Out of the Park Baseball 10 Announced

[Detomah]

With Major League spring training getting underway, sports fans' thoughts are turning to baseball once again. For thousands of baseball fans, spring training also means gearing up for the latest edition of Out of the Park Development's award-winning baseball management series, Out of the Park Baseball, which GameSpot called "the closest thing we've got to Major League baseball in a box." OOTP Developments is proud to announce the beginning of the preorder period for Out of the Park Baseball 10 ("OOTP 10"), their most ambitious baseball management simulation to date.

OOTP 10, scheduled for release in Spring 2009 for PC, Mac, and Linux, is a further evolution of the game that GameSpy said, "is firmly atop the baseball general manager simulation heap," offering gamers the ultimate in realistic baseball simulation. With a completely revised individual pitch model and a host of other new and improved features, OOTP 10 offers something for new and existing customers alike. Lead Developer Markus Heinsohn has a long track record of involvement with his fan base, and this year was no exception. "We think that OOTP 10 will be the best game we have ever created," said Heinsohn, "and much of that is thanks to our community. So many of our feature ideas come from our fans, and there's so many great ideas we haven't even gotten to yet! We are very excited to have been around so long, and that we are still able to grow the game and its fan base each year. There's no reason to think we won't be around for another 10 versions!"

Core Game Features

• 2009 Major League Rosters - Play with a complete Major League setup, including all affiliated minor leagues, with thousands of accurately rated players placed on their 2009 Opening Day rosters, right down through rookie league, for the ultimate in Major League gaming experience!
• Solo or online play - Enjoy solo play with practically unlimited replayability, or join an online league and compete with other human GMs for the ultimate management challenge.
• Historical mode - Play with real leagues, teams, or players from any historical Major League season from 1871 through 2008.
• Multiple, flexible styles of play - Mimic real-world baseball. Create a completely fictional baseball world. Perform a historical replay of the 1968 season. Heck, do a combination of all of these! OOTP offers unmatched flexibility in setting up the kind of baseball universe you want.
• Complete general management - If a GM does it in real life, you can probably do it in OOTP. Define scouting budgets. Make trades. Handle the amateur draft. Scour the waiver wire. Sign free agents. Negotiate contract extensions. Demote and promote players within your organization. You can even define depth charts, lineups, and pitching staffs for every team in your organization. It's all up to you! Of course, if that's a little overwhelming, you can choose to delegate some or all of these functions to your team personnel, too.
• Play-by-play mode - In OOTP, you can choose to fulfill solely the general manager duties, or you can take over on the bench as well, playing out any games you wish with our detailed play-by-play engine. Choose defensive strategies, make substitutions on the fly, and give the hitter that "swing away" sign. OOTP will "call" the play with an ongoing stream of announcer text, almost as if you were listening to the radio!
• Realistic statistical engine - With OOTP, you can enjoy a realistic statistical engine based on modern baseball theory such as DIPS. See your players perform in a consistent, realistic manner over ten, twenty, even fifty simulated years, and watch as your own Hall of Fame grows before your eyes.
• League report generation - OOTP can generate a staggering set of HTML reports for your league, containing individual reports for each player, team, and league in your game.
• Unparalleled customizability - Customization has long been the hallmark of OOTP. Options within the game allow you to define precisely how you want your baseball universe to operate, from the # of leagues, divisions, and teams in your league to the rules for these leagues, including finances, free agency, waiver rules, roster sizes, and more.

Key Enhancements in OOTP 10

• Redesigned Pitching System - OOTP's newly recoded pitch system adds individual pitch ratings and reworks the endurance/role system and the impact of velocity and groundball percentage in the game engine, resulting in the most realistic game and player development engine on the planet! Will your veteran ace keep his blazing fastball for another year? Will the youngster develop that promising changeup and become a dominating starter? This new system will change the way you play OOTP!
• Customizable In-Game Screen - A new in-game screen will feature 'widgets' which can be activated and freely moved around on the screen. That way, users can adjust the info they see to their preferences and screen resolution.
• Inaugural Draft With Budgets - Now the user can set team budgets before an inaugural draft takes place, either all balanced, individually, or based on city population. Player have contract demands which combined must not exceed your draft budget, and the manager has to keep an eye on the budget when making his picks. The old mode without budgets is still available as well, of course. Can you draft the perfect team?
• Improved Arbitration & Free Agent Compensation - The arbitration period now work as in real life. Players state their demand, and teams set their maximum offer or do not offer arbitration at all, in which case the player becomes a free agent. If the team submits an offer, an arbitrator will rule in favor of either the team or the player. On top of that, players eligible for free agency need to be offered arbitration as well if the team wants to receive compensation once the player signs with a different team. Compensation now follow real major league rules, and a supplemental first draft round has been added to the first-year player draft.

OOTP 10 is available for preorder for PC, Mac, and Linux for $29.99. This is a savings of $10 off of the final release price of $39.99. Customers who preorder can also download the game two days before the official launch! (Customers in the European Union pay €29.99 for preorder, and €39.99 after release.) Preorders and further information can be found at Preorder Out of the Park Baseball 10.

About Out of the Park Developments
Out of the Park Developments is the developer of the award-winning OOTP series of baseball management simulations, and also develops "Title Bout Championship Boxing." German-based OOTP Developments was founded by Markus Heinsohn and Andreas Raht in 1999, and employs two people full-time and three part-time. OOTP Developments has consistently produced games that have met with critical acclaim, including winning Metacritic's coveted "Game of the Year" in 2007. Further information on the company and its games is available from the OOTP Developments website, OOTP Developments: Home.