The future of OOTP Development games

[dave1927p]

OOTP Developement,

I am wondering what are your future business plans? Are you planning on doing any other simulation sports games in the near future.

You have mastered the baseball sim and i would kill for a OOTP Hockey simulation game. Please, please make a hockey sim. I think that it is alot bigger then many people think. EHM failed, not because of pirating but because NO-ONE knew about the game in Canada.

I have fallen in love with ootp9 and all of it's incredible features but all i think about when im playing ootp9 is, "how totally incredible this would be if it was hockey!" I love the interface and almost every little detail about the game and i think it would be fantastic to make other simulation games using the same interface and ideas as ootp9.

Please consider working on other sports games.

thanks,
dave

[Raderick]

My guess based on the past is that Markus doesn't want his company going back to being a multi-sport gaming company (see .400 Software Studios).

[kq76]

I think a hockey game in the fashion of OOTP would be fantastic too, but I think you have to consider that great games are often great only because the developers have a passion for the game. Markus, and many of the people here who help out wherever they can, have a passion for baseball. Does Markus have a passion for hockey? Maybe, maybe not, but I doubt it. Some here do and would probably help out where they could, but I don't think you can just decide to make a great game if you don't first have a passion for it.

[dave1927p]

Originally Posted by kq76

I think a hockey game in the fashion of OOTP would be fantastic too, but I think you have to consider that great games are often great only because the developers have a passion for the game. Markus, and many of the people here who help out wherever they can, have a passion for baseball. Does Markus have a passion for hockey? Maybe, maybe not, but I doubt it. Some here do and would probably help out where they could, but I don't think you can just decide to make a great game if you don't first have a passion for it.

thats a good point and im sure that is why ootp baseball is so sucessful. However Markus could hire more people and have someoone who has that some type of passion for hockey lead the project. Markus then could either check in with him and/or help him out. (or like Title Bout Championship Boxing) In order for that though OOTP will need to want to grow, hire more people but maybe they are content with just doing baseball

I know that this site is full of baseball fans but there are a ton of hockey fans out just dieing for a great simulation game.

i guess i'll just have to keep wishing for markus to make a hockey game.

I would love to hear if Markus will ever consider doing any other sporting games? but it seems that he is the only one with that answer.

[kq76]

Well, I was going to add into my post that OOTP could bring the EHM guys into their stable if they wanted to as they probably came the closest to a great hockey sim, but would that really make the game better? I don't know what the real fans of EHM thought, but I didn't like it (I'm Canadian BTW) because (last I checked it) you just couldn't customize it like you can OOTP. If the EHM guys joined OOTP would they really change their minds and make the game more like OOTP customizability-wise? I don't know, but I suspect that it wouldn't be easy so they'd probably resist it. Plus, just like Markus, every developer has a vision for their games and sometimes that vision doesn't appeal to as many people as they'd like. Markus makes lots of "design decisions" that just aren't very popular with a lot of people and while he gives in some times, he doesn't always. I'm sure that's the same for any developer. Anyway, I'm just not so sure that hiring others who do have the passion for that game would work. You have to have a similar vision as well. Markus could talk to them all they want, they would have to sincerely want to make the changes for it to end up being like OOTP.

That said, I got the sense that, from not just you, but from a lot of its fans that marketing better to the Canadian market alone would save the game. Would it really? There have got to be a whole heck of a lot more baseball (and futbol to compare with FM too) fans out there than hockey fans. And even then is hockey as well suited to a sim game as baseball is? I don't know, but I don't think so. With OOTP a big thing for a lot of us is poring over the stats. Hockey has stats, yes, but not nearly as many and not nearly as interesting. The great thing about hockey is watching the play, which is pretty similar to futbol IMO, but it just doesn't have the number of fans. It's not even close. The OOTP guys often bring up that times are tough with the dollar conversion. If the costs to make an OOTP hockey would be close to OOTP baseball, but it would have far fewer customers just because it has such a smaller fanbase, would it really be economically viable? I think that's the reason why SI dumped it in the first place. I don't think you could jack up the price to say 70$ and have a hope in hell that a lot of Canadians would buy it either. The price of OOTP is probably somewhere close to the price you'd have to make the hockey game as well.

Anyway, yeah, I'd love to see it, but I'm just not sure it's really that doable. Being with OOTP would probably help more than being with SI at this point because it probably got all the SI fans who are also hockey fans it could already while probably nowhere near as many of the OOTP and hockey fans as it could, but still. Yes, OOTP was under SI's umbrella for awhile too, but we didn't share the same forums so the people here were not exposed to EHM as much as the SI people were. If they kept the costs down, somehow effectively marketed it to Canada, and made it more customizable, then yeah, it might have a shot at being successful, but those are a lot of ifs and there are probably even more.

[Raderick]

A good hockey game is a good hockey game, it doesn't matter what production company is behind it. Putting the OOTP label on it doesn't automatically make it a good game.

[dave1927p]

.....the truth hurts. I guess there just has to be someone with a passion and the knoledge of programming to make the game. The complete customization is what i love about this game and i doubt too many companys would want to do that because it makes it harder to sell a new version every year because all the improvements are mostly small, but they do all add up.

I have to disagree with what you said about hockey stats because they are just as interesting as baseball, more so for hockey fans such as myself, but you are right about there isn't as many and you can't always go by stats in hockey. it's a little more unreliable then baseball stats.

