need is a browser that supports flash, and for WGT to keep the lights on.  Just because Adobe ends support for their platform doesn't mean the game stops working.  

    Agree though they'll have to migrate the game to another platform at some point if they want to keep the PC game alive.  They can't tell people to go download old out of date browsers in order to play WGT on PC.  Maybe they'll make a flash plugin / addon to support the game etc.  who knows.

    alanti:
    What is so difficult in being transparent, and WGT/TG management telling us why Shinnecock is off the menu, what will happen in 2020 for PC users..... No-one since Chad counted his cash and fled has bothered or is allowed to to engage. That is not good business sense.....if you think it is, you obviously have never been in business yourself.....if you had, you would have gone broke!

    Maybe they don't know all the answers yet.  Think about that some more, they can't up and announce this and that unless they are 100% certain that's going to happen.  They already have told us something about what the future holds.  i.e.  Full Bandon in 2020 and a US Amateur virtual Championship.  

     

  • TRutger
    133 Posts
    Mon, Mar 5 2018 10:53 AM

    Its amazing to see how the response drop off of "usual blog suspects" has grown. This should be a fifty plus page thread by now. 

    What I don't understand is the money and number of users PC still generates and its being slowly bled out. 

     WTF WGT? 

  • TRutger
    133 Posts
    Mon, Mar 5 2018 10:55 AM

    Is there no somebody with the vision to carry this format forward? The value is there. 

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