Software:Old Time Baseball

From HandWiki
Short description: 1995 video game
Old Time Baseball
Developer(s)Stormfront Studios
Publisher(s)Stormfront Studios
Platform(s)MS-DOS
ReleaseNovember 7, 1995[1]
Genre(s)Sports
Mode(s)Single-player

Old Time Baseball is a 1995 baseball video game designed and programmed by Don Daglow, Hudson Piehl, Clay Dreslough, and James Grove. It was developed and published for MS-DOS by Stormfront Studios. Old Time Baseball uses the Tony La Russa Baseball engine. The current teams' players and ballparks were substituted with complete lineups of every major league team from 1871 to 1981, totaling 12,000 players. There were 16 old ballparks were also included with accurate dimensions.

Gameplay

Teams

Players can replay historical seasons for any league during this period from every major league in baseball history:

  • National Association
  • National League
  • American Association
  • Union Association
  • Players' League
  • American League
  • Federal League

In addition to playing with historical teams, users could build their own teams, player-by-player, and pit any team (custom or historical) against any other.

Ballparks

Many of the historical ballparks were built based on actual old construction blueprints.

  • Ebbets Field, former home of the Brooklyn Dodgers. The famous "hit this spot, win a suit" ad and the Schaefer's Beer sign included on the outfield walls.
  • Old Comiskey Park, at that time scheduled for demolition by the Chicago White Sox.
  • Crosley Field, former home of the Cincinnati Reds .
  • Fenway Park, as it appeared in the heyday of Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky and Bobby Doerr.
  • Polo Grounds, former home of the New York Giants, with its cavernous center field where Willie Mays caught the famous Vic Wertz drive in the 1954 World Series.
  • Shibe Park, former home of both the Philadelphia Phillies and the Philadelphia Athletics.
  • Sportsman's Park, former home of the St. Louis Cardinals and St. Louis Browns where more games were played than any other park in history.
  • Wrigley Field, from the days of Ernie Banks and Ron Santo.
  • Yankee Stadium, in its pre-1970s form with the short right field porch and spacious left field, all designed to aid Babe Ruth and inspiring the nickname, (The House that Ruth Built).

Announcers

Users can select between play by play announcers Mel Allen, of the New York Yankees, and Curt Gowdy, who did network broadcasts for many years in addition to announcing for the Boston Red Sox.

Baseball Time Machine

Baseball Time Machine allows users to play any game in any individual year from 1871 through the present. This includes games in unique times like 1930, when baseball sought to lure fans during the Depression and juiced the ball so much that the batting average for baseball overall surpassed .300. The following year the ball was returned to more typical physics.

Other popular "let's see what happens" years for players are 1871. When the game visually looked more like softball, and 1942–45. When World War II stripped the major leagues of most of its established players.

The Baseball Time Machine allows players to try to resolve the most famous baseball arguments of all time, what would happen if Sandy Koufax pitched to Babe Ruth. How would the 1927 Yankees do against the Big Red Machine ?

The game also offers the chance to play games in any of six different major baseball eras:

  • 1871–1892 -- Early Baseball, when the field dimensions were different and pitchers threw the ball softball-style, underhanded.
  • 1893–1919 -- The Dead Ball Era, when the pitcher's mound location and pitching style matched modern baseball, but the ball was marginally softer and would not fly as far. During this era it was routine for 10 home runs to be the league leader's total. A majority of those might be inside the park home runs that were the result of speed, not power.
  • 1920–1945 -- The Babe Ruth Era, when then-pitcher Ruth changed the game by his tremendous power. The live ball replaced the dead ball as baseball sought to make fans forget the Black Sox Scandal.
  • 1946–1960 -- The Golden Age, when post-war optimism, television, and the integration of baseball by Jackie Robinson, Larry Doby and Branch Rickey created a new level of success for the game.
  • 1961–1976 -- The Expansion Era, when baseball added many new teams, both increasing its influence and diluting its talent even as other sports like American football, basketball, and ice hockey eroded its dominance of TV sports.
  • 1977–1995 -- Modern Baseball, when continued expansion and the Free Agency created by the growth of the players union continued to change the game.

Development

Daglow had written the basic mathematical models for the Baseball Time Machine in an unpublished 1980 game with the working title Apple Baseball. An extension of his Baseball game which he wrote on the then-new Apple II before joining the Intellivision game design team.

Reception

Reception
Review score
PublicationScore
Albuquerque Journal4/5[2]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Stormfront Studios Ships Old Time Baseball". November 7, 1995. Archived from the original on January 14, 1997. https://web.archive.org/web/19970114025857/http://www.stormfrontstudios.com/otbrel3.htm. Retrieved April 15, 2023. 
  2. ↑ Hall, Mike (April 2, 1996). "From the old school". p. 13. https://www.newspapers.com/article/albuquerque-journal/122899508/. Retrieved April 15, 2023. 
  • MobyGames is a commercial database website that catalogs information on video games and the people and companies behind them via crowdsourcing. This includes over 300,000 games for hundreds of platforms.[1] Founded in 1999, ownership of the site has changed hands several times. It has been owned by Atari SA since 2022.

