As this year’s baseball season comes to an end, I’m wondering, why aren’t there any successful free to play baseball video games out there?
Of course there are smartphone baseball games, but not really a huge success.
A clue is in a Japanese baseball smartphone game called PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL SPIRITS ACE. It’s been out for over 8 years, and often ranks among top 10 sales in Japan. It has photographic 3D design of real professional players, a simple but indepth action and real-time matches.
But what I like is how the game covers athletes’ psychology.
There is a system where the batter gets used to the speed of the ball. So if you keep pitching with the same speed, the chance of getting hit increases.
In the real world, baseball is much more complex. Batters need to adjust not only to speed but also the course of the ball(low, high, inside or outside) and pitch types (curb ball, sliders, etc). So the game captures only a fraction of the real sports.
But the game does capture one aspect of the athlete’s psychology. Which is a huge difference from just copying the movement and rules of a sport.
While there are several baseball games in the market already, I think there are still room for a new baseball game. What do you think?