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Take Two in Talks with Major League Baseball
After EA's ESPN announcement yesterday, it hardly comes as a surprise that GamesIndustry.biz is reporting a possible deal between Take Two Interactive and Major League Baseball. The deal, first reported in the Wall Street Journal, appears to be for exclusivity rights similar to EA's arrangements. While the move wouldn't hurt EA's baseball franchise, it would squeeze out other competitors who have used the MLB license in the past.
For those out of the basball game loop, why wouldn't it hurt EA's franchise at all ?
soon EA will own the sports gaming industry...everyone else will be left with make-believe teams...
I thought sports were supposed to be competative?
Why not? EA won't be able to use real players in their baseball games. That will definately hurt them.
It's the battle of the minds, and everyone's unarmed.
Did EA crap in CmdrTaco's Wheaties or something?
one thing i don't get though...the article says that
Somewhat related to this is the fact that just announced today MLB awarded exclusive rights to fantasy games to MLB's own MLB Advanced Media that controls MLB.com...presumably this means that other baseball fantasy game companies (ESPN, Sandbox, CBSSportsline, etc) would have to buy licenses from MLBAM in order to run fantasy games...
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
Is there such a thing and would this qualify?
the article claims that, but EA's web page for the title, clearly has the MLB logo
http://www.easports.com/games/mvp2004/home.jsp
A deal between MLB and Take Two wouldn't change EA's plans in the area, though, as EA doesn't use the MLB branding on its baseball title, MVP Baseball
Just like with NHL hockey!
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Competitive gaming industries race to the NHL to work out a deal with them.
Oh, wait, there needs to be a hockey season first.
That's fine and fancy, but the burning question for me is whether TakeTwo will put out a game with "Steroids-On" and "Steroids-Off" options.
Chuck
I think this endrun to sign exclusive deals is detrimental to the sports electronic gaming industry (admittely not my favorite but I enjoy the occasional game of EA curling as much as the next person). Exclusive deals lead to single lines of games. Exclusive deals curtail the inventive process and remove competition. It's not that this hurts EA, it's how this hurts consumers.
Perhaps every sports game that comes out of this will be great but my money is on the fact that they will become stagnant and boring.
-Teiresias
It's baseball. Baseball died in 1994. Let it go already.
This is starting to sound like what I put up with anytime I go online to play football.
No one likes losing, so a large group of people start cheating in order to win.
So the people who don't like the cheaters wind up having to learn to cheat themselves in order to keep the cheaters honest.
Outcome? No one wins. No one can get an honest game.
This is degenerating into a rights-grab, and only one company per sport will have rights.
I can hear the whiny-children in my head:
EA: Wha! He beat me. I don't like losing. I know! I'll cheat!
VC: Hey! I won fair and square!
EA: *raspberry* I'm taking my ball and going home!
VC: That's not your ball!
EA: It is now!
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
actually...EA's NHL 2005 is about the closest thing you can get to a hockey season right now...
i hear they're gonna just simulate a full hockey season, and award the stanley cup based on that...
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
I think that EA-MLB passed a rule against him using thumb-steroids to enhance videogame play.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
While the move wouldn't hurt EA's baseball franchise ...
A lot of you are wondering why it wouldn't hurt EA any more than anyone else. Of course, it would, but remember - we're supposed to hate EA.
If we admitted that this could "hurt" EA, in the same way EA's deals could hurt Take Two (et al), we're admitting that competition in the video game market is alive and well, and that exclusive rights are par for the course in the industry.
Activision has exclusive rights to make Spiderman games, but you don't see any articles about that, do you?
So basically, just think of EA as Microsoft, and Take Two as Apple.
DRM in Media Player is an affront to our rights online, and threatens our very freedom. DRM in iTunes is a brilliant business strategy from a company that "gets it". Or, MSFT pursuing action againt mikerowesoft.com (even though they HAVE to defend trademarks) was evil, but Apple suing a kid for passing on a rumor about the mini mac, well that's different because, umm, iPods have neato little scroll wheel things.
I hope this clears things up. Slashdot is best read and understood when peering through your navel, with your head shoved far up your ass.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
How many baseball/basketball/football/etc. games with real players' names does the world really need?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
I've never heard the kind of hype about baseball video games as about even basketball, which seems to me to be far behind football.
Is this more of an "if you don't have one, you look bad, but having one does nothing positive for you" issue?
