Golden Tee Kicked Your Ass in Highschool

That’s it – I’ve had it up to here with you geeks!

In the 21-year history of Golden Tee, the game has gotten tons of press coverage. Usually from the likes of Sports Illustrated, ESPN or MAXIM. Hell we’ve gone as far as Penthouse to TIME magazine too. But traditionally, us and the gamer press do NOT see eye to eye. There’s a huge disconnect. In a nut shell, they think we make hokey arcade games for drunk, college frat boys with too much testosterone (partially true…) that are not worthy of respect to the mighty console games.

But as the lines of social gaming continue to blur, we here at the IT marketing department think, “TO HELL WITH THE CLICHES, let’s see if the gamer press is ready to play nice.” We’re the original social game for crying out loud and gaming is not as black-and-white as it once was.

So on August 4th, I sent the fun, new Golden Tee 2010 trailer to Kotaku – one of the largest gaming blogs in existence. For whatever reason, Kotaku seems to have a soft spot for us in their heart. They’ve been cool and ran some other items this year. But this time – they knew exactly what they were doing. Senior Editor Michael McWhertor posted our link with a well-written, tongue-and-cheek diatribe he called Golden Tee: The Song is Deadly Ear Poison.

(Sigh, here we go again…)

Michael didn’t tank us. No. In fact, his note was clever and funny. But, like the song says, “He teed it high,” for the blog’s commenters to “…let it fly!” And on cue, the web-site’s army of geeks began firing nerd bombs across our bow, insinuating – yet again – that Golden Tee isn’t really a game worthy of chatting about on a sophisticated gamer site. (Oh, we’re sorry we disrupted your anime erotic story that day) Here are some highlights of the some 50 comments.

PIEMONKEY said, “Well, we all know what game won’t do well.” (Oh, the one that’s earned more coin-in than Pac Man, errr which?)

DEFEATER said, “So what, this game/song/post is designed to make me hate everything about the world?” (No, my friend. That’s still just you and “your secret”)

KINGDAVID73 said, “I never understood the appeal of golfing arcade games, but I see them in every bar / bar and grill I’ve ever been in. … although, I’ve never seen anyone play them. (Oh, crap – you’re right?! We forgot to tell our customer that no one P L A Y S the games. DAMN!)

But I have something to say to these geeks on behalf of the millions of Golden Tee fans in the world. An open letter from me to you.

I am sorry for breaking your glasses in dodge ball back in P.E.. And yes, that was my touchdown you were writing about for the school paper back then and yes, it was GLORIOUS. And remember when you were trying to hack into the prom queen’s computer? I was making out with her. Yes, my friend – I was THAT popular. And I’m sorry I made fun of your “foam sword fight club” back then – but it was funny. And truthfully, I never had anything against you, your plastic figurines and your witty t-shirts… Really.

So today, while you’re sitting at home in your underwear massively multiplayering in your “social” network – I’ll be at the bar, hanging out with my friends, living life, playing Golden Tee and loving every damn minute of it. Oh yeah, me and the 10,000,000 other Golden Tee players to have “viciously attacked the trackball” the past 21-years.

When you’re ready to get over yourself and try something different – we’ll be here, waiting at the bar, with an ice cold beer for you in-hand, ready to chat about our differences. But until then, THIS YOUTUBE LINK SAYS IT ALL.

- Golden Tee

See Kotaku, we have a sense of humor too! :D

Good times,

- Duffer Dan

DerekC says:

August 7, 2009 at 2:50 pm

Ooooo boy Duffer, I’m not sure that’s the crowd you want to call out. I’m in a somewhat unique situation of straddling that fence. I was a decent Gold player for a short time before y’all pulled that plug, and I’ve been that kid shoved into lockers by “Golden Tee”. So, I can see both sides of that argument.

The “hardcore” gaming crowd won’t get this game, sure. It’s stereotyped like you noted above, but there’s a nugget of truth there. Gamers are mad about the state of arcades: We used to go there to hang out with kindred spirits while the jocks went out with the cheerleaders, smoking pot behind the grandstands, and doing all those wonderful things that happened in Dazed and Confused. We’d put quarters on the glass and extoll how smart we were for staying in the air conditioned sanctuary. And probably smoking pot behind the Mortal Kombat machine. We were free!

My how times have changed! Find me an arcade now. They’re few and far between, and they sure don’t look like they used to. I fell in love with GT because it scratched that itch I had for the old arcade feeling in a place I just happened to be getting into at the time: The bar. So it was a perfect marriage. The rest of my brethren? Back home, increasingly powerful computers, consoles, and the sanctuary of anonymity on the internet has created this generation of “Gamer”. They aren’t likely to head out to play the game.