Features

Edits and submissions to the site (including screenshots, box art, developer information, game summaries, and more) go through a verification process of fact-checking by volunteer "approvers".[2] This lengthy approval process after submission can range from minutes to days or months.[3] The most commonly used sources are the video game's website, packaging, and credit screens. There is a published standard for game information and copy-editing.[4] A ranking system allows users to earn points for contributing accurate information.[5]

Registered users can rate and review games. Users can create private or public "have" and "want" lists, which can generate a list of games available for trade with other registered users. The site contains an integrated forum. Each listed game can have its own sub-forum.

History

Logo used until March 2014

MobyGames was founded on March 1, 1999, by Jim Leonard and Brian Hirt, and joined by David Berk 18 months later, the three of which had been friends since high school.[6][7] Leonard had the idea of sharing information about computer games with a larger audience. The database began with information about games for IBM PC compatibles, relying on the founders' personal collections. Eventually, the site was opened up to allow general users to contribute information.[5] In a 2003 interview, Berk emphasized MobyGames' dedication to taking video games more seriously than broader society and to preserving games for their important cultural influence.[5]

In mid-2010, MobyGames was purchased by GameFly for an undisclosed amount.[8] This was announced to the community post factum , and the site's interface was given an unpopular redesign.[7] A few major contributors left, refusing to do volunteer work for a commercial website.{{Citation needed|date=June 2025} On December 18, 2013, MobyGames was acquired by Jeremiah Freyholtz, owner of Blue Flame Labs (a San Francisco-based game and web development company) and VGBoxArt (a site for fan-made video game box art).[9] Blue Flame Labs reverted MobyGames' interface to its pre-overhaul look and feel,[10] and for the next eight years, the site was run by Freyholtz and Independent Games Festival organizer Simon Carless.[7]

On November 24, 2021, Atari SA announced a potential deal with Blue Flame Labs to purchase MobyGames for $1.5 million.[11] The purchase was completed on 8 March 2022, with Freyholtz remaining as general manager.[12][13][14] Over the next year, the financial boost given by Atari led to a rework of the site being built from scratch with a new backend codebase, as well as updates improving the mobile and desktop user interface.[1] This was accomplished by investing in full-time development of the site instead of its previously part-time development.[15]

In 2024, MobyGames began offering a paid "Pro" membership option for the site to generate additional revenue.[16] Previously, the site had generated income exclusively through banner ads and (from March 2014 onward) a small number of patrons via the Patreon website.[17]

See also

  • IGDB – game database used by Twitch for its search and discovery functions

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Sheehan, Gavin (2023-02-22). "Atari Relaunches The Fully Rebuilt & Optimized MobyGames Website". https://bleedingcool.com/games/atari-relaunches-the-fully-rebuilt-optimized-mobygames-website/. 
  2. ↑ Litchfield, Ted (2021-11-26). "Zombie company Atari to devour MobyGames". https://www.pcgamer.com/zombie-company-atari-to-devour-mobygames/. 
  3. ↑ "MobyGames FAQ: Emails Answered § When will my submission be approved?". Blue Flame Labs. 30 March 2014. http://www.mobygames.com/info/faq7#g1. 
  4. ↑ "The MobyGames Standards and Practices". Blue Flame Labs. 6 January 2016. http://www.mobygames.com/info/standards. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Miller, Stanley A. (2003-04-22). "People's choice awards honor favorite Web sites". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 
  6. ↑ "20 Years of MobyGames" (in en). 2019-02-28. https://trixter.oldskool.org/2019/02/28/20-years-of-mobygames/. 
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Plunkett, Luke (2022-03-10). "Atari Buys MobyGames For $1.5 Million". https://kotaku.com/mobygames-retro-credits-database-imdb-atari-freyholtz-b-1848638521. 
  8. ↑ "Report: MobyGames Acquired By GameFly Media". Gamasutra. 2011-02-07. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/report-mobygames-acquired-by-gamefly-media. 
  9. ↑ Corriea, Alexa Ray (December 31, 2013). "MobyGames purchased from GameFly, improvements planned". http://www.polygon.com/2013/12/31/5261414/mobygames-purchased-from-gamefly-improvements-planned. 
  10. ↑ Wawro, Alex (31 December 2013). "Game dev database MobyGames getting some TLC under new owner". Gamasutra. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/game-dev-database-mobygames-getting-some-tlc-under-new-owner. 
  11. ↑ "Atari invests in Anstream, may buy MobyGames". November 24, 2021. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-11-24-atari-invests-in-anstream-may-buy-mobygames. 
  12. ↑ Rousseau, Jeffrey (2022-03-09). "Atari purchases Moby Games". https://www.gamesindustry.biz/atari-purchases-moby-games. 
  13. ↑ "Atari Completes MobyGames Acquisition, Details Plans for the Site's Continued Support". March 8, 2022. https://www.atari.com/atari-completes-mobygames-acquisition-details-plans-for-the-sites-continued-support/. 
  14. ↑ "Atari has acquired game database MobyGames for $1.5 million" (in en-GB). 2022-03-09. https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/atari-has-acquired-game-database-mobygames-for-1-5-million/. 
  15. ↑ Stanton, Rich (2022-03-10). "Atari buys videogame database MobyGames for $1.5 million". https://www.pcgamer.com/atari-buys-videogame-database-mobygames-for-dollar15-million/. 
  16. ↑ Harris, John (2024-03-09). "MobyGames Offering “Pro” Membership". https://setsideb.com/mobygames-offering-pro-membership/. 
  17. ↑ "MobyGames on Patreon". http://www.patreon.com/mobygames. 
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