No Japanese Baseball Updates

[ehalt]

Lots of fun new features in OOTP24 according to today's trailer. For people who play perfect team, fictional leagues, or stick strictly to MLB, it looks like a great product. I'm very happy for all of you who fit into that category.

But have those of us who play OOTP as a world baseball simulator (which I would imagine is a larger group than usual in a World Baseball Classic year) been forgotten? The whole "world baseball" thing doesn't really work when the second-best league in the world no longer exists in the game.

I held out hope that the decision to delete Japanese baseball (seems like the league name is still censored) from OOTP23 was due to a desire not to pay for a license for the final few months of the game's life cycle. I thought that there was a meaningful chance that the league would return to the game for OOTP24. But I see no mention of that in the announcement. Are world baseball fans simply out of luck?

[BusterKing]

We don't know all the details involved so if you are not willing to move past that problem this new release may not be for you.

[PoopyJoe69]

Originally Posted by ehalt

Lots of fun new features in OOTP24 according to today's trailer. For people who play perfect team, fictional leagues, or stick strictly to MLB, it looks like a great product. I'm very happy for all of you who fit into that category.

But have those of us who play OOTP as a world baseball simulator (which I would imagine is a larger group than usual in a World Baseball Classic year) been forgotten? The whole "world baseball" thing doesn't really work when the second-best league in the world no longer exists in the game.

I held out hope that the decision to delete Japanese baseball (seems like the league name is still censored) from OOTP23 was due to a desire not to pay for a license for the final few months of the game's life cycle. I thought that there was a meaningful chance that the league would return to the game for OOTP24. But I see no mention of that in the announcement. Are world baseball fans simply out of luck?

Even if they had wanted to pay for the licensing fees, there is a real chance OOTP literally was not able to. Other games can have an exclusive licensing deal with these sports leagues i.e. Madden with the NFL for over a decade. It's not always a matter of willpower and financial considerations, it literally sometimes cannot happen. It sucks, and I'm disappointed, but at the end of the day there's no point in relitigating the facts of the situation.

[ehalt]

It probably isn't for me and for players like me if that's the case, which would be very sad. I'm hoping to see the issue officially addressed soon.

[ehalt]

Originally Posted by PoopyJoe69

Even if they had wanted to pay for the licensing fees, there is a real chance OOTP literally was not able to.

"Literally was not able to" doesn't exist in the world of business and contracts. It's always, "chose not to spend the money to." Contracts can be renegotiated.

But as you said, there's no point in relitigating the facts of the situation. The point of this thread wasn't to go back to arguing about the OOTP23 bug again. It's to ask whether or not we can expect the issue to be addressed in OOTP24.

[nutt]

There are people in this world who think they are privied into knowing everything or the answer to a question that either one or someone/something is not privy enough to know.

If you can't let sleeping dogs lie and figure it out for yourself (or you don't have the brain power to do so, whichever), then this is not for you and stop being so anti-negative towards those who work for them or want to use the software.

[UltimateAverageGuy]

How did people survive without the Japanese leagues before they were implemented?

[ehalt]

Originally Posted by nutt

There are people in this world who think they are privied into knowing everything or the answer to a question that either one or someone/something is not privy enough to know.

If you can't let sleeping dogs lie and figure it out for yourself (or you don't have the brain power to do so, whichever), then this is not for you and stop being so anti-negative towards those who work for them or want to use the software.

What a fascinating response. I'm writing on the forum of a computer game to ask whether or not a question related to the new edition of that computer game will be answered by the developers of said computer game. If this isn't the correct place to ask such a question, what is?

If you are uninterested in the answer to the question posed by this thread, you could simply exit the thread without commenting. The world does not, in fact, need to hear your thoughts on every topic.

[ehalt]

Originally Posted by UltimateAverageGuy

How did people survive without the Japanese leagues before they were implemented?

Most people "survived" just fine, because most play MLB-only. That is a perfectly valid way to play, and I'm happy for everyone in that group that they'll get a new game with some neat new features next month. I don't mean for this post to be denigrating those players in any way, despite the odd defensiveness coming from one or two people. The rest of OOTP is in excellent shape.

Those of who are world baseball fans survived before and will survive again going forward, but I'm pretty sure discussing ways to get around the removal isn't allowed on this forum, so I'm not going to get into that just in case.

[eriqjaffe]

*** being omitted shouldn't surprise anybody.

Well, none of this thread should surprise anybody, but there you go.

[Sweed]

I think the lack of any mention in the newsletter speaks volumes. The horse is dead until you see a laboratory clone on the horizon. That's just my opinion, FWIW.

But if one wants to ask, go ahead. What I hope is since there is this thread about the subject we can keep the conversation here? The team will either come in here and answer or not.

Part of the problem before was some (not saying the OP of this thread) jumping into every thread and knowingly being a nuisance.

The question has been asked in a civil manner. Nobody has come on to delete or lock this thread or anything so far. Maybe we can keep it that way?

[nutt]

Originally Posted by Sweed

I think the lack of any mention in the newsletter speaks volumes. The horse is dead until you see a laboratory clone on the horizon. That's just my opinion, FWIW.

But if one wants to ask, go ahead. What I hope is since there is this thread about the subject we can keep the conversation here? The team will either come in here and answer or not.

Part of the problem before was some (not saying the OP of this thread) jumping into every thread and knowingly being a nuisance.