So, where does that leave GT? Clearly a game that’s been around 20 years has found it’s “niche” . But will hardcore gamers “get” it? You’ll get some overlap like myself (hey, I’m the overlap in a Venn Diagram! Sweet!), but you aren’t likely to sell that crowd with the trailer. We’ll stick to our high speed internets, our uberfast gaming rigs, and, of course, our air conditioned sanctuaries. But if you convert a few to the altar of Tee, then you’ve done well

I’ll leave you with this last note, paraphrased from Fight Club: We run your e-mail servers. We build your websites. We maintain those networks that your Live platform runs on. Do not *&(&$! with us!

Sincerely,

GT Playing Nerd

By "Duffer" Dan Schrementi says:

August 7, 2009 at 2:56 pm

FINALLY! A comment that makes some sense to me!!!! Hey, I may be juvenile but THEY STARTED IT!!!!! Let me just say – just as they knew what they were doing upon posting their article, I knew what I was doing upon sending it there. I never expected the geeks to say it was cool, but for everyone to insinuate that GT is some sort of failure? Come on….

And remind me to give you a noogie next time I see you….

Andy says:

August 7, 2009 at 8:02 pm

Seriously Dan, did you actually read any of the other comments in that article?

Out of the 50 or so comments there were more positive comments about Golden Tee than there were bad ones. Virtually all of the hate was directed at the music and the video, not the game. And honestly I cannot blame anyone who thought the trailer was horrible. There was little to no gameplay shown. Gamers want to see gameplay in a trailer, not a flavor of the week band dancing around like it is a CMT music video.

And I am failing to see how KINGDAVID73 comment is bad in any way. So he doesn’t understand the game, and he never has seen anyone playing the game at his local bars. He wasn’t hateful in his comment. He just posted his own experiences.

You need to stop being so sensitive to what people say in blog comments. The yearly Madden releases get destroyed in the comments and they still sell millions of copies a year. Let the game speak for itself.

August 7, 2009 at 8:33 pm

Can’t argue with your points, Andy. Well said. Sensitive? Well, let’s just say my tongue was planted firmly-in-cheek as I wrote this. Hell, I didn’t score a touchdown – I was in band!!!! How do you think I got a job at a videogame company? you should see how many plastic figurines we have!!!!

The point of this rant was to identify what is always insinuated by the gamer press. In my whacked-out style, I got it out into the open. Sparking interesting commentary on the subject is my goal.

Thanks for reading, and your feedback.

August 7, 2009 at 8:34 pm

Derek, this comment fascinates me…

“I fell in love with GT because it scratched that itch I had for the old arcade feeling in a place I just happened to be getting into at the time: The bar. So it was a perfect marriage.”

I’ve never thought of it that way… Interesting

August 7, 2009 at 11:23 pm

Thanks Dan. I’m clearly big fans of both crowds so it’s a post near to my heart. Kotaku was one of the impetus that made me start my own gaming blog (plug plug), and GT and I go a long ways back.

The interesting thing about that is that I’m far from the only one who made that correlation, though I might have been the only one to post in on a blog comment. My friends who initially introduced me to the game were pretty big into the old 2D fighting scene locally in the 90′s. You know, the guys who’d play in an arcade for 2-3 hours on a buck. It didn’t catch for me then (around the 2k/Fore conversion time), but when I was of (legal) age to hit the bars, it was a perfect storm.

We’re getting to the point where people in their 30′s and 40′s grew up with arcades, and those younger really didn’t. They grew up with consoles that were on par or more powerful than arcade hardware, and an online “community” instead of one of camaraderie at a physical location. GT bridged it for me, but it may be time to start reaching backwards a bit to the younger crowd. I’ve got ideas on how to do that, but I’m sure IT’s already putting idea to code for 2011

Remember, the next Andy Haas, Steve Sobe or Chris Eversole is out there. He may just not have hit the bar circuit yet

Matt Kern says:

August 8, 2009 at 12:28 pm

“Hey, I may be juvenile but THEY STARTED IT!!!!!”

Excellent argument, Duffer. Do you do any legal work on the side?

Game Retail Store » Just Grip It And Spank It: Golden Tee 2010 Trailer, Trash Talk says:

August 17, 2009 at 7:19 pm

[...] targetaudience. Incredible Technologies blogger “Duffer” Dan Schrementi jokingly responded to their comments with an open letter to the naysaying “geeks” from the millions of Golden Tee fans in [...]