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
what i mean is, what happened to their first games? does this whole thing come down to one thing??..that is greed? i tell you this weekend i played Need For Speed III Hot Pursuit. the whole game is still fun, especially the hot pursuit mode. yes IMO its more fun than NFS Hot Pursuit 2 and NFS Underground. these are the games that made EA great. hell, the whole NFS franchise brought EA into existence. its sad when you have people like me who like games such as NFS 3 and think of it more than newer game titles..graphics arent everything, fun-ness and playability are a big part of the game experience. anyway before i start rambling i wonder how many hours the programmers were turning in when NFS 3 was released? you think it was 80+?
... since I've found that the presence of a high-recognition brand-name on any game almost guarantees that it's (A) boring, and (B) overpriced by about $20.
Thank you for the unique perspective. You hit the nail right on the head.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Let's say Marvel had been allowing multiple companies to make competing spiderman games for years. Several games were improving year after year, drawing large fan-bases (we'll call it customer-bases for those only concerned with money) to each product, and a superior product every year.
Now, this year, after being beat senseless by competitor X, Activision slaps Marvel with a wad of cash and basically says "we're tired of being beat senseless and actually having to work for our money, give us exclusive rights that if people want a Spiderman game, they have to buy it from us!".
THEN it would be similar. Also, picture those companies trying to make competing "Radioactive-bug-bitten-man" games to compete without the license.
Nah...they'd probably still get their pants sued off.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
Remmber back when videogames didn't NEED a pro licence to be good? Those of us may recall games such as Double Dribble, Bases Loaded, Blades of Steel (otherwise known as boxing on ice) and the glorious Nintendo Ice Hockey?
All of these games were great and didn't have one legit team.
We can only hope for more high-quality games like Outlaw Golf 2!
Favorite Quote in Outloaw Golf 2 Promo:
The shameless bunch from the Outlaw series returns to the repressed world of golf with their outrageously twisted antics.
I love twisted antics!
I don't think anyone would consider it reasonable for Boeing to give Microsoft "exclusive rights" to simulate their aircraft. That would be stupid. Motor racing teams and racing tracks haven't set up "exclusive deals" on who can do what.
I might not be able to call a simulator "official", but if I wanted to write a game based on the Silverstone track and the typical behaviour of the various Formula 1 cars, I don't think anyone would seriously complain. And that's for a sport with a turnover ten times that of major league baseball.
Lock-ins are no good for the sport, as people are LESS likely to buy over-priced, over-hyped products in the long run, which means there's going to be a decay in interest over time.
If games manufacurers are so lacking in confidence that they can compete, they need to spend more money on development and less on "special deals" with organizers.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Bill Laimbeer's Combat Basketball
I play Strat-o-matic baseball over the internet. It is a non-graphical computer version of a game played with dice and cards. This game does not compete with the console games like MVP Baseball. But it does use real players, team and statiums from MLB. I wonder how it will be affected by a deal like this.
Strat, has been featured at the Baseball Hall of fame, and in the Smithsonian. It has been played since 1961, and they have produced new cards for each season since.
The time is now over-ripe for a MINOR league baseball game. It'll be just like a minor league game: score points for having your pitcher bean the batter in the head, have drunk umpires, rowdy fans getting on the field and sometimes even playing, mascots fighting the opposing mascot, opposing players, the fans, and their own team...I hope the guys who did Redneck Rampage eventually do something like this.
I, for one, look forward eagerly to the day that EA promises, when a major league baseball gane pits a team of human pros against a team of robots controlled by WWW interfaces. Between the thrashing of the pitcher as various people all try to make him throw their favorite pitch at once, the outfielders dancing, and the infield insanity (catcher goosing the umpire, 1st baseman mooning the batter, etc.), ML baseball will become the hottest comedy around!
If anyone is interested in rotisserie baseball, check this article out. Turns out there are some legal snafus about licensing. I play for free on Yahoo, and last year Barry Bonds was called "Outfielder" or "SF Outfielder" or something because of a licensing issue. It looks like some places will potentially lose their rights to use the players names.
s /story?id=1970454
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/sportsbusiness/new
Major League what? Does anyone still watch that crap? I thought it went out of style when all the baseball players went on strike because the millions they were making weren't enough?
Word is they won't be able to enforce that aspect of things, as fact-based information (like stats) has historically not been treated as part of an individual's "likeness." Thus not ownable, and 1st amendment covers it. NBA vs. StatsINC is a good decision on this, I believe.
So chances are this won't affect fantasy things, assuming other companies feel like challenging.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Information like that can't be copyrighted. That's why you can download something like the Lahman baseball database for free.
What's at issue is names and likenesses. There's nothing stopping Sega from producing a football game that plays identically and uses real stats but it would have to have differently named teams and players.
