OOTP Developments Forums - OOTP and Sega part company!

Hello everyone,

We have some big news to announce today. Effective immediately, OOTP Developments and SEGA have agreed to part company, so OOTP is no longer part of SEGA/Sports Interactive. Click here for a link to Sports Interactive's press release on this topic.

OOTP Developments originally partnered with Sports Interactive several years ago. Sports Interactive was subsequently purchased by SEGA. Any such purchase brings with it a degree of uncertainty, so, the possibility of OOTP becoming independent again was one that we had been aware of for some time. Luckily, the split has been entirely friendly, and we have nothing but the deepest respect and thanks for everyone at Sports Interactive and SEGA who helped make OOTP what it is today! We really feel that this experience has helped us grow both as game developers and business men.

We can't stress strongly enough that this split does not mean that Out of the Park Baseball will be going away! We're tremendously proud of OOTPB 2007 and the excellent reviews and feedback we've received this year, and much of that is thanks to our wonderful community. We're going to continue improving the game and listening to all of your excellent suggestions.

Again, we'd like to express our profound thanks to the SEGA and Sports Interactive team for all of their hard work making OOTPB 2007 a success, especially Marc Duffy! We'll miss you around here, don't be a stranger!

Finally, we will also be sending out a mass e-mail newsletter tomorrow, that will have some additional interesting news! We'll post it here on the forums, as well.

The OOTP Developments Team

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We know this news has probably raised a lot of questions. Here are some answers to questions we suppose will be foremost in your minds after this news. Please feel free to ask us any further questions as well, and we'll do our best to respond!

Q: Does this mean the death of OOTP?
A: Categorically NOT! OOTP Developments still owns the code for the game, and we will absolutely continue to develop Out of the Park Baseball. In fact, we are already discussing next year's feature set. We will be going back to our earlier naming convention, so the next release will be called "OOTP 9".

Q: Will the look and feel of OOTP change?
A: Not necessarily. Along with the game code, we are free to continue with the current platform (Whew! No rewrite! ). However, we can, of course, choose the direction of the product going forward. Generally, we expect to stay with the current look and feel for the forseeable future, continuing to work on improving the interface and making the best baseball simulation possible.

Q: Will the forums/web site change?
A: We suspect there will be some minor changes to the forums, but overall they will remain the same. Some of the branding on the sites will change, of course, as we will need to replace pages that were specific to SEGA or SI, etc. Reorganization stuff, mostly. Same with the forums.

Q: Who is in OOTP Developments now?
At this time, just Markus Heinsohn and Andreas Raht. Among the other folks you see around here, Marc Duffy is part of Sports Interactive, and everyone else are forum members and volunteers.

Q: How will this change support / my licenses?
A: Effectively, not at all. PC licenses will continue to be handled by e-License, and Mac by eSellerate. All of your existing licenses remain valid, and we will continue to handle support through our forums. The main difference is that we will no longer escalate issues through Marc Duffy, who is part of Sports Interactive.

Q: Did SEGA/SI dump you because sales were bad?
A: No! As SI mentioned in their press release, circumstances beyond the team's control prevented SI from taking OOTP where they wanted it to go. Ultimately, after the acquisition of SI by SEGA, the goals of the two groups just diverged to the point where separating made more sense for both organizations.

Q: What are the plans for OOTP 2007?
A: We hope to release the third patch just as soon as we can verify that it's really stable. It's tough to push that out the door, because we always want to squash just one more bug! Barring any major problems, that will be the final patch for the OOTP 2007 product. After that point, we'll be working mainly on the next release.

Q: When will the next version be released?
A: We haven't quite decided on that, but the intent is certainly to release the next version around spring 2008. No promises yet! Whether we shoot for Spring Training or a slightly different timeline has yet to be determined, but at this point we reserve the right to change the timeline entirely and NOT be told that "We said it would be Spring!"

Q: What plans are there for the next version?
We want to continue to refine OOTP to build a simpler, more accessible game, without giving up the depth and customizability that are OOTP's hallmarks. Of course, we will also be looking carefully at the possibility of built-in MLB rosters next year. We'll be going through all of your excellent suggestions and making some decisions about where we'd like to take the next version of the game. As with every year, we expect to implement some fundamental changes in game play along with some bells and whistles. We still intend on supporting our main user groups as best we can - online, historical, fictional, play-by-players, etc. We'll also be looking into the possibility of placing OOTP in stores next year.

As we mentioned, feel free to post back with additional questions. We'll do our best to answer them openly!

Thanks very much,

The OOTP Developments Team