I think it boils down to the goals of the game from the outset and what compromises are willing to be made in regard to the original vision compared to sales you might make. I can tell you at PP we had zero interest in making an arcade game that would probably have sold more and got better reviews and to be honest our arcade game would probably have sucked anyway because we have limited experience in what they are all about anyway.
TGC set out to make a fairly easy to play pleasant game with an easy to use but limited course design program which would create maximum sales on all platforms. They did a pretty decent job with that goal in mind. They had more experienced graphics guys than us and so their UI, avatar and lighting was better and none of that was surprising. The thing is when I look at their graphics now and in this upcoming game they have, they simply have not moved on IMO apart from a slightly better avatar and hairstyle system 
I do know that every single update we have made to PG was to make it a better and more realistic experience and while we were learning as we went our knowledge and skillset got better and better as we worked more on it.
We didn't court publicity like HB studios did, We didn't not have any contacts in the game industry or online magazines and we had no idea how to get them. We went into the whole PG experience with half the knowledge we really needed to make the game a complete success.
Over the last 5 year though it has been a success but our roots are still mainly planted in the real golf game which we try and simulate and not a fictional arcade world which HB produce which sells at higher volumes and will sell even more with their new PGA license. We still have virtually no gaming contacts now but our integration with virtually every facet of the real golf world is pretty much complete. When you load up the PGA webcasts you will still be seeing PG graphics and not the HB studios ones because they and we know the accuracy and physics as well as our shotlink integration are currently the best out there. We're still trying to make them better.
I have previously purchased and played buth TGC 1 and 2 and I'll buy this one too but I'm not expecting anything but more of the same . I'm not actually sure why ADX doesn't come here more often as I'm 100% sure that we are actually trying to make the exact game that he wants to play but we're just not there yet!
I pop over here about once a week to read some new posts and there isn't normally much - I popped in this morning and there's been a ton of activity since my last visit
I was contemplating long and hard whether or not I should get involved in this discussion - but I think it's a really good post from Mike and as we're players of both's games (and I'm longer a part of HB or the TGC family) and you guys on forums are the most invested and interested it's good for you to understand the decision making process of making games/software. So let me give it a go
Mike is correct about the goals at the start of the process and the compromises you're willing to make.
When we started looking at making TGC the reason was - we were golfers and gamers that hadn't really loved a golf game for years because nothing out there was representing the feelings you have when you were out on the course. We wanted to create something that hadn't come before not recreate something that had. So we created a set of rules that the game had to be
1) Every decision had to represent real golf
2) The game had to give you the same feeling of elation and deflation/anger you get out on the course and represent a game of golf with your friends
3) It should be more about knowledge and practice than your ability to execute a swing mechanic - meaning course management was more important than how good you were at moving the stick backwards and forwards
4) We couldn't afford to licence a ton of courses - so we'd allow the players to create their local courses and share them, giving us a huge library
5) It would never be fake - we wouldn't suck balls into the holes or push them away, we wouldn't use a huge set of pre-recorded flights to get a good ball flight - we'd use the physics and create an actual world where the ball and the surfaces would act as realistically as possible.
6) The game had to be about feel of the ball - short game was where holes would be won
7) The game had to be available on console - because the PC market was too small to justify the expenditure.
Everything outside that was up for debate - but any feature discussed must fit within those seven things.
If you look at the huge list of features we had written down and the huge list of features Mike had for PG - and even the huge lists each of you would want, I doubt they'd be much difference. But as Mike said, it's then a decision on what is a must and what isn't. At this point when I use the word budget or cost it's a combination of time and money.
We had a set budget and development time in mind - so we obviously couldn't do everything so we had to prioritise.
Course Designing and Game Play were the most important and took up most of the budget. We also needed to invest a decent amount of time into graphics otherwise it would be very hard to pass the concept submission with Sony and MS - especially that early in their life cycle when they want to show how powerful their machines are.
So some features have to be delayed until a later release and more time and money are given to do them - So take a mm perfect course creator - which causes the issues with the bunkers which are mentioned so much here - wasn't as important as it being able to simply share courses across the internet to multiple machines without huge download times with GB's of data. This isn't a big deal to the vast majority of players - if you read any review for either TGC1 or 2 not one person cared - to please the extremely small minority to stop yourself moving to console or the ability to easily share courses you're shooting yourself in the foot. We improved on this hugely in TGC2 though and I'm sure you'll see it improved upon more in TGC2019, because of the PGA Licenece. So it's a step by step improvement as with some of the other features.
My big bug bear though is this belief that the game is anyway arcade - the game is not artificially difficult, the game still to this day has never been reviewed by either Polygon or Eurogamer because it's "too much of a simulation". It simulates ball flight, without the use of pre determined data, as good as any game out there. The physics against terrain is as good as anything out there as well. That doesn't mean that there isn't room for improvement but it simulates that world pretty good. The game also simulates the feeling of playing golf really, really well. Making something really hard just to make scores realistic for guys that sit there with a spreadsheet and play 15 - 20 rounds a day, is not simulating golf it's only simulating a golf leaderboard. So I'd disagree we set out to make an "easy to play" game. I think we made a mistake with the off the Tee stuff - but that was rectified superbly in TGC2 and I really can't see anything in PG that simulates the game any better. And if you play TGC on the simulators or in VR it proves that it simulates the world pretty well.
3-click - although I was a fan - was dropped quickly because it didn't create the feel needed in short play. And with the analogue stick, I think we were the first game to ever really get a feel of the speed of the greens in putting - again another tip of the hat to the simulation. TGC2 improved the short game again and from the videos I've seen of TGC2019 it looks like another step forward.
So we then have a great core game - but it's the decisions you make at that point that make or break you. You can strive to have everything like a fan would, or you can work on the things needed to get the game to market to make sure you get a footing as a franchise and then continue to build as HB have done. I don't think they/we have ever courted publicity outside of the normal means of getting a preview or review in the golf and gaming press. If you don't do that you're dead in the water, but I definitely didn't dress up in a bikini and strut my stuff up and down oxford st
Also squeals are never going to be a complete re-write, I've not seen one bit of software that is - not just a game, why reinvent the wheel? A squeal is where enough functionality has been worked on to make the game a different product. The swing mechanic itself proved that when we tried to update on TGC1 people went mad - so we had to make a different game. But there were massive re-writes and overhauls of huge areas of TGC foundation between 1 and 2 and I'm sure there will be again this time around. The player creator - which a huge amount of people wanted - cost around $1million alone. So was well justified in getting a squeal out and again looking at TGC2019, there's tons in there that justifies it as a new game. It's not just a data update like some sports titles.
If I was to look back over the last few years - TGC and PG are golf games with the same end goals. One is made by software developers as a passion project, on top of a successful business and the other is made by games developers- who are golf fans - who have a little more knowledge of growing a game franchise because it is their business. I doubt the budgets between TGC1 and PG were that different. I think it was just the priority order to get to a product that was releasable were different. Mistakes will be made by both on the way and both teams will learn- but if they support each other along the way the genre will grow and not put us back in a place where one game dominates. Which is surely good for everyone
Was that the cost of just the player creator, or does that also include the cost of the mo-caps?
