OOTP 9 Now Available via Steam!
 

Hi everyone!

Out of the Park Developments is proud to announce that OOTP 9 is now available for PC users through Steam, in addition to the standard digital download from OOTP.

If you're not aware of Steam, Steam is a 15+ million-person gaming community and digital game distribution system. See here for more information about Steam. Getting OOTP in front of that large community can only be a good thing for OOTP, and that means it's good for our customers!

To purchase OOTP through Steam, go to Steam's OOTP 9 page. The price on Steam is $39.99, just as when buying from us.

The game is identical on the Steam platform, and of course, if you already own the game like most of the people on the forums do, there's no additional value in buying it through Steam. We just wanted to let you know that we now offer this distribution method as well!

Thanks very much,

OOTP Developments

Hopefully this will attract more people. Good luck and continued success.

Well lets hope it helps - its all over the steam site at the moment - someone must stumble onto it!!:rolleyes:

Sorry, I dont know much about steam. Is this a replacement for e-license? Or do you still have to work with e-license after buying it from steam?

Thanks

No, they are two separate entities.
In order to play the game after purchasing it from Steam your PC MUST be connected to the internet. The game is validated each time you launch it.

In the age of broadband this is not a big deal but some people still haveproblems with that aspect of the service.

Thanks.

From what I have read on the Steam website, it sounds like you can play the game on any computer, it just uses your user name from Steam. So it sounds like you no longer have to worry about transaction numbers and un-licensing during formats.

Battists,

Not sure if you or the other members of the company are willing to comment, but which service do you make more of a profit on? For a potiental customer like myself, it really doesn't matter to me if I get it from Steam or E-License. I would prefer to get it from the location that puts more money in Markus' pocket.

Yes exactly
But you must have the Steam software on the PC that you intend to play the game on

I was a late convert to the service but I now see it as a superior way to buy PC games. One cool thing is that if your connection is fast enough you can begin playing the game as soon as your download begins and never have stop playing as the game downloads.

Wow, that is cool

Battists,

Have you guys considered selling your game on Impulse? It's a similar service like Steam from Stardock. They sell a lot of indie (but high-quality) games which I think would be a better fit for a text-based baseball sim. The biggests sellers on their service is Galactic Civilizations II and Sins Of A Solar Empire which already has a big turn-based/strategy audience.

Steam is great, but the audience there is really focused on action games and shooters like Team Fortress 2 and Half-Life 2. I just think the Stardock audience would be more receptive to a nice deep sim game like this one.

E-License puts more money in OOTP Dev's pockets today.

Steam could crack open a new market.

This sounds like a good idea to me too. I hope it's being looked into.

Excellent question!

I'm confused. Does Steam require you to be connected to the internet whenever you want to play OOTP or not? Reading their site it sounds like it does, but that's crazy to me. Surely you must only have to connect once.

I hope that whenever OOTP advertises that they're available on Steam that they note that as well, like the first post in this thread. Unless, of course, they don't want to twinge the nose of the Steam guys.

Impulse is horrible right now. Bug ridden and largely pointless.

Seriously, you're better off with Steam. Not to mention games on Impulse (or Stardock Central as it used to be) are routinely more expensive.

And I believe the requirement to be actually online in Steam varies from game to game. You CAN play games in "offline" mode, but I've not had cause to try that in a very long time now.

I love Steam. Been using it for 3 years now. Makes it entirely too easy to spend money on games:)

Ugh @ Steam. If it's still as FJ stated having my system always having to be online and yet more software runnign all the time? Blah. :(

Yeah, I certainly didn't want to broadcast it in a big post, which seems unnecessarily aggressive, but we do make more money if you buy from us directly (i.e. with eLicense). Which is fine, really, because the point of Steam for us isn't to move sales from our existing customer base to Steam, but rather to reach a larger audience.

If it behaves the same as other games on Steam, you won't have to be connected everytime you want to play OOTP. You would, however, have to explicitly set Steam to off-line mode first.

Don't take this at 100% accurate though. I pre-ordered my copy of OOTP 9 :)

Bug ridden? I haven't had an issue yet. After I installed it, Impulse immediately found and registered all my previous Stardock games. I haven't had an issue yet. I don't doubt that some people have issues with it, but then again, so do some Steam users.

As for the cost, I'm sure part of the issue between Steam and Impulse is that the guys at Stardock don't have the pull with major publishers that Valve does, so it's likely harder for them to secure deals. On the flipside, the audience with Impulse is a lot more used to strategy and sim games and since Stardock is very indie-focused, they also would have a higher tolerance for the relatively sedate pace of OOTP.

