If you look up the word “monopoly” on Wikipedia  as a common noun and not a proper one, you will find around 14 examples of historical monopolies. Among those examples of historical monopolies are U.S. Steel and Ma Bell.  Another couple that might ring home to sports fans are both Major League Baseball and the National Football League. 

Over the years, the two leagues have shrugged off anti-trust lawsuits and steamrolled ambitious upstarts (XFL anyone?); yet, here they still stand, high and mighty, perpetually finishing first place in a race that has just one competitor.

Noting this, one can’t help but notice a similar monopoly of sorts occurring these days on the shelves of video game stores. These same two leagues, which have established deep pockets and fan bases by being the only “game” in town, have granted exclusive rights to both Electronic Arts (football) and Take Two Interactive (baseball) respectively. As a result, the video game selection of our country’s two most cherished sports has never looked more barren, or paltry. For the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 crowd, the core of sports gaming these days mind you, our nation’s past time and our nation’s most popular sport each had just one fully licensed game.

One!

And so, we have before us a modern era of Sports Gaming Darwinism, where the owners of exclusive licensing contracts survive, while the others, no matter how long-running or successful, become, at least for now, extinct. So, it is perhaps refreshing, if not therapeutic, to look at a previous era when we simply had choices.

And this was just five years ago.

The Perfect Storm: The Cross-overs, The Wacky, The Old

In the spring of 2003, when Red Sox fans were still pitied, PlayStation 2 owners could choose from not just one or two or three…but six games. All were fully licensed, and each had a niche, if not in gameplay, but in origin. Three of the games that spring had developed loyal followings on other platforms 3DO’s High Heat Baseball (on the PC), Sega Sports’ World Series Baseball (Sega and Sega Dreamcast) and Acclaim’s All-Star Baseball (on the Nintendo 64). Two were stalwarts on the PS2, EA’s MVP Baseball 2004 and 989 Sports’ MLB 2004, while the remaining game, MLB Slugfest 20-04, was your typical Midway game, combining a little bit of NBA Jam and NFL Blitz.

That spring, as a staffer for a small sports gaming Web site, I played and reviewed all but Slugfest. While researching the games beforehand, I remember thinking how a perfect storm was forming, as such an intersection of new, old, and credible games, was astonishing. I was juiced to see how well World Series Baseball, High Heat and All-Star truly translated on the PS2, ending years of cross-console debate over which baseball game was the best. Now, in hindsight, I can value how astonishing it was that half a dozen games were released for one sport in one year on one console. It was unprecedented then, and, by the looks of it, might remain that way for quite a while.

Contextually, it is important to highlight the correlation of the crowd of games in 2003 with what happened in 2005. And that “what” of course is MVP Baseball 2005. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that EA, with all its resources and cash, went from probably a middle-of-the-road baseball game in 2003 (most, including myself, rated High Heat and ESPN as superior that year) to quite possibly the best baseball game ever in a span of just two years.

Plaaaaaay Ball!!!

Again, I loved this feeling that the Big Boys on the Block from other platforms were circling their wagons (ASB and High Heat had jumped to the PS2 the previous year, but had some kinks in their first try) and ready to brawl, a la final battle in Gangs of New York. As I saw it, High Heat and World Series Baseball were clearly the two best games, though I thought neither was better than the other; MVP and All-Star Baseball were solid, yet improving games, while MLB ’04 was light years behind.

Yet, each game tried to emphasize something different. For the baseball purists, World Series and High Heat were your clear-cut choice. World Series, boasting the genre’s best franchise mode due to advanced management options with scouts and position coaches, was a product of the 2K Sports/Sega Sports brainchild, so gameplay realism was an expectation. For High Heat, the simplistic yet deep batter/pitcher interface (click a face button to select a pitch, and then aim with the D-pad) gave the gameplay a smooth and comfortable pace. Due to its PC roots, the game had many off-the-field touches that amplified its entertainment value, like having a three-class minor league system and detailed statistics.

For the more casual baseball fan, All-Star Baseball and MVP were the more correct fit. Both games were adequate in terms of gameplay, but had more appealing extra features. In All-Star Baseball, you could play exhibition games with Negro League players or all-time greats like Lou Gehrig or Babe Ruth. You could even choose your favorite 9 players and challenge a squad to a pick-up game in a sandlot. While MVP, with its slightly exaggerated ball physics and mascot-themed teams, had a lighter feel, this incarnation of the game was the first to introduce its multi-click pitching system, though it was just 2-clicks. The real advancements would come in later versions. For all its fun pitching, the game felt clunky while fielding, a left-over flaw from the days when the series was called Triple Play Baseball, which was so bad in the early 2000s they had to re-name the game to MVP Baseball. 

MLB 2004 was a mediocre game, appealing only to the uninformed, though it was not as putrid as the previous year’s version. It is now a bit of a shock to me to see how MLB: The Show is now king, but it is not difficult to take the throne of a kingdom of just a couple. Lastly, Slugfest was the genre’s token arcade installment, as players could run faster with “turbo” and successive hits meant certain hitters were “on fire!”

After reviewing five of those games, I felt content with the year’s offering, knowing that I could find a baseball game for just about any situation. Sadly, though, High Heat ducked out of the genre in 2004, while All-Star Baseball went the way of the Dodo in 2005. Then came 2006, when Take Two Sports snatched up exclusive MLB rights (mostly in response to EA gobbling up the NFL-exclusive license), which disallowed all non-third party developers (i.e., Sony and the MLB series were OK; EA and MVP not OK) to create a game with real players and team names. As a result, one year after producing the polished MVP Baseball 2005, EA had to reverse course and use its outstanding engine…on a college baseball game.

Are There Losers If You Compete Against Yourself?

MLB: The Show has received universally strong reviews over the last two years.  So MLB: The Show, once the laughing stock of a once well-stocked genre, is reaping in the praise because of little competition. Again, I wonder how the game would have stacked up against an MVP Baseball 2008?

Not just the baseball genre, the sports gaming industry throughout history has always benefited from at least two games pushing each other. Madden was slogging for much of the mid-nineties until, first NFL Gameday, then later the NFL 2k series pushed it to its greatness. NBA Live was becoming Harlem Globetrotters Live until the NBA 2k series showed up. It does not take a genius to understand that economic competition is good.

Sure, Take Two released a competing football game on the PS3 last year and Backbreaker looks interesting, but without seeing the logos and players from the teams we cheer and support, there will always be limitations and likely failures.

So, in this era of sports gaming where only the most exclusive survive, it is worth recalling how peculiar that spring of 2003 was. To know how effective a one-game system is working, especially in the genre of baseball, we only need to look at what Operation Sports’ own Dave Branda wrote in his recent review of MLB 2k8 for the Xbox 360:

“I would imagine the folks at 2K are kicking themselves. This could have been a very solid offering that took the series forward … Yet, instead of completely enjoying this game, we’re left wondering ‘what if.’ ”