Is MLB The Show 19 eSports Ready?
Major League Baseball’s Advanced Media wing began developing their own in-house video game in the R.B.I. Series in 2018. It is in our estimation that this was the wrong application of budgetary spending. This was a strategic mistake to compete with Sony Interactive Entertainment San Diego Studio’s MLB The Show. Resources spent to build a competitive AAA title can easily rise into the double-digit millions. Accordingly, these funds can be invested in another sector to capture a younger, screen-happy, generation: eSports.
Conservative estimates predict eSports will be a $1.5 billion dollar industry by 2020. Major League Baseball and MLB Advanced Media already have the infrastructure in place to be a major player in the eSports industry. MLB Advanced Media owns the most successful live-streaming platform in the four major sports in MLB.TV. Other entities such as the PGA, WWE, and WatchESPN use this platform to power their streaming services.
There would be minimal to no reliance on YouTube Gaming, Facebook Gaming, or Amazon’s Twitch platform. In fact, these live-stream platforms likely would be lining up to get a piece of the viewership that MLB Advanced Media would be able to generate on its own live-streaming platform. Strategic partnerships would be ripe for the taking.
In 2018, MLB Advanced Media and Facebook agreed to a $30 million dollar deal to allow Facebook to stream 26 games. Viewership totaled 123 million views, and demographics skewed towards the younger generations. Similarly, Amazon paid the NFL $50 million dollars to broadcast their Thursday Night Games in 2017.
Utilizing MLB.TV for an MLB The Show eSports league has the potential to be profitable before a single competitive game is played.
General Strategy
San Diego Studio’s baseball simulation, as it stands today, is fundamentally sound. The title offers a tremendous amount of on-field gameplay depth and managerial strategy that can be found in the real game of baseball. Gamers are both skippers and ball players.
Further, MLB The Show’s Diamond Dynasty delivers the often addicting, skill-based aspects of daily fantasy sports, and drops it a gamer’s living room via the PlayStation 4 console. Drafting teams, and managing digital baseball cards offers layers of fantasy G.M. skill to the game. With the right parameters and limitations imposed (think salary caps or spending caps), this game mode is primed for eSports. EA Sports has already found success with their version of fantasy-inspired modes in the Ultimate Team series found in titles such as Madden and FIFA.
These game modes bring with them a mastery of rosters, because, in order to be successful in these fantasy-inspired game modes, that is what is required. At any point in the regular season, in fantasy sports or in Diamond Dynasty game modes alike, gamers can recall the OPS of players warming the bench of the deepest of waiver wires or auction houses with a statistician’s precision.
Online scouting, player evaluations, and statistical analysis tap into our human nature to investigate, formulate hypotheses, and discover the next baseball sleeper.
Fantasy baseball is helping to keep the game alive. The best elements of fantasy baseball live within Diamond Dynasty, which is precisely why this game mode will carry the game into eSports, and keep the sport relevant.
Gameplay Readiness
MLB The Show 19 is gearing up for competitive gaming. This year’s title has a number of gameplay changes that directly address exploits used by gamers in the online competitive sphere. Ramone Russell, SDS’s Gameplay Designer and Community Manager, commented on this year’s competitive online play improvements:
“We watched a lot of streaming. We watched how people play the game… You’re not going to see the same exploits and weaknesses that you saw last year because those are areas we worked on. The exploits that you saw last year are not going to be as effective in MLB The Show ‘19.”
The defensive A.I. In The Show ’19 has been upgraded to launch animations suitable for the game situation. If Billy Hamilton, with a 99 speed rating, is running down the line, the defensive intelligence of the players on the field will recognize this; the digital players will execute animations to most efficiently resolve this dynamic baseball game-situation.
“Every tag in our game can now branch immediately to a throw,” said Russell in a recent interview with IGN Entertainment.
When you think about the number of categories of skills each player is assigned in the game, and apply this to each dynamic, real-time situation playing out on the field, the range of outcomes are limitless. This is where eSports athletes shine.
The world’s most elite eSports athletes are able to assess an entirety of a gameplay situation in the moment, calculating each frame of the game as it scripts. This year’s title lends itself to this level of sophistication and player skill.
“Every pitch has a timing window in the zone. This year, the timing window is a lot more important. We are talking about timing frames, and how accurate you can make contact,” said Nick Livingston, Game Design Lead on MLB The Show 19.
ESports athletes are able to resolve challenges in milliseconds. This requires skill, concentration, and a feel for the game’s programming logic. Understanding how to execute the correct animation in the correct frame, without thought, is what professional gamers do.
With branch-able animations and more in-depth hitting mechanics, The Show will be taking a monumental step, delivering frame-by-frame control to eSport athletes.
“Our major focus was 2-player online, competitive baseball games…We spent hours and hours in the motion-capture studio writing new logic. It’s important to watch head-to-head games. I’m happy to say we addressed every single issue,” commented Chris Gill, Gameplay Director on MLB The Show 19.
If the gameplay improvements have been executed successfully, The Show will be ready for competitive gaming.
