I must say not being able to use roster updates is a bummer!

[ps2baseball]

Re: I must say not being able to use roster updates is a bummer!

Pared,

Great post man. Those are my thoughts exactly. If you ARE going to have online play then DO IT RIGHT, or don't do it at all. I too don't understand the operational procedures behind these games, and realize EA is working with more money. That is fine. But why spend the money to create online playability but then half-a55 it? Football is the only sport to me that doesn't need updated rosters to play online. Sure, they help with injuries, but the player movement is minimal. In the 3 other sports you need online roster updates to be successful. If I were Sega I'd have made online play available for football only.

Thanks FP for chiming in on this too by the way. I am a PS2 owner (can't you tell) so sometimes I overlook the XBox online situation (namely with EA). The one thing that does amaze me is going online with a game like NASCAR or SSX and seeing <100 onlne. That is a SMAAAAAAL percentage of the people who actually purchased these games.

I have been round the horn with the baseball titles. I can honestly say in 15 years of baseball gaming, I have had love affairs with them all: RBI, Bases Loaded, High Heat, MLB, ASB, etc etc. It seems like every year I take a liking to a new series. Unlike the ther sports, I don't seem to have any loyality towards the games. That being said, last year WS2k4 was maybe the best looking game that also played well. I am sure it will look nice this year, but it seems as if Sega has taken the "Madden" approach and MVP has stepped up. I guess we'll know in about 5 weeks.

[capa]

Re: I must say not being able to use roster updates is a bummer!

To me, that is very short-sighted. The entire gaming community for all types of games is going to online play. You have people from all over the world playing everything from role playing games to first person shooters, as parts of clans or individually.

I think it might be a chicken and egg thing here...you say online play is only for a small percentage of your users, but maybe they don't play online because you don't really support it and the roster issue is one proof of that...so they go elsewhere. I think Sega is making a huge mistake by slighting this part of the gaming community. Online games are here, they work, people clamor for them, and they won't be going away anytime soon. The technology is getting better and most of the major manufacturers have made this a top priority.

Maybe Sega should think about balancing some resources between the dept that makes sure the concession stand in Fenway is accurately represented, or that player X has the correct tatoos, and the developers who could work on online code.

C

[capa]

Re: I must say not being able to use roster updates is a bummer!

To me, that is very short-sighted. The entire gaming community for all types of games is going to online play. You have people from all over the world playing everything from role playing games to first person shooters, as parts of clans or individually.

I think it might be a chicken and egg thing here...you say online play is only for a small percentage of your users, but maybe they don't play online because you don't really support it and the roster issue is one proof of that...so they go elsewhere. I think Sega is making a huge mistake by slighting this part of the gaming community. Online games are here, they work, people clamor for them, and they won't be going away anytime soon. The technology is getting better and most of the major manufacturers have made this a top priority.

Maybe Sega should think about balancing some resources between the dept that makes sure the concession stand in Fenway is accurately represented, or that player X has the correct tatoos, and the developers who could work on online code.

C

[capa]

Re: I must say not being able to use roster updates is a bummer!

To me, that is very short-sighted. The entire gaming community for all types of games is going to online play. You have people from all over the world playing everything from role playing games to first person shooters, as parts of clans or individually.

I think it might be a chicken and egg thing here...you say online play is only for a small percentage of your users, but maybe they don't play online because you don't really support it and the roster issue is one proof of that...so they go elsewhere. I think Sega is making a huge mistake by slighting this part of the gaming community. Online games are here, they work, people clamor for them, and they won't be going away anytime soon. The technology is getting better and most of the major manufacturers have made this a top priority.

Maybe Sega should think about balancing some resources between the dept that makes sure the concession stand in Fenway is accurately represented, or that player X has the correct tatoos, and the developers who could work on online code.

C

[dguru]

Re: I must say not being able to use roster updates is a bummer!

We take everything seriously. If you saw the numbers on how much it costs to put in online play, how many people will actually use it regularly, and what we had to sacrifice that would have benefitted the game as a whole just to please this very, very small percentage of the customer base, you would understand why we haven't put all the possible bells and whistles into the online mode.