I don't think anyone would consider it reasonable for Boeing to give Microsoft "exclusive rights" to simulate their aircraft.
They probably could, actually. You'd probably be able to get away with simulating a very similar craft, but you couldn't call it by its name or identify it as a Boeing craft.
This is one thing I've wondered. Would it exlude others from making "baseball" video games, or just using the team names, logos from the official leagues?
One could still make a football/baseball game with fictional teams and players... hell it might even be better than using existing ones.
Ok, this'll probably just get modded off-topic, but I just started a web comic, and did a strip about all the EA deals.
Warning: The site is 100% Flash, and initial feedback is that it isn't funny. Enjoy Slashdot!
Other than EA and Take Two, who else is currently making baseball games that this deal might affect? Acclaim's All-Star Baseball 2006+ has other issues to deal with at the moment...
Competitive gaming industries race to the NHL to work out a deal with them.
I've played it. I put the the game in and it showed a rerun of the Simpsons.
--- What?
Why,? Because last year I could by an NFL licensed video game, with actual NFL teams, players and stadiums, for $19.95 from Sega, who is COMPETING with EA. Next year, I'll have to pay 50 bucks for the same kind of game, because there will be NO COMPETITION. You see, the consumer looses with these types of exclusivity deals. That will not bother everyone, but it bothers me.
-G
www.g.pix.com
-G
www.pixelstatic.com
Why is ESPN the bees knees in sports broadcasting? What's stopping Take Two/Sega from doing a year-by-year partnership with Fox Sports Net? Or Sports Illustrated? Hell, SkySports (a stretch, admittedly, but it'd be fantastic if they picked up a deal w/ UEFA and SkySports to do a good football (read: soccer) game)? It would still give them a broadcast pool to draw from to keep that feature alive and kicking.
All of this land-grabbing doesn't have to be the death knell to any one company or another, but rather it could be used to promote further diversity in the marketplace and still place the emphasis on quality of game rather than quantity of dollars. So some games are a smidge generic, but they don't have to be bland, and they don't have to be colorless. In fact, why not do what Vince McMahon failed to do with real football and jazz it up a bit in the video game arena? I'm not saying make it as crap as the AFL (which EA stupidly bought...20 years, almost as many different 'leagues'...America doesn't care, and neither would your competitors), or as zany as the CFL...but do something, anything to keep EA from putting a death-grip on the genre. Please?
"How like you to drag your keyboard to a gun fight." - Aaron Bedard (BANE)
...if the game imports the latest stats database. Too bad the big companies believe in built-in obsolesence.
The article mentioned nothing about an exclusive deal with MLBPA (Major League Baseball Players Association), which is (to my recollection) an entity wholly seperate from MLB. So, since EA hasn't ever done much beyond place the MLB and MLBPA stickers on their products, they can simply stop using the MLB sticker and keep using player names and associate them with generic, same color uniforms/city names and run-of-the-mill stadiums.
Now, if Take Two reveals that they've inked the MLBPA to an exclusive deal to go along with their contract with MLB, then EA is right where Take Two/Sega is in regards to their football franchise: no league and no players.
Sadly, this doesn't really mean jack in the grand scheme of things since baseball games are all pretty crap, and have been since the mid-90s when companies became dead set on emphasising realism and taking all of the fun out of them. As a result, they don't sell well, not compared to the almighty football franchies. An NBA deal isn't likely to happen, as that league seems to understand that exclusivity is bad for business, and they're a brand in the middle of a huge global marketing campaign. And then there's the NHL. heh, just kidding.
Am I wrong on this?
"How like you to drag your keyboard to a gun fight." - Aaron Bedard (BANE)
1. Make a better game than EA
2. Allow importing of team names and player names and stats from outside sources (eg: fan sites)
3. ???
4. Profit.
----
Remember all those NBA games that were missing Michael Jordan's name, yet there was a "super" player on the Bulls that looked just like him. Everyone just renamed him to MJ.
I'll sell them the rights to the Phillies for a nickel.
Am I the only slashdotter who feels that baseball is a) not news for nerds, and b) not stuff that matters? WTF is this doing here?
Video game, smideo game, baseball games blow. Nothing worse than simulating sitting around for nine innings watching idiots run laps around a diamond shaped pit. Boooooooring!
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
If they get the deal with the MBL I can see EA buying them. Sounds like something Microsoft would do.
I see all these deals as bad for the game industy. Why do they have to try to make things better, just when Sega was close to making a better game EA pulls the rug out from under them, thats just wrong.
My dream used to be to make a company that Microsoft would buy from me for lots of money but now its to make one that EA would buy.