The question has been asked in a civil manner. Nobody has come on to delete or lock this thread or anything so far. Maybe we can keep it that way?

Somebody gets exactly what I said! Others not so much.

[ehalt]

Originally Posted by Sweed

I think the lack of any mention in the newsletter speaks volumes. The horse is dead until you see a laboratory clone on the horizon. That's just my opinion, FWIW.

But if one wants to ask, go ahead. What I hope is since there is this thread about the subject we can keep the conversation here? The team will either come in here and answer or not.

Part of the problem before was some (not saying the OP of this thread) jumping into every thread and knowingly being a nuisance.

The question has been asked in a civil manner. Nobody has come on to delete or lock this thread or anything so far. Maybe we can keep it that way?

Thanks. Trying to keep things civil and on-topic as well.

Agreed that the silence is telling, and pretty worrying. I'm sure the devs have seen the call for some sort of response by now. It's disappointing to not see one. I (and seemingly many others) would have greatly preferred one after the initial decision to delete data from existing saves, but when that didn't happen, I assumed one would be coming with the OOTP24 announcement.

I sure hope that the intended tack isn't simply to hope the complainers eventually get bored, but it's looking more and more like that's the case. That's no way to treat some of your most loyal customers. Then again, neither was deliberately bugging our saves.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by ehalt

"Literally was not able to" doesn't exist in the world of business and contracts. It's always, "chose not to spend the money to." Contracts can be renegotiated.

OOTP literally doesn't have the money to get the Japanese baseball league to break its exclusivity deal with Konami. Literally. They don't have that money and they can't scrounge it up. I know this because Football Manager, a far, far larger title, did not have the money to do that when Japan and their weirdo copyright laws came after them either.

[Cole]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

OOTP literally doesn't have the money to get the Japanese baseball league to break its exclusivity deal with Konami. Literally. They don't have that money and they can't scrounge it up. I know this because Football Manager, a far, far larger title, did not have the money to do that when Japan and their weirdo copyright laws came after them either.

This. So much.

I don't really understand why after all that happened a few weeks ago with a pretty clear quick and decisive cease fire on anything Japanese league related, that anyone would expect that the new game announcement would have anything different.

I truly do feel for those who are impacted by this, but as the OP even mentioned, it's a fractional, fractional version of the total player base who are impacted.

As mentioned, most players are MLB only, and I'd even suggest that a larger % plays fictional only (thus can craft a different Japanese league if need be), than there are those who hardcore require that league license to enjoy their game world.

[PocketsAintFull]

It's done, let's move on

[ehalt]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

OOTP literally doesn't have the money to get the Japanese baseball league to break its exclusivity deal with Konami. Literally. They don't have that money and they can't scrounge it up. I know this because Football Manager, a far, far larger title, did not have the money to do that when Japan and their weirdo copyright laws came after them either.

You do not in fact "know" this, unless you've seen their finances. You suspect it. And that's fine. It's a reasonable suspicion, even if I happen to disagree with it. But let's not pretend to know things that we don't.

It also changes nothing about OOTP's culpability with regards to selling unlicensed data. It just pushes it back a few years to before Konami signed the exclusive deal. I don't think it's relevant to the topic of this thread, which is the fact that OOTP gave no indications for their plans regarding Japanese baseball for their new game. Those of us who care about Japanese baseball would like some answers before we decide whether to purchase. A relitigation of a contract none of us has seen isn't particularly helpful.

[ehalt]

Originally Posted by Cole

This. So much.
I truly do feel for those who are impacted by this, but as the OP even mentioned, it's a fractional, fractional version of the total player base who are impacted.

As mentioned, most players are MLB only, and I'd even suggest that a larger % plays fictional only (thus can craft a different Japanese league if need be), than there are those who hardcore require that league license to enjoy their game world.

It may well be a fractional portion of the player base who care, but members of that fraction are allowed to ask share our concerns, aren't we? It's frustrating how many people are coming into this thread with some version of, "This issue doesn't effect me, so it shouldn't effect you." (Not that you're among that group.)

Some portion of the player base clearly does care about world baseball and knows enough about baseball outside the US to have our immersion hurt by random fake Japanese players coming stateside instead of Munetaka Murakami and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. I would imagine that same subset of the players also skews heavily towards those who have bought the game every year for a decade or more. I would have hoped that being a loyal customer would make our complaints at least worthy of a response from the company, but it seems that's not the case.

[Cole]

Originally Posted by ehalt

It may well be a fractional portion of the player base who care, but members of that fraction are allowed to ask share our concerns, aren't we? It's frustrating how many people are coming into this thread with some version of, "This issue doesn't effect me, so it shouldn't effect you." (Not that you're among that group.)

Even though it doesn't impact me, I 100% commiserate for those who it does.

And I do believe the company should come out and mention/confirm that there will be no Japanese league in the game, just to put it to bed.

Although, as others have surmised, it's pretty clear without it being explicitly said, that that is the case.

[ehalt]

Originally Posted by Cole

Even though it doesn't impact me, I 100% commiserate for those who it does.

And I do believe the company should come out and mention/confirm that there will be no Japanese league in the game, just to put it to bed.

Although, as others have surmised, it's pretty clear without it being explicitly said, that that is the case.

Thanks. And I have similarly low hopes.