Obviously just because if OOTP made a hockey game it won't mean it will be good but knowing markus work and dedication to ootp, he wouldn't want anything out with his companies name on it and it being bad or not of his liking.

Keep in mind though that alot of european countries love hockey too but I guess i should be hoping for the sport of hockey to keep growing in the USA and then, maybe someone will make a hockey sim.

[dave1927p]

one thing i don't understand at all is why do all text based sim companies make a boxing or wrestling game? Wrestling and boxing can't be a bigger market then hockey or even football.

[Bonedwarf]

That is very weird. I mean we have Title Bout on here. That's still under active development.

All I want is someone to make something on a par with HLS2. I don't really want to manage a team. I prefer to run the league and watch it unfold. I spent hours playing HLS2, just simming games and watching teams and players rise and fall.

[stevebydac]

I understand your disappointment. But it seems that there aren't many developers making text-based sim games. Never mind just hockey, consider pro football! There isn't a OOTP-quality game made for pro football, combining depth AND top-notch graphics. And pro football would seem to be a far more lucrative market than hockey.

I build simple little flash games, about 1/100th as complex as OOTP. Pray to your gaming gods that I become hugely successful, 'cause darn it I'll start building some of these games we all want in 5 or 10 years!

[Raderick]

Originally Posted by dave1927p

Obviously just because if OOTP made a hockey game it won't mean it will be good but knowing markus work and dedication to ootp, he wouldn't want anything out with his companies name on it and it being bad or not of his liking.

Keep in mind though that alot of european countries love hockey too but I guess i should be hoping for the sport of hockey to keep growing in the USA and then, maybe someone will make a hockey sim.

A hockey simulator requires a totally different developer with a totally different mindset of what makes a good simulator, and has a totally different mindset when it comes to the sport of hockey.

I personally thought Markus going to Sports Interactive was a disaster in the making, because I was under the impression that the SI crew wanted to make a baseball version of Football Manager instead of a baseball version of a baseball simulator (and I was correct on many levels). With that analogy in mind, it's best to make a hockey version of a hockey simulator rather than an hockey version of OOTP.

You kinda get what I'm saying?

Also, wrestling games (both console and text) has historically sold much much better than hockey games.

[AirmenSmith]

I think the next thing OOTP will have come out will be OOTP 10. I then hope ITP 2 will be soon after that or a feature in OOTP 10. One can hope.

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by dave1927p

However Markus could hire more people . . .

There comes a time in that process when a developer managing a small business becomes a manager running a software development company. I am sure that is a prime consideration for the future of OOTP Development.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by dave1927p

one thing i don't understand at all is why do all text based sim companies make a boxing or wrestling game? Wrestling and boxing can't be a bigger market then hockey or even football.

Everybody? OOTP Dev has Title Bout, which is based on a 30-year-old board game, and Grey Dog actually got started with their wrestling simulators. That's 2 companies, not "all". Gary Gorski hasn't created a wrestling/boxing sim that I know of (granted, he was on the Grey Dog team for a while after .400 collapsed and before he made his own label). Neither has Jim Gindin or the guy who makes the Action! PC series (whose name completely escapes me at the moment... argh, it's on the tip of my tongue). I hesitate to include Clay Dreslough in this list, but I don't think there's a Boxing Mogul just yet. SI doesn't have a boxing game and to my knowledge hasn't looked for one either. Right now they're back to concentrating on soccer.

I'm just not seeing this "all companies" thing. Right now there is one single career-based boxing sim on the market and a couple different types of career-based wrestling sims made by another company. Football for some reason hasn't built out the way baseball has, but even so this fall there should be 3 games there to go with one living basketball sim and two dead ones and 3 baseball games. Hockey is a much smaller sport in the US than those 3 but even so it had Eastside Hockey Manager for a while. Maybe, as others have said, if Canadians were to embrace hockey sims the way Americans embrace text-based baseball and the Brits embrace FM, you'd see a proliferation.

[Carplos]

Don't want to hijack, but is there a decent customizable basketball game yet? I'm starting to get into worldwide basketball a bit and am in the mood for a basketball sim, but not interested in one that is a pure NBA sim.

[Syd Thrift]

Draft Day Sports: Pro Basketball offers a number of different league sizes and you can, if you want to take the time, write your own schedule in Access format and use it. It won't allow you to expand just yet, there will always be a developmental league, and there is no way to expand the draft beyond two rounds, but if you're looking for a game that lets you use a scaled-down league, this is the game.

[javier_83]

i hope they do a manager boxing game with the tbcb simulator

[Cap]

Don't worry, guys. When I win the 6/49 millions I'll buy me a programmer or two and have them make us a hockey game....when they're not working on fixing Title Bout Boxing that is.

Cap

[dave1927p]

Originally Posted by Cap

Don't worry, guys. When I win the 6/49 millions I'll buy me a programmer or two and have them make us a hockey game....when they're not working on fixing Title Bout Boxing that is.

Cap

i bought a ticket today for the wednesday lottery and i was thinking the same thing lol (minus the title bout boxing that is) ....or perhaps i will buy an OHL team (bring one back to Hamilton) and experience the real thing lol

[Boom Boom]

I know that Clay Dreslough might be shopping Baseball Mogul Online. And Markus in a newsletter a while ago was talking about adding in OOTP Online.... could there be a marriage?