board, including 15-time major winner Tiger Woods, who has signed a name and likeness deal to appear exclusively in 2K Sports golf games for the foreseeable future. Muise was tight lipped on how exactly the deal came about, but seemed understandably excited about both the golfer and his involvement.
“When we made the decision to include playable pros in the game, the first name that came to mind was Tiger Woods.” espoused Muise. “He’s arguably the most iconic golfer of all time and has meant so much to the culture and evolution of the sport. Who better to put on our cover and partner with?”
the way it’s always been for sports games, and I should stop asking so many pesky questions that threaten to disrupt entire sports game business models.
PRACTICE AND CONCENTRATION Games don’t exist in a vacuum, and HB Studios has undoubtedly had other sports games releases influence its work over the years. We’re almost certain that someone on the team will have taken a look at Mario Golf, or its older cousin that lives outside of the Mushroom Kingdom, Everybody’s Golf (as not doing so would be irresponsible, frankly) while other features and hallmarks have been added in order to create brand familiarity and connective tissue to other 2K Sports titles. “At HB Studios, we’re both gamers and sports fans, so I’d say all popular sports games might have had some influence on us.” said Muise. “We’ve obviously been especially influenced by other 2K titles, such as NBA 2K, and you’ll see we’ve adopted some of the ‘2K trademarks’ such as the MyPLAYER and MyCAREER naming conventions, lifestyle partnerships and apparel deals.” With PGA Tour 2K23, the series once again allows players to compete as real pros. That meant it was important to the developer to get the most prolific golfers back on
IF YOU WORK AT IT, IT’S GOLF Having become a part of the 2K Sports roster has also provided HB Studios with some exclusive development perks that have allowed them to more easily capture likenesses and sporting performance outputs from the stars of the real life game, adding extra authenticity to the entire experience. “We used the proprietary 2KGo face scanning tech. You might know it from NBA 2K and WWE 2K. We also did mocap for swings to incorporate the pros into the game accurately.” said Muise.
HB Studios also had to develop PGA Tour 2K23 during the covid-19 outbreak, and all of the lockdowns and restrictions that were put in place, which meant that it was particularly difficult at times to get out to courses for reference material, or to meet with sports personalities and other professionals directly. “We developed this game during the pandemic, so we faced many of the same challenges the rest of the world faced during that time period.” explains Muise. “It takes a lot of hard work, time and stress management to create a video game, especially one that is highly detailed and needs to accurately represent beloved courses and athletes.” The marketing department at 2K has also been faced with some tough logistics to work around, although this is more of a usual complication of the job, thanks to the busy lives of the PGA Tour’s men and women. “The life of a PGA Tour pro golfer is ‘always on’, so access to pros and personalities can be challenging!” said Brody. “Securing free time and travel can be really tough for
60 | MCV/DEVELOP December 2022
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