Out of the Park Baseball was born in 1998, when lead developer Markus Heinsohn had the vision to combine a highly realistic replay baseball simulation with career play. His goal was to create a game that satisfied both hardcore baseball fans and casual gamers, who like the idea of running a virtual baseball franchise as well as re-creating realistic statistical contests.
The first version was released in May 1999, with the help of Sean Lahman who sold the game through his website www.baseball1.com. The initial version of the game was very promising and received outstanding ratings from several online gaming sites.
That same year, Steve Kuffrey teamed up with Markus Heinsohn after Sean Lahman changed jobs, and both worked together to develop the second version of Out of the Park Baseball, which had become known simply as OOTP within the growing game community. OOTP 2 was released in April 2000, and the fan base started to grow rapidly. The breakthrough release came one year later, when the constantly evolving and always improving OOTP 3 received outstanding reviews and became the game to beat in the baseball simulation world.
Not satisfied, the OOTP team wanted to make the simulation/role-playing game even better, no small task improving on a game that had already won multiple awards. Nevertheless, the baseball and gaming community helped the developers with constant suggestions, ideas and new concepts, and becoming (in the process) the most vital force behind the game.
OOTP 4 was released in 2002, and became the all time best rated PC baseball game (courtesy of gamerankings.com). Infogrames published the game under the name Season Ticket Baseball in the years 2001 and 2002, but the product became an industry casualty when other sports product in Infogrames’ line fell short of expectations.
In 2003 the next major step in the evolution of OOTP was made. With the help of professional graphics designer Aurelio Barrios, the game became better than ever and remains the undisputed king of baseball simulation games. The community of OOTP meanwhile grew to several thousand fans who meet and discuss the game, and sports in general, in the ever-growing Out of the Park Developments forums.
History of Title Bout Championship Boxing
Title Bout Championship Boxing is the latest rendition of a professional boxing simulation that dates back to the highly successful and current cult classic board game, Title Bout: The Game of Professional Boxing, produced by Avalon Hill Game Company.
In 1976 Jim and Tom Trunzo began selling their board game boxing simulation, under the auspices of Jim Barnes' Statis-Pro Games, a humble effort simply called Professional Boxing debuted with fifty rated heavyweights. Enough interest was shown in the neophyte product to encourage the 1977release of a mail order product entitled Truco Championship Boxing, which contained over 200 rated fighters from boxing's eight main divisions.
However, the first major step in the boxing simulation came when Avalon Hill decided to launch a line of sports games to complement its prestigious line of war board games. Produced and marketed by Avalon Hill under the Sports Illustrated banner, Title Bout: The Game of Championship Boxing went on sell in 1979. The release of the Avalon Hill game resulted in both critical acclaim and tens of thousands of sells. The Title Bout board game remained a solid seller for most of its twelve year run with Avalon Hill.
In 1991, with board games giving way to computer games, Avalon Hill began to do a major restructuring of their business and decided to cutback and attempt a return to their war game roots and pursue a broader market by producing family-oriented games. The rights to Title Bout reverted to Jim and Tom Trunzo, who promptly entered into an agreement with Lance Haffner Games and converted the Title Bout board game into a DOS computer product called TKO Pro Boxing. The relationship with Lance Haffner Games was again, quite profitable and commercially successful for a period of four years.
By 1995, DOS products were basically obsolete and the Trunzo's amicably ended their relationship with Lance Haffner Games and embarked on their own attempt to market their product via their own company Comp-U-Sports. Title Fight Pro Boxing, a Windows-based and improved version of TKO Pro Boxing, entered the market in 1996 and became a finalist in Computer Gaming World's "Sports Game of the Year" competition. Considering that Title Fight was the result of a three-man effort (the brothers and a single programmer) and was competing against major companies like Electronic Arts and Sierra-Online, making it to the finals was a tremendous achievement.
Two years later Comp-U-Sports hooked their wagon to what they believed would be a shooting star by entering into an agreement with one of the major players in sports simulations, APBA. In 1979, APBA released both a computer version and a board game version of the Trunzo's boxing simulation, APBA Pro Boxing. Unfortunately for all involved, APBA over-extended itself and within eighteen months, declared bankruptcy via Chapter 11. In a pre-trial settlement, the Trunzo's exchanged significant unpaid royalties for the game rights to their boxing simulation.
Comp-U-Sports picked up where it had left off in 1995 and continued to product updated versions of its product, selling it via the Internet, for the most part. In 2001, the last significant version of the computer boxing simulation manifested itself on CD-ROM, Title Fight 2001. That product, which sold almost 2000 copies in a little over a year, brought about the current relationship between Comp-U-Sports and Out of the Park Developments, which will produce and market the most sophisticated and ambitious version of the game yet, Title Bout Championship Boxing.
Mission
The goals of Out of the Park Developments are both simple and attainable. We are going to concentrate on elevating our sports simulation games to the highest possible level, covering all aspects of the respective sports and supporting the simulations to the fullest.
All simulations produced by Out of the Park Developments will continue to mature on a regular basis. Each sport will be subject to constant scrutiny and as new technology emerges, it will be applied to existing products to make them more accurate, more enjoyable and easier to play than prior versions.
Support will be provided in a number of ways, including but not limited to actively supported fan boards, content-driven websites, free downloads and patches and certainly new versions of the products as they evolve. New products that are developed will be directly related to the the respective sport, not an entirely new sport simulation. For example, Title Bout Championship Boxing might be augmented by a computerized boxing encyclopedia; Out of the Park Baseball might add a head-to-head internet play option. Whatever is produced in addition to the simulations themselves will be designed to enhance the main product.
Support also means that our customers will have easy access to us and be able to count on speedy resolution to any products. We respect our customers. Certainly we depend upon them for our livelihood; however, our customers are much more than just a source of income. Those of us who comprise Out of the Park Developments take great pride in our simulations. The products have been born out of a love of sports and games and you, our customers, are both our judge and jury, determining the level of our success and passing a verdict with your purchases or lack of same.
In addition, you inspire us with new ideas, constructive criticisms and detailed suggestions. We, as developers, would be fool-hardy to ignore such a valuable resource. The collective voice of our fan base is a powerful motivator. It is a tremendous ego boost, on one hand, and, ironically, a source of humility on the other. Your praise and satisfaction make us want to improve our products even more; your sanctions and criticisms keep us grounded and make us realize that there is always something that can be added, something that can be done better.
To reiterate, Out of the Park Developments has returned to its roots. While our product line may consist of only a few titles, those titles will be continually evolving via constant improvement, customer support and ancillary enhancements.
