Exclusive Rights

[mjvbosox]

The ownership of exclusive rights of MLBPA or MLB (or NFL, NBA or NHL for that matter) by any one entity should be illegal and busted up like monopolies in order to protect the consumer, and MLB 2K9 is a perfect example. It eliminates healthy competition and customer choice and prevents companies from producing the best quality product possible. 2KSports is making a killing on MLB 2K9 for PC -- a broken game -- BECAUSE it is only $20 and we're starved for a baseball game and have no other options. We should be just as angry at Major League Baseball for entering into an exclusive contract as we are at 2K for making such a half-@ssed game.

[MarkB]

OK...and why are you posting this here? I mean, I partly agree, but I don't see how the MLB 2K9 support forum is the place to post it.

[Yankee4Life]

Well, originally he was going to put it in the dynasty thread but he had a change of heart. :lol:

[mjvbosox]

lol, I really couldn't find a proper place for it, so I just picked what seemed like a close fit...

[ELOSO]

I agree with you on the monopoly concept to a point.

I paid 15 bucks for my copy because I had a 5 dollar coupon to use at Best Buy. Even if I paid 20 bucks, I wouldn't feel ripped off like I feel when I buy a 50 dollar game that is broken. Most PC games don't work perfectly out of the box these days. It is a problem in the software entertainment industry that won't go away any time soon. There are way too many PC configurations out there to test everything.

Getting back to the monopoly concept. Lets say there are 3 or 4 companies each making a MLB game. Now I have to take a look at all of the reviews (which have the potential to be biased) and choose one game or worse yet buy all of them and be out 100 bucks or more because they'll all be different in one way or another.

[Wicked420]

I agree with you on the monopoly concept to a point.

I paid 15 bucks for my copy because I had a 5 dollar coupon to use at Best Buy. Even if I paid 20 bucks, I wouldn't feel ripped off like I feel when I buy a 50 dollar game that is broken. Most PC games don't work perfectly out of the box these days. It is a problem in the software entertainment industry that won't go away any time soon. There are way too many PC configurations out there to test everything.

Getting back to the monopoly concept. Lets say there are 3 or 4 companies each making a MLB game. Now I have to take a look at all of the reviews (which have the potential to be biased) and choose one game or worse yet buy all of them and be out 100 bucks or more because they'll all be different in one way or another.

The problem isn't technical problems with the PC's for most games though, it is errors in the actual program.

For instance, a 3B who just stands there and doesn't make the play in 2K9 has nothing to do with your system, it's the game itself.

Most games these days have some minor PC compatibility problems but they are almost always fixed in a patch, the other errors are not.

They definitely need to get rid of the exclusive rights BS, I've been saying this for a long time. Companies NEED competition to put out a decent product.

[HaloFan]

The ownership of exclusive rights of MLBPA or MLB (or NFL, NBA or NHL for that matter) by any one entity should be illegal and busted up like monopolies in order to protect the consumer, and MLB 2K9 is a perfect example. It eliminates healthy competition and customer choice and prevents companies from producing the best quality product possible. 2KSports is making a killing on MLB 2K9 for PC -- a broken game -- BECAUSE it is only $20 and we're starved for a baseball game and have no other options. We should be just as angry at Major League Baseball for entering into an exclusive contract as we are at 2K for making such a half-@ssed game.

Are you also saying that MLB shouldn't be allowed to sell their broadcast rights to individual stations because it's a monopoly? Maybe another station could do a better job at covering a game, but I'm stuck watching it on a crappy channel.

This isn't a monopoly, MLB has every right to sell off their property to the highest bidder. 2K9 might be the only PC baseball game, but it's not the only PC game, and it's not the only baseball game. And there's nothing stopping other companies from producing baseball games, they'd just have to do it without the MLB license. That's how High Heat started, and I remember playing the Hardball series years ago which also lacked the license until its final versions. Throw some blame towards EA for not continuing to make MVP without MLB. They decided to move it to a college game, which was the wrong direction. Make it with fake teams and players, and let the modders make it real. Nothing stopping them from making real stadiums (other than name changes I suppose).

But they didn't do that because those games don't sell anymore. But it's not a monopoly.

[CircleChange11]

The ownership of exclusive rights of MLBPA or MLB (or NFL, NBA or NHL for that matter) by any one entity should be illegal and busted up like monopolies in order to protect the consumer, and MLB 2K9 is a perfect example. It eliminates healthy competition and customer choice and prevents companies from producing the best quality product possible. 2KSports is making a killing on MLB 2K9 for PC -- a broken game -- BECAUSE it is only $20 and we're starved for a baseball game and have no other options. We should be just as angry at Major League Baseball for entering into an exclusive contract as we are at 2K for making such a half-@ssed game.

I agree completely. IMO, the High Heat series is what drove EA to well-develop MVP, ariving at MVP05.

The competition between High Heat, Hardball, and TPlay/MVP was healthy and resulted in very good games. No game has yet to replicate the outstanding trade AI/feature that High Heat had, where you would offer a player and receive a list of players from a team they'd be willing to give up and vice versa. They even came back with counter offers or "give me more" with a list for you to choose from.

The Hardball series was outcompeted with their flop (Hardball 6), but HH and MVP lost out to the exclusive rights thing.

Before that, Hardball and Sierra Front Page Sports were able to make high quality game with only the MLBPA licensing forcing them use made up team names, or just the city name. Of course, they didn;t have detailed jerseys back then, but Hardball came up with fantasy (goofy) logos for the teams.

[Yankee4Life]

I agree completely. IMO, the High Heat series is what drove EA to well-develop MVP, ariving at MVP05.

The competition between High Heat, Hardball, and TPlay/MVP was healthy and resulted in very good games. No game has yet to replicate the outstanding trade AI/feature that High Heat had, where you would offer a player and receive a list of players from a team they'd be willing to give up and vice versa. They even came back with counter offers or "give me more" with a list for you to choose from.

The Hardball series was outcompeted with their flop (Hardball 6), but HH and MVP lost out to the exclusive rights thing.

Before that, Hardball and Sierra Front Page Sports were able to make high quality game with only the MLBPA licensing forcing them use made up team names, or just the city name. Of course, they didn;t have detailed jerseys back then, but Hardball came up with fantasy (goofy) logos for the teams.

Those were the days!

Hey, and don't forget the Tony Larussa Baseball series that gave Hardball competition during that same time period. I loved Hardball 3 and Tony 2. I couldn't get enough of both of them.

[abc006]

The problem isn't necessarily a lack of good games, The Show being a prime example. That game looks absolutely amazing, I was watching videos of it for about half an hour yesterday, over and over. However, I don't have 400 bucks lying around to buy a PS3, so I'm never going to play it. If that game was just available for PC, we'd be in heaven. Though yes, if it was for PC, then that would up the competition for both of them, forcing 2k to make a decent game.