Both venues would be a great way to expand the market for OOTP.

Steam Update?
 

When will the 9.0.27 update be available for Steam? I noticed the Steam version is still at 9.0.26.

Apologies, since we're new to Steam, we're just trying to work through the best way to update. I suspect it will be out there today, but we're in a little bit of uncharted territory right now!

Just wanted to thank you for offering the game on Steam. Never heard of it before I saw it yesterday on the news page, bought it after reading a couple of the reviews.

Very fun so far, and it looks like you have a good community here as well :)

Be afraid. Your life is now over.

Still no patch?
 

It's been almost a week since the release of the patch and it's still not available via Steam. Ordinarily I prefer to purchase my games on Steam but I am sorely regretting that decision with OOTP.

Apologies, I'm working on this as we speak, trying to get this straightened out. I don't think this will be indicative of how things work going forward, just hit a minor coordination snafu!

Damn, still no patch on Steam. I just bought the game on Steam and realized it was 9.0.26 and try to do the uninstall thing then realized when it asked for a license that I had to wait for the patch on Steam. Guess I just have to sweat it out :(

The Steam patch will be ready today I think... it takes a few days longer since they need to set it up properly. Sorry for the delay!

The patched version should now be live on Steam, and it includes the updated MLB roster set that Markus posted about recently.

We apologize for the delay in getting this out on Steam. We don't anticipate this being an issue going forward, although there may end up being some lag (not this much!), due to the need to coordinate with Steam and test on their system.

Please let us or Steam know if you have any problems patching.

Thanks!

Steve

Sweat...steam...hah. Nice :)

HAH! i remember when valve first created steam like 5 or 6 years years ago (i used to be a HUGE TFC nut) was terrible back then, since a lot of ppl still had dial-up. was much better to connect to servers directly through the console of games.

however, as time went on, steam has really improved quite a bit, and last i heard was that steam was going to upgrade the way Devs are able to update their games. i didnt know all the jargon that was used in describing the process, but it seemed to make a good friend of mine pretty excited for some reason....(me no programmer...:rant:)

Which introduces two more variables that could prevent me from playing OOTP when (and where) I want to, besides the current condition of my laptop: 1) Availability of Internet service; I play OOTP anywhere I go with my laptop now, whereas with Steam I would be confined to the radius of my wireless transmitter, and that's assuming my ISP is not having any problems, and 2) Availability of the Steam web site, which could be an issue any time in the short-run and is definitely a question for the long-term; I have seen too many web sites and Internet-based companies come and go to be comfortable putting all my eggs in such a basket.

That software comment brings up another issue. I feel confident after several years of dealing with OOTP that any technical problems that I encounter, if they are common enough, will eventually be addressed. Also, OOTP has never caused a conflict on my computer with any other software. Can the same be said of Steam?

I'm glad for this, in both respects. I hope that you will never abandon the traditional PC-resident program design, however. Even if Steam allows you to save your league locally, what would be the point of that if the game were to be accessible only online? I don't think I could ever trust that situation.

then dont buy the game through steam. just buy it how you have always traditionally bought it....from the devs themselves. They're only making it an otion to buy from steam, just to get the name out there where there are literally millions of users on steam.

Agreed. I'm just a worrywart, projecting a future that may not occur. :o

Stupid Question.

I bought the game through Steam. How do I add my online league files to the game?? I can't find any folders for it. It loads through steam so I can't seem to find any of the regular folders that go along with the game.

When I click properties on my OOTP shortcut it says the path location is "C:\Program Files\Steam\Steam.exe" -applaunch 17600

Your folders for OOTP should be in:

c:\program files\steam\steamapps\common\out of the park baseball 9\data

So, saved games should be placed in:

c:\program files\steam\steamapps\common\out of the park baseball 9\data\saved_game\yourleaguename.lg

Is this what you're asking?

Thanks!

So far steam has dropped the ball on this one. Now after waiting a few days for them to put the update on, I can't even get my OOTP to open. #steamui_joindialog_sap_requestfailed_text pops up when i launch it

How are sales through Steam?

I hate Steam. Even though I have The Orange Box disc, I have to open the game through Steam and they wont let me start the game if I am not online. And then there are the annoying Steam pop up ads. I hope OOTP 10 doesnt include a mandatory launching of Steam.