RBI Baseball History Youtube Video

[mikecross]

Hi Everyone!

My name is Michael Cross and I am starting a Youtube channel about Sports Video Games. My first topic is going to be on one of my personal favorites, RBI Baseball.

After speaking with Gantry via Email, he recommended me to come to the forums and as some questions directly here, since some of my research information is a little vague. Here are some of the questions:

• How did the MLBAM get the rights to the new RBI Baseball game?
• What major internal changes (coding) were made from RBI 1 to RBI 2 to RBI 3?
• Was the move to the Sega Genesis done because of the lawsuit Atari Games Corp. v. Nintendo of America?
• Why did RBI never acquire a license from the MLB for the team names?

I also want to do a video from someone who really understands the players ratings. This would be put into the video, but more of a cut away to an expert as appose to have anything to do with me. Curious if anyone would be interested? If you are please email me at mikecross321@gmail.com.

I want to thank you all in advance, this website has helped me out through this process more that anything else on the internet. I refer to it constantly writing the script.

[BeefMaster]

On a tablet without a keyboard at the moment, but I will attempt a more thorough answer later.  I had an email exchange with a guy from the previous group that was going to reboot the series, but I never heard the reason for the cancellation or how MLBAM got the rights.

[Shooty]

MLBAM is a little too close to NAMBLA, imo. 

[Gantry]

 For the names you needed permission from the players association and for the team names you needed to license from MLB itself.  Major League Baseball got the MLB license but no players license, it came out in early 88.  Perhaps there was an exclusivity when Major League Baseball secured the team license?  Or maybe it just came down to financials, since you can use the city name there is very little benefit to getting the license with only 10 teams. 

Wasn't the original Tecmo Bowl similar?  Had a player's license but no official team names. 

[BeefMaster]

I don't know that there were any games until the 90s that had both league and player's association licenses.  Games that had one or the other, off the top of my head:

RBI 1-3 (MLBPA)
Major League Baseball (MLB)
Tecmo Bowl (NFLPA)
Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball (MLB)
Some of the Madden games (NFL; didn't start getting NFLPA until the N64 generation)

I don't know of any NBA or NHL games that had the same issue - I think even the early EA NBA games (Bulls vs. Lakers is the first one I remember) had both, as did Tecmo NBA Basketball, and I believe the NHL series was always the same way.  Tecmo Super Bowl was the first game I ever played that head both league and player licenses.

[Gantry]

Was the move to the Sega Genesis done because of the lawsuit Atari Games Corp. v. Nintendo of America?

I wouldn't think so, going to the Tengen wiki page shows they released games on NES after the lawsuit regarding Tetris started in 1989.  I see RBI 4 released in 1992 as the first game on the Genesis - that time is pretty far for the course when NES developers starting developing for the new, more powerful and better selling system. 

[BeefMaster]

• What major internal changes (coding) were made from RBI 1 to RBI 2 to RBI 3?

In terms of on-field stuff, the changes in the series were mostly cosmetic.  We've verified in the game code that the ratings scheme was identical from RBI to RBI 3 - same set of ratings, with two extra bytes to hold slightly longer player names and a different way to handle ERAs.  The only on-field gameplay additions were a bunt button and jumping/diving, both added in 2, and the only on-field difference from 2 to 3 (which was basically just a roster update) was that 3 let the batter move closer to the plate.

The big changes were graphical and off-field.  Graphics-wise, the player and field graphics were completely redone.  Off-field, there were a lot of stuff:

- Both players could pause in-game
- Bigger pause menu, allowing for pinch-runners, viewing the scoreboard (from where you could forfeit), and switch-hitting
- Full 24-man rosters
- All 26 MLB teams, plus all-star teams (RBI 3 added an additional 28 historical teams)
- New "end boss" team, if you beat every team in your league in single-player

• Why did RBI never acquire a license from the MLB for the team names?

My best guess is that they didn't think they needed to.  At the time, graphics weren't to a point where they could have made recognizable team uniforms, so they only value they'd get is being able to use the logos on places like scoreboards and menu screens.

I also want to do a video from someone who really understands the players ratings. This would be put into the video, but more of a cut away to an expert as appose to have anything to do with me. Curious if anyone would be interested? If you are please email me at mikecross321@gmail.com.

I was not the one who figured any of this stuff out (nightwulf is the guy who did most of that work), but I do understand the stuff pretty well, so I would be interested in that if you can't find someone more qualified to do it.

[mikecross]

Thank you guys so much for your insight. I have more questions if that is alright with you?

• Who is considered the worst player(s) in the RBI 1?
• Are there any advantages playing with the home team?
• Have you played the new RBI Baseball 14/15? Any opinions?
• How can I contact nightwulf?

