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Take-Two Cements MLB Rights

Posted by Zonk on from the cement-in-the-shoes-no-doubt dept.

GamesIndustry.biz has a story on Take-Two interactive and their efforts to tighten up agreements with Major League Baseball. From the article: "As with the MLBPA deal, the new arrangement gives Take Two exclusive rights among third party publishers only..but a loophole identified by many analysts has been sealed up, with third party publishers prohibited from developing and releasing titles in partnership with the platform holders."

8 of 31 comments (clear)

  1. Take Two Wins; Consumer is ultimate loser by Skuggamara · · Score: 3, Insightful

    While it's a shame to see these exclusive (or semi-exclusive as the article points out) deals being made, it is nice to see Electronic Arts getting a bit of it's own medicine.

    These exclusive deals are bad for the games industry and bad for the consumer as they stifle innovation and competition from smaller, more creative game developers.

    1. Re:Take Two Wins; Consumer is ultimate loser by fireduck · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I don't normally follow sports games, so I didn't really think there were than many MLB games available. So this really couldn't have been that bad a deal? Wrong. Just a quick look at Gamecube baseball titles shows we've got baseball games from Acclaim (All Star Baseball), Infogrames (backyard baseball), Sega (home run king), Midway (MLB slugfest) and MVP Baseball (EA). 5 different developers, not one of which is Nintendo. This'll get paired down to 1 developer next year. That is a big blow to innovation/competition.

      Interesting thing about these games, is that there's not a single non-MLB licensed baseball game available for the GC. One of the counter arguments is that locking up MLB (or any other sports association), frees other developers to be more independent. However, the lack of non-name brand sports games indicates that there really isn't much of a market for non-League games.

      Although to be fair, there are 2 non-NBA games (one by disney) and 2 non-NFL games (disney + an ncaa game) out there (but one can't honestly expect the disney games to appeal to adults). So in all the currently available sports games for the 3 big sports, there's really only 2 that don't involve a national professional league. I guess that makes your choice a bit easier.

  2. related note: Nintendo Pennant Chase Baseball by LordZardoz · · Score: 2, Informative

    Very recently announced. Developed by Exile Interactive as a first party game for Nintendo.

    www.pennantchasebaseball.com

    END COMMUNICATION

  3. Re:Good Thing by obsid1an · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So let me get this right. EA does it, it is bad. Take Two does it, it is good because it stops EA. You understand there are more than two publishers out there right? Oh well, typical Slashdot hypocrisy.

  4. Re:Who... by ivan256 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    But baseball cards, if kept in mint condition, can at least be worth something in the future. Think of buying baseball cards each year as making a minimal-risk investment each year.

    Hah!

    First of all, most baseball cards are *worthless* in the future. Buying to find the potentially valuable ones is essentially gambling.

    Secondly, most of the people who buy baseball cards don't keep them in mint condition. I'm sure many do, but most end up in a shoe box that gets thrown out by said purchaser's mom when they grow up and move out.

    People buy these things because they are fans, and because they are fans to the level of obsession.

  5. Re:Who... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You buy one in the spring to play out the season. Then you buy one in the fall to play out the pennant chase and the World Series.

    There is usually a good turn over in rosters just prior to September as teams make trades for the stretch run, and there are also players who get injured or come out of nowhere.

    There will be a purchasing audience at that point who would like to see the rosters in the game match the rosters in real life and the performance of the players match what's been going on that year.

  6. Are we going to boycott Take-Two now? by hchaput · · Score: 2, Insightful
    So, where is all the outrage against Take-Two? Where are the calls for boycotts, the anger at anti-competitive business practice, the hatred for companies that buy up other companies, and put other teams out of business?

    Nowhere.

    This is proof positive that people hate EA not because of what they do, but because they just repeat what they are told. EA gets the blame for everything the game industry does, and all the other companies get a free ride. Honestly, how can you give a crap about exclusive licences or buying up companies or labor practices and let everybody else get away with it? How can you care about these issues when you cheer a company for doing today what you just flamed another company for doing last month? You can't. Nobody cares about these things. Everybody just cares about beating up today's bad guy.

    1. Re:Are we going to boycott Take-Two now? by Loadmaster · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The same things are being said now about this deal that were said of the EA deal. That is, the consumer loses on this deal. The anger and outrage isn't there for a few reasons. In no specific order.

      First, Take-Two does not have a history of buying up all of its competitors. That made EA's buy of the NFL license an extesion of its "buy all developers so there's no competition" scheme.

      Second, when the NFL made 300 million from the deal I'm sure every other sports enterprise wanted some so the smaller sports will probably start trying to find a buyer.

      Third, if Take-Two didn't buy it then EA would have. Should they sit back and let EA suck up all the sports games?

      Fourth, Take-Two's deal leaves console maker's to develop there own game. That means Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft can make MLB games. Can they do that for NFL games? Take-Two didn't eliminate all competiton like EA.

      And fifth, I think all the anger was spent when EA bought the NFL license. Deals like this are going to be expected from now on. EA's deal desensitized us. The group outrage is spent so all we can do is sigh.