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">

To Fatpitcher:
This is a Really bad response when this is probably an easy fix if maybe 1 of you developers got off your chair and walked down the hall or picked up a telephone to 1 of the football developers I am sure this must be being addressed if not done already for NFL2k5 that you can code to the baseball game(if not segas sports franchise is in really big trouble next yr because it is becoming a major issue with football 2yrs running now)!This has nothing to do with bells and whistles, online play is now and the future I consider bells and whistles to be the K zone,players accurate faces,hundreds of batting stances and so on, so comon with the BS.For you guys to be a contender/champ you must move up a notch not a hair over the competition.

[dguru]

Re: I must say not being able to use roster updates is a bummer!

We take everything seriously. If you saw the numbers on how much it costs to put in online play, how many people will actually use it regularly, and what we had to sacrifice that would have benefitted the game as a whole just to please this very, very small percentage of the customer base, you would understand why we haven't put all the possible bells and whistles into the online mode.

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">

To Fatpitcher:
This is a Really bad response when this is probably an easy fix if maybe 1 of you developers got off your chair and walked down the hall or picked up a telephone to 1 of the football developers I am sure this must be being addressed if not done already for NFL2k5 that you can code to the baseball game(if not segas sports franchise is in really big trouble next yr because it is becoming a major issue with football 2yrs running now)!This has nothing to do with bells and whistles, online play is now and the future I consider bells and whistles to be the K zone,players accurate faces,hundreds of batting stances and so on, so comon with the BS.For you guys to be a contender/champ you must move up a notch not a hair over the competition.

[dguru]

Re: I must say not being able to use roster updates is a bummer!

We take everything seriously. If you saw the numbers on how much it costs to put in online play, how many people will actually use it regularly, and what we had to sacrifice that would have benefitted the game as a whole just to please this very, very small percentage of the customer base, you would understand why we haven't put all the possible bells and whistles into the online mode.

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">

To Fatpitcher:
This is a Really bad response when this is probably an easy fix if maybe 1 of you developers got off your chair and walked down the hall or picked up a telephone to 1 of the football developers I am sure this must be being addressed if not done already for NFL2k5 that you can code to the baseball game(if not segas sports franchise is in really big trouble next yr because it is becoming a major issue with football 2yrs running now)!This has nothing to do with bells and whistles, online play is now and the future I consider bells and whistles to be the K zone,players accurate faces,hundreds of batting stances and so on, so comon with the BS.For you guys to be a contender/champ you must move up a notch not a hair over the competition.

[Pared]

Re: I must say not being able to use roster updates is a bummer!

Pfft, or at least MATCH the competition.

[Pared]

Re: I must say not being able to use roster updates is a bummer!

Pfft, or at least MATCH the competition.

[Pared]

Re: I must say not being able to use roster updates is a bummer!

Pfft, or at least MATCH the competition.

[FatPitcher]

Re: I must say not being able to use roster updates is a bummer!

</font><blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr />
Pared said:
</font><blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr />
Virix said:
Im sure I dont understand the sacrifices that you have to make to make a game playable online. But why do you guys do it? To compete with other compaines who support online play correct? Well how can we be expected to use the function if the rosters are so out of date? I know its only a small percentage of the ESPN customers that use the online function, but Im sure those numbers would rise if the rosters that are used in online play were accurate when the game was released. Something that didnt happen with ANY ESPN games this season.

You guys have the system in place to make a mandatory patch that everyone must download to play on Xbox Live. Am I missing something or couldnt you just issue a roster patch with the system that is already in place?

Im just pretty bummed about this because I was really looking forward to this game.

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">

Great post!

Listen up Sega, and listen well. When you're wondering why you're the 3rd or 4th selling baseball game out there...

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">

It doesn't seem to hurt EA's sales that they have NO online play at all. And doing online play "right" can be taken as far as you want it to go...you may think that "right" is having roster updates playable, while the next guy may think that "right" is having online franchise mode with prizes awarded by Sega for the winners. Obviously we have to stop at some point, because the more time/money we spend on making the game better for that handful of people who want to play online, the less we can spend on the rest of the game.

Every sports developer out there will tell you (if they're honest) that online play for sports games makes almost no difference in sales. The reason they do it is 1)First party games to make the platform more attractive (Sony, MS) 2) Monetary deals with the console maker (EA) 3) To make game reviewers give the game a better score (us?).