Thank you guys again!

[fightonusc]

Worst player is probably between one of these players:

- Spike Owen (miserable contact and power makes him maybe the worst player on any starting lineup)
- Marc Sullivan (almost as shitty as Spike Owen but a lot slower. Pretty much one of the few bench guys on any team that will never see an AB.)
- Alan Ashby (the worst player on the worst team in RBI)
- Mark Davidson (better off leaving the pitcher in and trying for a pitcher bunt hit)
- Rafael Santana (by player attributes, simply the worst player in RBI)
- Al Pedrique (you know, National League All-Star Al Pedrique? Wait, you don't know him?)

[fightonusc]

- No advantages to playing as the home team other than your standard baseball advantages.
- Everyone who has played RBI 14/15 seems to like it quite a bit. I've only played 14, and I think it's about as close as you can get to the "feel" of the original RBI while also making the graphics be a bit more modern.
- Contact nightwulf? Just send a message through the lightning. (Or send him a PM through the forum.)

[fathedX]

I bought RBI 15 for the iPad this weekend since it was down to $1.  I played a single game and had fun, it does indeed play similarly (except the fielders move on their own as the default, didn't look at the options to see if this could be changed).  Coors Field looked good.  I look forward to playing a few more games before I forget about it.

[BeefMaster]

- No advantages to playing as the home team other than your standard baseball advantages.

If your opponent is an asshole, there is actually a substantial disadvantage, because that means that you're player 2, and only player 1 can pause the game.

[fightonusc]

Fair point.

[BeefMaster]

• Have you played the new RBI Baseball 14/15? Any opinions?

Here's the thread that had most of the discussion on RBI '14 (I have not seen any firsthand discussion here of '15).  Page 15 of that thread is when the game was actually released and where the firsthand impressions started showing up.

My thoughts...

- It's very much NOT a remake of RBI Baseball - if you were hoping for a pure graphical update like Tecmo Bowl Throwback (which actually allows you to push a button and go back to SNES graphics during play), you were disappointed.  The basic control scheme and roster construction are the same, but there are a lot of differences:
  - Players move one at a time, not all at once
  - Direct control of fielders when they have the ball, rather than direction+button to run them to a base
  - DH support
  - Fly balls carry much differently
  - Pitchers show visible signs of tiredness, not just reduced effectiveness
  - Taking an extra base subtly changed - you have to push the button to advance to the next base AFTER the runner has reached that base.  Previously, you could hold it down and they'd automatically make the turn
- Graphics were fine, I guess - some animation glitches, and I thought the tag animation was WAY too slow, leading to some questionable results of close plays, but it was obviously a quickly-made title, so I think expectations were low.
- The "retreat" hitting approach (where you hold down on the controller when you swing, increasing the chance you will hit the ball in the air) ended up ridiculously overpowered - I was hitting five or more homers a game with the Twins, whose leading home run hitter had 18.
- If anything, the actual game ended up being more of a spiritual successor to Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball, the SNES classic from the mid-90s.  The gameplay and graphical style were far more similar to Griffey than to RBI; the only things more RBI-like were the roster construction and the fact that the slow pitch dropped sometimes.  Griffey baseball was terrific, and I did not object to that result once I got use to the game, but it was absolutely not what RBI aficionados were expecting.

[Gantry]

A small advantage of being the home team, which admittedly comes into play more in straight pitch, is that you know exactly how many runs you need to prevent a slaughter.  If you are down 10+ runs and know the game will end if you don't get that to single digits, it leads to more aggression with substitutions. 

[Briznock]

A small advantage of being the home team, which admittedly comes into play more in straight pitch, is that you know exactly how many runs you need to prevent a slaughter.  If you are down 10+ runs and know the game will end if you don't get that to single digits, it leads to more aggression with substitutions. 

I've never been slaughtered.  I don't know what you mean.

[Gantry]

Come to my basement son, and I'll show you.  That's right...

[mikecross]

Guys, Thank you so much for the insight! I am just about done with my script and am currently starting on the preproduction phase. I am still trying to get a hold of Nightwulf, so if anyone would like to offer their insight into a video about the topics of ratings of RBI players and/or the Tengen Vs. Nintendo lawsuit, I would love to setup some interviews. I am currently located in Florida, but I would be willing to travel or possibly a Skype interview. Either way, Thank you all for the help!

[Gantry]

This data is old but there is an RBI Technical category on the wiki:

http://wiki.dee-nee.com/wiki/Category:RBI_Technical

[Big Hath]

here's a thread where I tried to compile all the stuff we found out about how the game actually works:

https://forums.dee-nee.com/index.php?topic=11729.0