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I have read and watched (and very occasionally posted) in these forums...
I really believe that OOTP is a very good product and offers an incredible value. I am looking forward to playing around with v12. I also think Markus is great and therefore deserves my support weather I barely play his game or not (we need to support a person who puts forth as good of service to his customers as he does)...
With that said I do believe that there is a bit of a mis-conception or mis-understanding in these forums. OOTP is an excellent game, however it is certainly not the only player in the baseball simulation market. In actuality it is probably one of the smaller players.... it was mentioned in a thread that I read the other day that it owns the baseball sim market, and out sells all others by a long way.... (can't remember the exact words but this was the meaning of the post)...
Outsells SOM... even though I would never purchase another one of their products after being a customer for over 30 years, I can say in very certain terms that they out sell OOTP probably at the very least 10-1. If you visit other baseball simulation companies forums you would find out very quickly that OOTP is hardly ever even mentioned, let alone discussed as a real competitor. I am not saying that it does not deserve to be, because it does.
I was reading a thread from a gentleman looking to switch off of DMB after many many years because the game has become stagnate and the future for the company is very cloudy. Action PC! and SOM were the two most often discussed. OOTP was not mentioned at all, until I mentioned that if a replay game is what he was looking for than Action PC! should be the front runner, but if a financial model, career type, or fictional simulation is what he was after than he should investigate OOTP.
My point is that I believe OOTP is a great game but I seriously believe that Markus is missing the boat, and missing moving to that next level (as some have mentioned in this thread) by being so delinquent in the yearly releases. It appears from what has been posted a few post back, late May, June releases are the norm. This is straight out missing the boat for new customers. The perennial customer that buys every year is used to and has grown accustomed to this release schedule. New fans/potential customers are hot for a new Baseball game in March and early April... by not having OOTP available at this time a huge number of potential customers are lost.
I have no solution other than to suggest upping his schedule to begin work on the new version far earlier. Yes he may pick up some customers from the iOOTP app; however even that may be too late to hit the market to have the impact that was desired. I do not claim to know all, however I do have some experience, education, training, etc. in this field. I do wish him the best but I do believe he is missing the boat.
The OOTP name should be discussed in other forums along with other games. A lot of sales are gained in this manor. I was actually lucky to stumble upon OOTP because I was looking for something different, and even then I only found mention of it a couple of times (and I looked for quit some time).
Therefore, I suggest; instead of non-stop defending OOTP and the delinquent release schedule you may want to really think as to why OOTP has not moved to a higher status. I do not believe it is the game and certainly it is not Markus' handling of customer service.
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