In my opinion, in terms of $ only, spending any time on online play just sets us back further. We could add a lot more to the game and make it more attractive to the 98% who don't play online regularly if we wanted to sell more copies.

And to further disprove your theory, no one had online last year and we were behind everyone else besides HH in sales. Obviously, it wasn't the lack of roster updates for online play that is the root of the problem.

You can choose not to buy the game for whatever reason you want. I'm not saying that you should ignore anything you think is a big problem. I don't come on here trying to sell the game...I come here because not too long ago I was in your position, and it would have been nice to get info and answers straight from the source before deciding what game to buy. I listen to what you guys have to say, and I balance that with what I know from working on the game, what we find out from focus groups and other customer feedback, what marketing tells us, etc. And I'm straight out telling you that supporting online play drains significant resources that could be used elsewhere and doesn't provide commeasurate sales returns. You can disbelieve me all you like, but that's the way it is, and taking cheap shots like the one above isn't going to convince me that you're some kind of expert on what makes games sell. What happened to the last game you thought was really great? Oh yeah, it's gone because it didn't sell enough.

We'd love to put in all the features that everybody wants, but we have to make choices. Sometimes the choices we make result in taking away something that YOU would have wanted in favor of something that you peronally don't care about (but that a bunch of other people do). I'm not saying you have to be happy about that and buy the game anyway, but saying (or implying) that Sega is dumb for not doing things your way just furthers the perception that people who post on internet message boards are hardcore malcontent whiners who don't represent the game-buying market as a whole.

[FatPitcher]

Re: I must say not being able to use roster updates is a bummer!

</font><blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr />
Pared said:
</font><blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr />
Virix said:
Im sure I dont understand the sacrifices that you have to make to make a game playable online. But why do you guys do it? To compete with other compaines who support online play correct? Well how can we be expected to use the function if the rosters are so out of date? I know its only a small percentage of the ESPN customers that use the online function, but Im sure those numbers would rise if the rosters that are used in online play were accurate when the game was released. Something that didnt happen with ANY ESPN games this season.

You guys have the system in place to make a mandatory patch that everyone must download to play on Xbox Live. Am I missing something or couldnt you just issue a roster patch with the system that is already in place?

Im just pretty bummed about this because I was really looking forward to this game.

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">

Great post!

Listen up Sega, and listen well. When you're wondering why you're the 3rd or 4th selling baseball game out there...

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">

It doesn't seem to hurt EA's sales that they have NO online play at all. And doing online play "right" can be taken as far as you want it to go...you may think that "right" is having roster updates playable, while the next guy may think that "right" is having online franchise mode with prizes awarded by Sega for the winners. Obviously we have to stop at some point, because the more time/money we spend on making the game better for that handful of people who want to play online, the less we can spend on the rest of the game.

Every sports developer out there will tell you (if they're honest) that online play for sports games makes almost no difference in sales. The reason they do it is 1)First party games to make the platform more attractive (Sony, MS) 2) Monetary deals with the console maker (EA) 3) To make game reviewers give the game a better score (us?).

In my opinion, in terms of $ only, spending any time on online play just sets us back further. We could add a lot more to the game and make it more attractive to the 98% who don't play online regularly if we wanted to sell more copies.

And to further disprove your theory, no one had online last year and we were behind everyone else besides HH in sales. Obviously, it wasn't the lack of roster updates for online play that is the root of the problem.

You can choose not to buy the game for whatever reason you want. I'm not saying that you should ignore anything you think is a big problem. I don't come on here trying to sell the game...I come here because not too long ago I was in your position, and it would have been nice to get info and answers straight from the source before deciding what game to buy. I listen to what you guys have to say, and I balance that with what I know from working on the game, what we find out from focus groups and other customer feedback, what marketing tells us, etc. And I'm straight out telling you that supporting online play drains significant resources that could be used elsewhere and doesn't provide commeasurate sales returns. You can disbelieve me all you like, but that's the way it is, and taking cheap shots like the one above isn't going to convince me that you're some kind of expert on what makes games sell. What happened to the last game you thought was really great? Oh yeah, it's gone because it didn't sell enough.

