OOTP forced to remove NPB from OOTP23 + hosted mods
 

[OOTP Forums] NPB to be removed from OOTP via patch tomorrow due to licensing issues : OOTP

Basically, the NPB has noticed that you can do the NPB via OOTP, and has sent a cease and desist letter. They're being forced to remove the league from OOTP and not host any mods that would allow a NPB setup.

oh, bad news for team OOTP?

so sorry to hear

One can still setup their own it just can't be shipped with the game (as an unlicensed clone) nor mods supported on the official forums.

I think one could save, pre-patch, the current included NPB model as a template and move that forward to v24. Maybe you'd have to create a game in 23 and import? Then save again as a template to "keep it going"? Some users have already done this, NPB users will have to wait and see what comes of it.

Even if the template idea won't work there is nothing to stop one from manually recreating what OOTP already had. Modders have done bigger jobs with less information. If nobody steps up to do a mod? I guess that speaks a bit about interest and demand. ;)

Why the sarcasm? Seems like a good thing for the community if two people start a sports sim from scratch and build it into a a decent-sized company. I couldn't do it.

Obviously, the legal issues with various pro leagues are different because laws differ between countries. Although it sounds like the US is headed in that direction. Once that transition is complete, no more opportunity for small companies to become larger. This is bad news.

OOTP and NPB is just a bonus for people who love the NPB. I doubt it's a large percentage of their base and makes very little difference to their bottom line, but that's the kind of bonus you get when you build up a company and still care about the core community.

Why do I hold a grudge?

I won't ever know all the details, but my favorite software franchise of all time has effectively been killed by an apparent flirtation-then-desertion by this company. As far as I can tell, at least.

I don't know whether they properly bear 20% or 80% of the fault for this happening, but the whole still makes me disappointed. I am quite certain that I would have gotten a lot of enjoyment out of the pledged OOTP/FOF project, or alternatively just a new product from the old regime.

Instead we get neither and I am sad for that.

I appreciate the kind words. But they didn't kill FOF; they simply weren't able to allocate the resources necessary to help produce the next project. They weren't big enough. Any resulting killing is my own failure.

Let's face it, no new product with the interface approach I've been using would be worth releasing.

The only way this works for what I'm doing and for the community is if I'm ultimately able to work with a team that can commit those resources.

What was once a strength - that I was the only programmer on the project, knew every line of code - is a weakness today. And I'm reacting slower than I'd like to react because I'm getting old and I am paying the physical price for decades in front of a computer screen.

If OOTP breaks out the way FM broke out, we'll start seeing the products we want some day. But it is a race against the licensing - that kills competition and results in more saccharine products.

There's a significant audience of Japanese and Korean (especially the latter now that a Korean company owns the game) audience for the game and so even if they can't "host" it on their site, people could fork stuff and put it elsewhere. Really wild that NPB started to care, I guess maybe they wouldn't sell OOTP a license because why not just do that?

I guess they want in on the action.