We'd love to put in all the features that everybody wants, but we have to make choices. Sometimes the choices we make result in taking away something that YOU would have wanted in favor of something that you peronally don't care about (but that a bunch of other people do). I'm not saying you have to be happy about that and buy the game anyway, but saying (or implying) that Sega is dumb for not doing things your way just furthers the perception that people who post on internet message boards are hardcore malcontent whiners who don't represent the game-buying market as a whole.

[FatPitcher]

Re: I must say not being able to use roster updates is a bummer!

</font><blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr />
Pared said:
</font><blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr />
Virix said:
Im sure I dont understand the sacrifices that you have to make to make a game playable online. But why do you guys do it? To compete with other compaines who support online play correct? Well how can we be expected to use the function if the rosters are so out of date? I know its only a small percentage of the ESPN customers that use the online function, but Im sure those numbers would rise if the rosters that are used in online play were accurate when the game was released. Something that didnt happen with ANY ESPN games this season.

You guys have the system in place to make a mandatory patch that everyone must download to play on Xbox Live. Am I missing something or couldnt you just issue a roster patch with the system that is already in place?

Im just pretty bummed about this because I was really looking forward to this game.

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">

Great post!

Listen up Sega, and listen well. When you're wondering why you're the 3rd or 4th selling baseball game out there...

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">

It doesn't seem to hurt EA's sales that they have NO online play at all. And doing online play "right" can be taken as far as you want it to go...you may think that "right" is having roster updates playable, while the next guy may think that "right" is having online franchise mode with prizes awarded by Sega for the winners. Obviously we have to stop at some point, because the more time/money we spend on making the game better for that handful of people who want to play online, the less we can spend on the rest of the game.

Every sports developer out there will tell you (if they're honest) that online play for sports games makes almost no difference in sales. The reason they do it is 1)First party games to make the platform more attractive (Sony, MS) 2) Monetary deals with the console maker (EA) 3) To make game reviewers give the game a better score (us?).

In my opinion, in terms of $ only, spending any time on online play just sets us back further. We could add a lot more to the game and make it more attractive to the 98% who don't play online regularly if we wanted to sell more copies.

And to further disprove your theory, no one had online last year and we were behind everyone else besides HH in sales. Obviously, it wasn't the lack of roster updates for online play that is the root of the problem.

You can choose not to buy the game for whatever reason you want. I'm not saying that you should ignore anything you think is a big problem. I don't come on here trying to sell the game...I come here because not too long ago I was in your position, and it would have been nice to get info and answers straight from the source before deciding what game to buy. I listen to what you guys have to say, and I balance that with what I know from working on the game, what we find out from focus groups and other customer feedback, what marketing tells us, etc. And I'm straight out telling you that supporting online play drains significant resources that could be used elsewhere and doesn't provide commeasurate sales returns. You can disbelieve me all you like, but that's the way it is, and taking cheap shots like the one above isn't going to convince me that you're some kind of expert on what makes games sell. What happened to the last game you thought was really great? Oh yeah, it's gone because it didn't sell enough.

We'd love to put in all the features that everybody wants, but we have to make choices. Sometimes the choices we make result in taking away something that YOU would have wanted in favor of something that you peronally don't care about (but that a bunch of other people do). I'm not saying you have to be happy about that and buy the game anyway, but saying (or implying) that Sega is dumb for not doing things your way just furthers the perception that people who post on internet message boards are hardcore malcontent whiners who don't represent the game-buying market as a whole.

[Virix]

Re: I must say not being able to use roster updates is a bummer!

Once again, you did not adress the fact that you alrady have an update system in place, why can that not be used?

I also would like to point out that you said you were behind everyone but HH last year in sales. Inside Pitch had no franchise mode, and was widely regarded as a terrible singleplayer game, yet outsold your game why? Online play. I guess its not such a small percentage of people who care about online play after all...

[Virix]

Re: I must say not being able to use roster updates is a bummer!

Once again, you did not adress the fact that you alrady have an update system in place, why can that not be used?

I also would like to point out that you said you were behind everyone but HH last year in sales. Inside Pitch had no franchise mode, and was widely regarded as a terrible singleplayer game, yet outsold your game why? Online play. I guess its not such a small percentage of people who care about online play after all...